Tag Archives: freedom

An Illustration

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A businessman in the People’s Republic of China, Ren Zhiqiang—who also is a member of the Communist Party of China—has been for some time an outspoken critic of PRC President Xi Jinping’s handling of the nation’s COVID-19 epidemic, a mishandling that allowed an early infection to blow out of control within the PRC and to become a global pandemic.

Outspoken critic: among other things, Ren wrote a widely disseminated essay that took issue with a 23 Feb speech by Xi. He wrote of a

“crisis of governance” within China’s Communist Party and blamed restrictions on freedom of speech and the press for slowing down the response to combat the novel coronavirus, thereby worsening the outbreak.

And

…after analyzing the President’s [Xi’s] speech he “saw not an emperor standing there exhibiting his ‘new clothes,’ but a clown stripped naked who insisted on continuing being emperor[.]”

Then Ren posted on Weibo

When does the people’s government turn into the party’s government? … Don’t waste taxpayers’ money on things that do not provide them with services.

Then his post was deleted, his Weibo account blocked. Ren also has been put on “probation” from the CPC.

And now he’s gone missing, making his point beautifully.

Close

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…but no cigar.  Senator Mike Lee (R, UT) has some thoughts on fixing the  Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and its secret FISA Court.  He’s on the right track, but his ideas fall short.

Lee wants to fix the FISA Court and tighten the parameters under which it operates. This Star Chamber cannot be fixed; it must be disbanded and the sections creating and empowering it must be rescinded from the FISA altogether.

There remains a need to guard against and to respond to espionage and interference efforts, and there remains a need for that response to involve investigations of American citizens who might be involved in those foreign assaults.  There remains a need to keep many of our responses and investigations secret—for a time—so as not to tip off the targets of our investigations, whether they’re foreign or American.

Counterbalancing that is the even more crucial need to protect Americans’ individual liberties, including those being investigated.  Especially the latter need protection; they’ve not been shown to have done anything wrong, but public suspicions would ruin the reputations of those actually innocent.

Our present Article III courts already are well-versed in handling secret warrants where necessary for domestic criminal investigations and for sealing records until it’s useful to release them or after sufficient time has passed that their release will not harm an ongoing investigation.  FISA warrants can be handled here.

Many of Lee’s other ideas, with some adjustments, will work just fine in a sealed Article III court.

He wants to expand the role of an amicus in FISA warrant applications beyond warrants involving a novel or significant interpretation of law.

amicus should advocate for the privacy and civil liberties of the person targeted.

The role needs to be expanded further. This new amicus should overtly act as Devil’s advocate and seek to expose weaknesses in the warrant application with a view to getting the application denied. The target legitimately cannot be present, yet in most domestic criminal cases, the target has opportunities to contest the warrant, even if only after the fact.  Such a contest needs to be present with FISA warrants, as well.

Lee wants relevant agencies to be required to provide all information in their possession as part of the application, including any exculpatory evidence. The FBI Director and the Attorney General should be required to certify that this has been done, and there needs to be heavy sanctions applied to the agents, the Director and the AG if this requirement has been found, after the warrant’s submittal, to have gone unsatisfied. It’s almost never enough merely to punish the workers directly responsible; too often they acted improperly because they were actively allowed to or because they were permitted to by too lax supervision.

It’s critical that we take these kinds of measures in response to the failures of and abuses from the present FISA setup so that this sort of violation of United States citizens never happen again.

“Should Government Halt the Use of Facial-Recognition Technology?”

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The Wall Street Journal ran one of its point-counterpoint debates over the weekend; this one treating the topic in this post’s title.

The debaters focused on the error rate of the technology and whether that was a big deal or a little one; although there was passing mention of civil liberty problems.

I say the question is over-broad.

Government should not only halt its own use of facial recognition software; it should be statutorily barred from it. We haven’t, yet, been overrun by the People’s Republic of China. The civil liberty—the individual liberty—matter is much too serious to be glossed over, and this is one venue where the line is better drawn at zero rather than trusting Government (which is to say, the men of Government) to go this far but no farther.

The question of its commercial use is a separate one from Government’s use or not use. This question should have a market answer, arrived at by customers and the businesses with which we interact.

Maybe It’s Time

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The just-concluded Munich Security Conference has illustrated the growing disconnect between the US and central and western Europe regarding European security.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier opened the conference—one of the largest annual gatherings of political leaders, military chiefs and top diplomats from around the world—by accusing the Trump administration of “rejecting the idea of the international community.”
“Every country should fend for itself and put its own interests over all others … ‘Great again’—even at the expense of neighbors and partners,” Steinmeier said….

That’s a cynical distortion of our position, coming as it does on the strenuous efforts the Trump administration has made to get these nations to increase their commitment to NATO, and coming as it does on the heels of Germany’s naked duplicity in promising—on its own initiative, mind you—to increase its spending on NATO to 2% of its GDP, and then welching on that commitment.

And this:

French President Emmanuel Macron, speaking at the forum for the first time, echoed Steinmeier the next day, noting that “what Europe wants is not quite the same as the US.”

That’s certainly true, with France—and Germany—toadying up to Russia as enthusiastically as they are. But Macron, at bottom, is as duplicitous as Steinmeier. Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, all NATO members, and Ukraine, are much more closely aligned with the US on matters of their (and our) national security. Macron, for all his ego, does not speak for “what Europe wants,” only for what Germany and France want. To claim they are Europe is not hubris, it’s just dishonest.

Maybe it’s time to move decisively toward a mutual defense treaty among the US, the eastern European nations fronting Russia, and the UK, and let central and western Europe do what they’re so evidently desperate to do: to go their own way.

After all, at least the former, in evident contrast with the latter, care about their security.

Party Influence

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There is growing concern among some, particularly among the elites and party elders, that our political parties are losing too much power and authority over candidate selection.

[The ascents of Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate and Senator Bernie Sanders (I, VT) and President Donald Trump (R)] are the latest sign that the nation’s political parties have lost influence in choosing their own presidential nominees….

Tom Rath, ex-Republican National Committee delegate, worried about this:

We’re organized around individual candidates and individual concerns. No one wants to be bothered with the party.

Joe Trippi, ex-Progressive-Democrat strategist and current CNN pundit, also expressed angst:

The parties are powerless right now and have been for a while. With both parties it’s personality- and candidate-driven, not party-driven.

And this:

Several current and former members of the Democratic National Committee said a party that once elevated Governors Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton to the White House should have found a way to place governors, who have proven electoral records, on the debate stage more often.

Because Party Know Betters should determine voter choices, not the voters. (I’ll elide questions about why a party that once elevated Senators to the White House switched to governors. I’ll also leave aside the Know Betters’ wisdom in choosing Carter.)

And this, from Elaine Kamarck, herself a long-time Democratic National Committee Know Better (as paraphrased by the WSJ):

DNC Chairman Tom Perez should have acted “by decree” to give more visibility to elected leaders such as Mr Bullock or former Governor John Hickenlooper of Colorado…. At the same time…Mr Perez had little choice but to adopt neutral qualifying criteria, because “party leaders are no longer expected to have a role in choosing the nominee.”

Wow. Just—wow. The party that claims to be all about democracy and “what people want” should act from diktat.

We can debate the wisdom of personality-driven. However, it’s clear that in order to be personality-driven, or candidate-driven, the process also has to be voter-driven. The nominees, after all, are ours, not the parties’.

And that’s all to the good. Our Constitution, after all, opens with We the People, not Our Parties.

The noise of freedom is growing louder and democracy is growing stronger for it—especially republican democracy.

Somewhat of an aside:

Self-described democratic socialist Senator Bernie Sanders and President Trump rose in politics by developing strong personal brands, while keeping only tenuous ties to—and frequently criticizing the leaders of—the parties they later sought to lead.

I’m not sure of the inconsistency here. What would we expect them to do—say, “These guys are doing a terrific job. Put me in charge instead.”