Category Archives: Privacy

The Meaning of the Absence of Reasoned Argument

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Here is a sample of the kind of campaign that President Obama is running in his attempt to get reelected.

They’re obsessed

By Jim Messina, Campaign Manager on

In just about 24 hours, Mitt Romney is headed to a hotel ballroom to give a speech sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, a front group founded and funded by the Koch brothers.

Those are the same Koch brothers whose business model is to make millions by jacking up prices at the pump, and who bankrolled Tea Party extremism, and committed $200 million to try to destroy President Obama before Election Day.

So in the hours before Romney courts two men obsessed with making Barack Obama a one-term president, let’s see how many of us can chip in to the Two-Term Fund.

Here’s what Mitt Romney told his supporters just after his victory in the Florida GOP primary:

“We must not forget what this election is really about: defeating Barack Obama.”

Pitch in $3 or more over the next 24 hours to show that, while that message may fire up two oil-industry billionaires, it’s also one that plenty of us are tired of hearing.

The Koch Companies’ President of Government and Public Affairs, Philip Ellender, responded to this in a well-publicized manner.  I won’t go into that letter; however, a copy of it can be seen here.

What’s interesting, though, is Obama’s response, through Messina, to the Koch Industries letter.  I’ll cite relevant parts; the whole letter can be read at the link.

I am writing in response to your letter, in which you portrayed the oil and gas executives you represent as average citizens trying to make their voices heard.

Of course, no such representation was made. They did mention the “tens of thousands of members and contributors from across the country and from all walks of life” with respect to Americans for Prosperity.  Of course Obama knows that there are not “tens of thousands” of oil and gas executives all across the country; this is deliberate, Alinsky-esque distortion.

But it is a cynical stretch to describe the political activities of your employers as furthering democracy when they are courting huge checks from special interest donors to pay for negative ads, with no public disclosure of the identity of those donors.

Hmm.  Obama claims to know of “huge checks from special interest donors,” but there is “no public disclosure of the identity of these donors.”  Which side of Obama’s mouth should we believe, here?  Or is Obama confessing to domestic spying on private American citizens?

You argue that Americans for Prosperity is a grassroots organization of everyday citizens. But its emphasis on rolling back environmental protections and blocking a clean energy economy appears to be nothing more than an effort to promote the corporate interests of your employers and others who lavishly, and secretly, fund its operations.

This is another deliberate distortion.  AFP doesn’t espouse rolling back environmental protections or blocking clean energy.  AFP, along with all thinking Americans, do espouse eliminating excessive EPA regulations that hinder business—of any type—with no discernible gain for the environment.  Nor do we Americans seek to block clean energy.  We do object to Obama wasting our money on the Solyndras of the nation, and we do object to Obama wasting our money on “green” enterprises whose product cannot survive in an honestly competitive free market without those props.

You note in your letter that Americans for Prosperity has tens of thousands of members and contributors from all walks of life across the country, suggesting that this is the source of AFP’s funding. There is one way to verify your point: disclose those donors for the public to make that judgment.

How very Axelrod of Obama.  He doesn’t have to supply any evidence.  He just has to accuse, and given the accusation, of course the accused is perforce guilty unless he can prove his innocence.

But, even though I’ve spent some time on this, it’s all just cynical distraction, which is Obama’s intent with his Messina letter.  What’s most important here is that at no time does Obama address the issues raised in the Koch Industries letter response to his original ad hominem attack.

If the President’s campaign has some principled disagreement with the arguments we are making publicly about the staggering debt the President and previous administrations have imposed on the country, the regulations that are stifling business growth and innovation, the increasing intrusion of government into nearly every aspect of American life, we would be eager to hear them.

and

It is understandable that the President and his campaign may be “tired of hearing” that many Americans would rather not see the president re-elected. However, the inference is that you would prefer that citizens who disagree with the President and his policies refrain from voicing their own viewpoint. Clearly, that’s not the way a free society should operate.

and

I…hope the President will reflect on how the approach the campaign is using is at odds with our national values and the constitutional right to free speech.

Oh, yeah—Obama did pretend to address the nation’s debt explosion:

That is why the President introduced a plan to reduce the deficit by $4 trillion and put us on a path to solvency.

Obama’s “plan” is two budget proposals so ludicrous that even the Democratic party voted it out of town unanimously, and the second proposal, just last month, doubles down on that bad joke.

But he carefully elided the Progressive regulatory environment and the increasing intrusion of the Progressive government into the lives of ordinary Americans and our businesses.

And on free speech,

When you attempt to drown out their voices through unlimited, secret contributions to pursue a special-interest agenda that conflicts with what’s best for our nation, you must expect some scrutiny of your actions.

Once again, cynically unsubstantiated accusations of secret donations (since you know of them, Mr Obama, provide the data), while continuing the free speech of ad hominem attacks.

Two reasons come to mind for such a campaign.  One is the naked intimidation of those with dissenting speech in which Obama is so plainly engaged.  He simply will not brook any disagreement with his own hallowed positions, and he attacks, personally and with demonization, all those who do disagree.  Is this the sort of President of which we want another four years?

The other reason is that Obama simply is incapable of forming an argument that defends his own position, and so he runs away from the issues at hand and dives for the cover of the ad hominem as a means of changing the subject.  He knows his policies have failed utterly, but he lacks the moral rigor to acknowledge that and change course: he is capable only of avoiding the issues and engaging in personal attacks.  Is his the sort of President of which we can afford to risk another four years?

Contraception Coverage and Freedom

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Just to look at one small aspect of Americans’ liberties, here’s an item: mandated coverage of women’s contraception.

Senator Roy Blunt’s (R, MO) amendment was an attempt to restore a measure of liberty; a copy is here;  it said, in part [emphasis added]

(E) While PPACA provides an exemption for some religious groups that object to participation in Government health programs generally, it does not allow purchasers, plan sponsors, and other stakeholders with religious or moral objections to specific items or services to decline providing or obtaining coverage of such items or services, or allow health care providers with such objections to decline to provide them.

It also says

(A) FOR HEALTH PLANS.—A health plan shall not be considered to have failed…on the basis that it declines to provide coverage of specific items or services because—(i) providing coverage (or, in the case of a sponsor of a group health plan, paying for coverage) of such specific items or services is contrary to the religious beliefs or moral convictions of the sponsor, issuer, or other entity offering the plan; or (ii) such coverage (in the case of individual coverage) is contrary to the religious beliefs or moral convictions of the purchaser or beneficiary of the coverage.

The measure was voted down in the Senate on Thursday by a nearly straight party-line vote of 51-48.  In the run-up to the vote, Senate Democrats had cast it as an attempt to limit women’s access to birth control.  They also had claimed

[T]he bill is “a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” and may allow employers to exclude coverage for any conditions they find religiously or morally objectionable.

They say this could become a slippery slope, resulting in the exclusion of coverage for HIV & AIDS, mental health, hemophilia, STD’s and more

The Obama administration blasted Blunt’s amendment in a press release Wednesday, saying the president’s supporters need to “stand for a woman’s right to make her own health decisions.”

I certainly hope the amendment, had it passed, would have allowed exclusion—or a decision not to purchase—for “and conditions” that are “religiously or morally objectionable.”  This is an area in which our Constitution, so routinely disregarded by the Progressive administration, explicitly barred the Federal government from entering.  Furthermore, aside from the freedom of choice issues related to mandating coverage—and so paying for this coverage when it’s unwanted or unneeded—and the ludicrous “essential health benefits” aspects of contraception, what religious or moral grounds would be cited?  The Progressives have carefully declined to offer any examples.

Senator Frank Lautenberg (D, NJ) was especially disingenuous in his argument against this amendment.

I don’t want Republican politicians making decisions about my family’s health care.  Women are capable of making their own health-care decisions.

Except, no, they’re not.  Not after Lautenberg got his way: their decision is thrust upon them by this Progressive and his fellows.  Senator Lautenberg and the Federal government now will make health-care decisions in lieu of them.  Obama claimed to “stand for a woman’s right to make her own health decisions,” but with this vote, women are not allowed to decline to purchase a health-care service they do not want or will not use or find morally or religiously objectionable.  They must buy.  They cannot make their own health decision.  Read again the Section E quoted at the start.  See the freedom of choice that the Progressives voted down.

Thoughts on Free Speech

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Here is some action on the free speech front, particularly involving the Internet and piracy and government efforts to impose control on both.

These offerings from our government are pertinent: the Senate’s Protect IP Act (PIPA) and the House of Representatives’ parallel effort, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).  Unfortunately, they’re not tightly written to address actual piracy, or theft of copyrighted material.  With their too-broad reach, each of these bills can also achieve the following (whether this potential use is deliberate or simply the result of routine political pandering and/or incompetence, I’ll leave as an exercise for the reader).

Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe suggests this:

SOPA provides that a complaining party can file a notice alleging that it is harmed by the activities occurring on the site “or portion thereof.”  Conceivably, an entire website containing tens of thousands of pages could be targeted if only a single page were accused of infringement. Such an approach would create severe practical problems for sites with substantial user-generated content, such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and for blogs that allow users to post videos, photos, and other materials.

And

The notice-and-termination procedure…runs afoul of the “prior restraint” doctrine, because it delegates to a private party the power to suppress speech without prior notice and a judicial hearing. This provision of the bill would give complaining parties the power to stop online advertisers and credit card processors from doing business with a website, merely by filing a unilateral notice accusing the site of being “dedicated to theft of U.S. property” — even if no court has actually found any infringement.

Wow.  Guilt by accusation; we’ll sort out the damages from false or erroneous accusations later.  In the meantime, we’ll shut down the whole site, and RICO-like, cutoff the financial resources of the accused.  Solely on the accuser’s say-so; he don’t need no stinkin’ courts.

By closing an entire facility over an (alleged) infraction by one individual or involving just a few documents, an entire avenue of speech is shut down: not just the speech of the Web site’s operators, but the speech choices of those who wish to hear (read) what contributors to such a Web site has to say, on any subject.  Imagine a closely contested election in which a Web site favors one candidate over another.  One of those “other materials” is claimed by the other candidate to be harming his campaign.  Where might the greater harm be occurring?

Oh, but I’m overreacting.  Ex-Senator Chris Dodd (D, CT) has the answer.  The bills are only asking for the same power the People’s Republic of China has for Internet censorship:

When the Chinese told Google that they had to block sites or they couldn’t do [business] in their country, they managed to figure out how to block sites.

Hmm….

We don’t need any more free speech laws, or government intervention into free speech.  We have too much of this, already.  Besides, we already have a fine free speech law, one that doesn’t run to 2,000 or more pages worth of…speech:

Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press[.]

And it took our Founders only 14 words, and rather less than a single page, to write it.

Update: Added some final thoughts.

We Already Regulate You

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Another lesson from Europe, this time from the United Kingdom, rears its…head.

It seems that Oxford thinks it’s a good idea to put surveillance devices into all the taxi cabs that operate in the city, and at taxpayer expense, yet (I suppose this might be mildly better than making the cabbies pay for them—that would be a bit like making the condemned criminal pay for his own rope).  What’s more, after the passenger has gotten out of the cab, even after the cab’s ignition has been shut off, Oxford’s devices will continue to record for a time, and the records will be held available to the city’s authorities for a month.

It’s all to protect the cabbies and the passengers from each other, don’t you know.  Mutual complaints and everything, you see

As for you pesky citizens and your concerns (“…staggering invasion of privacy, being done with no evidence, no consultation and a total disregard for civil liberties,” wrote Nick Pickles of the organization Big Brother Watch), don’t you worry your pretty little heads.  The City says that when a company “buy[s] the taxi and license [they] submit to a regulatory regime.”  Presumably, this submission extends to the passenger, as well, when he uses that taxi with its license.

We already regulate you.  That justifies us regulating you more.

Let’s see, now, where else are we seeing government intrusion?  Hmm….

GPS, Privacy, and the Government, Revisited

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I wrote here on the subject; today I’d like to revisit it.  Gordon Crovitz wrote on the subject yesterday, and there are still some misconceptions that need to be addressed.

To recap, this question arises from the case of U.S. v. Antoine Jones that is currently before the US Supreme Court.  In this case, a man, Antoine Jones, was suspected of involvement in the drug trade, and as part of an investigation of Jones, the police obtained a warrant to place a GPS tracker on Jones’ car.  The proximate reason the case has come up is that the tracker wasn’t planted until after the warrant had expired, and when it was planted, it was done so outside the jurisdiction of the court that had issued the warrant.

The misconceptions, though, aren’t directly related to these facts; they center on the nature of individual privacy, the relationship between an individual and the government vis-à-vis that privacy, and the need for a warrant at all in this sort of case.

One misconception, surprisingly, is demonstrated by Justice Antonin Scalia, who is no slouch concerning the principle of limited government.  During oral arguments for this case, the following exchange occurred:

MR. LECKAR [STEPHEN C., ESQ, representing Jones]: …because what you have here is society does not expect that the police, the human element would be taken out of — would be taken out of the surveillance factor.

JUSTICE ALITO: You know, I don’t know what society expects and I think it’s changing. Technology is changing people’s expectations of privacy.

Suppose we look forward 10 years, and maybe 10 years from now 90 percent of the population will be using social networking sites and they will have on average 500 friends and they will have allowed their friends to monitor their location 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, through the use of their cell phones. Then — what would the expectation of privacy be then?

Justice Alito’s question is valid if put into a proper context, but he does not do that.  His question relates solely to a man’s personal business, his personal relationship with his neighbors and friends (in every sense of that term).  Alito needs also to ask this question in an additional context: what is, and what would, the expectation of privacy be with respect to the government?  This is a very different expectation.  While technology may* reduce the degree of privacy expected in the man’s personal life, it is utterly irrelevant to his expectation with respect to his government.  We still expect government snooping to be held under strict controls.

Justice Alito goes on:

You don’t even see it [the GPS tracker]. It’s just a little wafer, they put it under the car, it does nothing.

If the wafer does nothing, why have the police planted it?  The fact is, this little wafer does quite a lot, and it does so by invading a man’s privacy.

Justice Anthony Kennedy also misunderstands the situation:

…it seems to me what you’re saying is that the police have to use the most inefficient methods.

Not at all, as I said in the earlier post (in fairness to Kennedy, Leckar misses this point, also).  The police should use the most current technology, the most current training, available to them in the conduct of their investigations.  As they recognized in the present case (but let expire before acting), they just need to get a warrant before they conduct a search and/or seizure.  Perhaps with an app that gives them a Web presence with a judge, so less time is spent on getting the two together in the same room for the discussion and issuance.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor shows a different misconception, addressing Leckar’s response to a preceding Kennedy question about video surveillance.

What an unworkable rule tethered to no principle.  A thousand video cameras may or may not be OK, depending on how large the city is?

You bet.  Additionally, the principle is quite plain: every man has a reasonable expectation of, a right to be free from, the prying eyes of government, absent a legitimate reason for the prying—which legitimacy is demonstrated by convincing a judge to issue a warrant.  Furthermore, each person, each case, is unique: we’re not cookie cutter products, or clones.  Finally, the government’s convenience is never an excuse for abridging individual liberties.

In the end, however public a man’s life might be from the perspective of his neighbors and friends, it must remain private from the government’s perspective.  Get the warrant.  This is, by far, a lesser hardship on the government’s men than warrantless invasions of Americans’ individual liberties are on Americans.

*As I pointed out in that earlier post, the very great expectation of privacy still extant in our personal lives is demonstrated by the hue and cry extant over the various social media’s invasions of that privacy.