Month: June 2013

Ryan Gallagher summarizes the latest revelations from Snowden and Greenwald:

The documents confirm beyond all doubt that the NSA can and does incidentally sweep up domestic communications while targeting foreigners, and it has the authority to retain such communications for up to five years. The NSA has to destroy communications concerning “U.S. persons,” except for cases in which the communication intercepted is deemed to contain “foreign intelligence information”; shows evidence of a crime; relates to a security vulnerability; or contains information pertaining to harm of life or property. In some cases, the NSA can incidentally grab Americans’ communications—without any specific search warrant under the broad authority it has under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act—and pass them on to the FBI or other agencies.

Drum examines the new documents:

It’s genuinely unclear how big a problem this stuff is. It’s plainly true that determining whether someone is a U.S. person is sometimes a judgment call, and it’s possible that mistakes are rare. What’s more, if collection of domestic content genuinely is inadvertent, and is only occasionally turned over to other agencies when there’s evidence of serious crime, we should all feel better about this. But we really have no way of knowing. That would require, say, an inspector general to gather this kind of information, and the IG has specifically declined to do this.

He follows up here. Friedersdorf thinks “this makes President Obama’s recent public statements look highly misleading, if not outright lies.” He also asks why this information was classified:

Why are these particular details highly classified state secrets? It’s an abuse of the system — a scandal in itself. What the NSA does with information it collects but isn’t allowed to have isn’t something that needs to be decided secretly and kept secret by self-interested national-security bureaucrats.

Cory Doctorow takes Clapper to task:

[The memos] expose the “truth” behind NSA director James Clapper’s assertion that “The statement that a single analyst can eavesdrop on domestic communications without proper legal authorization is incorrect and was not briefed to Congress.” This turns out to be technically, narrowly true, but false in its implication … As the Guardian’s publications make clear, the NSA operates under a baroque and carefully engineered set of guidelines that allow it to spy on Americans while insisting that it’s not spying on Americans.

And Dan Goodin focuses on the policies that specifically target people using online anonymity services:

[The leeway afforded to analysts] seems to work to the disadvantage of people who take steps to protect their Internet communications from prying eyes. For instance, a person whose physical location is unknown—which more often than not is the case when someone uses anonymity software from the Tor Project—”will not be treated as a United States person, unless such person can be positively identified as such, or the nature or circumstances of the person’s communications give rise to a reasonable belief that such person is a United States person,” the secret document stated.

And in the event that an intercepted communication is later deemed to be from a US person, the requirement to promptly destroy the material may be suspended in a variety of circumstances. Among the exceptions are “communications that are enciphered or reasonably believed to contain secret meaning, and sufficient duration may consist of any period of time during which encrypted material is subject to, or of use in, cryptanalysis.”

Jordan Weissman responds to claims that unpaid internships uniquely advantage the rich:

If anything, poor and middle class students are extra likely to get stuck in unpaid internships. Rich kids, by and large, seem to prefer collecting a paycheck. Such were the findings of a fascinating 2010 study conducted for Intern Bridge, a consulting firm that specializes in college recruiting, and one of the few major sources of data on the internship market. After analyzing survey responses from thousands of college students, the paper concluded: “Our findings do not support the common contention that students from the wealthiest families have greater access to unpaid internships, even among most for profit companies. Low income students have a much higher level of participation in unpaid internships than students from high income families.” …

There were a few important exceptions to these trends:

namely, Hollywood, Wall Street and, probably, a good chunk of New York Media. Wealthy unpaid interns, the study reported, tended to cluster in finance, the arts and entertainment. Less wealthy ones tended to work in transportation, health, and manufacturing. So glamour industries may indeed be shutting out the poor. But it’s an open question whether that’s because the opportunities often require working unpaid full time, or if it’s because wealthier students are just more likely to compete for them.

In a separate piece, Weissman picks apart the myth that internships are justified because they lead to better jobs:

For three years, the National Association of Colleges and Employers has asked graduating seniors if they’ve received a job offer and if they’ve ever had either a paid or unpaid internship. And for three years, it’s reached the same conclusion: Unpaid internships don’t seem to give college kids much of a leg up when it comes time to look for employment.

As we approach the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg (fought July 1-3, 1863), Tony Horwitz calls for Americans to revisit their views of the War Between The States:

[I]n recent years, historians have rubbed much of the luster from the Civil War and questioned its sanctification. Should we consecrate a war that killed and maimed over a million Americans? Or should we question, as many have in recent conflicts, whether this was really a war of necessity that justified its appalling costs? “We’ve decided the Civil War is a ‘good war’ because it destroyed slavery,” says Fitzhugh Brundage, a historian at the University of North Carolina. “I think it’s an indictment of 19th century Americans that they had to slaughter each other to do that.”

Dan Trombly responds that “[i]f we should question [whether the war was justified], we should do so only quickly, because the answer is most obviously yes”:

I am sympathetic to the case that there is no such thing as a “good war,” and readers here probably recall some of my arguments against the unnecessary romanticizing and appropriation of World War II history. Yet to question the worth of [World War II] because it did not originally intend, and could not fully resolve, the worst excesses of totalitarianism or genocide in Europe or Asia does not invalidate the causes for which the war launched. Even more than abolition, ending the Holocaust was not the primary and unifying cause for which the Allies fought, and the moral compromises the United States made in building a coalition to defeat the Nazis were even more uncomfortable than those it made in prosecuting war against the South. But as we can discuss the validity of fighting World War II while still acknowledging its decision to go to war was about far more than the Holocaust and the merits behind that decision, we can discuss the Civil War and acknowledge that before abolition validated it, the cause of Union was worth fighting for.

TNC nods:

The fact is that the Civil War didn’t represent a failure of 19th-century Americans, but that the American slave society — which was itself war — represented a failure of humanity. That failure was the price America paid for its conception. …

I am very sorry that white people began experiencing great violence in 1860. But for some of us, war did not begin 1860, but in 1660. The brutal culmination of that war may not have allowed us to ascend into a post-racial heaven. But here is something I always come back to: In 1859 legally selling someone’s five-year-old child was big business. In 1866, it was not. American Slavery was a system of perpetual existential violence. The idea that it could have been — or should have been — ended, after two and a half centuries of practice, with a handshake and an ice-cream social strikes me as really wrong.

In a later post, TNC emphasizes the infeasibility of the US government simply buying the slaves their freedom. Meanwhile, Esquire is recreating the Battle of Gettysburg through a series of blog posts:

In keeping with the anniversary, we have invited serving Army officer, military historian, keen observer, and longtime friend of the blog Bob Bateman, to contribute regular dispatches about the the Gettysburg campaign, the long series of maneuvers, counter-maneuvers, blind chances and lucky breaks that led up to the epic (and largely accidental) collision of the two armies in a small Pennsylvania college town. Knowing my friend, you will find your assumptions challenged, and some modern parallel drawn, and you will come away from this project knowing a little more about the battle, the people who fought it, and the country that it produced.

A reader adds to the classic Dish series:

I’m a long-time reader for many reasons.  I’m a writer, Anglophile, was raised Catholic, and have a gay ex-husband whom I love dearly.  I’ve also been a long-time crusader against the ridiculous war on marijuana.  About a month ago, I experienced firsthand the persecution that comes from these terrible laws.  I want this story to get out, so that I can help open eyes in any way I can.

For starters, some background.  I’m a 34-year-old woman, divorced in 2006, who has since struggled to put my life back together and garner some stability.  I feel like I’ve done a pretty damn good job, and quite frankly, in the absence of therapy, marijuana has been helpful in managing stress and thinking through issues stemming from childhood abuse so that I can be a whole and healthy person.  I don’t do it in the street, or in cars, or in public at all.  I keep it to myself, behind closed doors, in the privacy of my own home.  I don’t sell, and only have enough on hand for personal enjoyment.

A few years back, I was able to get my financial life together and go back to school to (finally) finish the BA that has eluded me due to these personal and financial issues, with a plan (still in the works) to follow my ultimate dream: moving to England to get my MA and PhD and make a go at a career as a historian and writer, so I can leave the restaurant industry behind.  Well, after 17 years (!!), I graduated with honors in May.  I easily worked 80-90 hours per week, with a two-hour commute to school each way, to make this happen.  I can’t tell you the triumph I felt walking out of my last final.  Too bad it was short lived.

I live in an apartment building in Alexandria, which as a former DC person, you know is the liberal bastion of northern Virginia.  Apparently this does not extend to police harassment.  In March, I was at home, minding my own business, when I heard a knock on my door.

It was a forceful knock (everyone knows how the police knock) and when I looked through the peep hole, I saw a person I did not know wearing blue who claimed to be “building maintenance”.  My father is an attorney, and I interned at the Marijuana Policy Project a few years ago, so the first words out of my mouth were “do you have a warrant?”.  It was amazing how quickly Officer “Building Maintenance’s” attitude changed.  I was told that he did not need a warrant because he had “plain smell”.  I told him that I knew that wasn’t true, and that I was not opening the door without a warrant.

I was then told that if I did not open the door I was “obstructing justice” and that I was “under arrest right now” if I didn’t open the door.  I informed the officer that he was violating my Fourth Amendment rights and that I was not opening the door without a warrant, so we seemed to be at an impasse.  I also informed Officer “Building Maintenance” (who never identified himself as an officer) that I was not clothed, and he told me to open the door anyway.

I ended up climbing out of my bathroom window to end the harassment, and eventually he went away.  I was astounded that this happened, and took steps to contain the smell even better.  I started exclusively using a vaporizer and burning candles and spraying absurd amounts of air freshener.  I was worried, though, that I became some sort of white whale to Officer “Building Maintenance” because he didn’t scare me into opening the door that day with his threats.  I was also disgusted that some busy body in my building couldn’t mind their own damn business.  This is MY PERSONAL SPACE and what I do in it should be none of your concern.  But my attempts to be as inconspicuous and inoffensive as possible while still living my life the way I choose weren’t good enough for these crusaders.

Fast forward to May, the day after my last final.  The week that was supposed to be full of triumph for achieving a goal that had eluded me for half my life, and to celebrate my perseverance.  I got home after a long shift at work (after midnight), to an apartment that looked as if a hurricane had blown through it.  I honestly thought that I had been robbed (photos attached).  Then I noticed that my TV was still there, as was my computer.  I was confused.

Then I looked at my wall.  There was a search warrant tacked to it with a cop’s card that says “call me”.  The mix of emotions that washed over me were overwhelming: fear, anger, relief (that I wasn’t there and that my poor kitty had died a few months earlier before going through that kind of trauma), and what the hell am I going to do?

I texted a friend for support, started attempting to clean up (I’m still not done with that, by the way), and searched the Internet for “marijuana lawyer”.  I’ve always known that justice in this country depends upon the representation that you can afford, and I knew that at this point my amateur’s knowledge of the law wasn’t going to cut it.  I also wasn’t going to cut any kind of deal with these bastards to rat anyone out for leniency, because I have principles.

Luckily, I have been saving for two years to make my dream of graduate school come true, and what they found was laughably minor (a coaster with literally a pinch of weed on it in my freezer … another part of my attempt to be as unobtrusive as possible).  At about 3AM, totally exhausted and stressed, and having not made a dent in the destruction, I knew that I had to get out of my apartment.  I had to work for the next three days, and there was no way I would be able to get any kind of rest there.  I also didn’t want the police to come back without my having legal representation.  So I took pictures of the apartment and the warrant, then packed my bags and walked to a hotel in the middle of the night, with a supportive friend on the phone.

The next day I heard back from the attorney, and spent all of my savings ($3000) to retain her, while at the same time being afraid that I would be evicted.  I sent her pictures of the warrant and gave her all of the absurd information about what was “seized”.  She told me to be prepared to be arrested at any time (even at work … god what a nightmare) and to keep my phone on me.  She told me that she would try to arrange for me to “turn myself in, but that if it went to trial we could probably get the whole thing thrown out”.

I couldn’t believe that this was happening to me. I had never even heard of search warrants being obtained for busting up “smoking weed alone on your couch watching Mad Men” rings. And the justification for the warrant was ridiculous in itself.  The incident where the officer did not identify himself was cited, and another incident was simply made up.  Dirty police work all over the place.

A little while later, I heard back from my lawyer.  She noticed that my name wasn’t on the warrant, which most likely meant that the officer’s information was scant and that there was not likely to be a warrant for my arrest without a name.  So instead of calling the officer, she emailed him with the attitude of “what the hell”.  She immediately heard back, and told me that she thought he was looking for information on me to escalate the situation.  She told me if anyone approached me regarding this situation to tell them to speak to my attorney and give them her information.  I spent a week living on friend’s couches, mostly because I was scared to go home due to the unbelievable personal violation.  What a way to celebrate my graduation!

However, just like I already knew, justice depends on the kind of representation you can afford.  My hiring an attorney effectively ended this once they knew they could not intimidate me into flipping on anyone, and that the pinch they found in the freezer would not stand up in court.  So this turned out as “well” as could be expected, I suppose.  I’m only out my dignity, celebrating my graduation, the savings for making my dreams come true, my sense of security in my own home, and any sense of respect for the police.  I also am not free to relax behind closed doors in the way that I choose because some asshole in my building doesn’t like it.  Also, they sliced up my bedspread in their “search” (god knows why).   That’s being “fortunate” in this type of situation.

So that’s my story.  Keep up the good fight.  I know that I intend to.  I’m going to finally get to England, too.

On Wednesday in Berlin, the president announced a new push for nuclear reduction, proposing to reduce US nuclear stocks by one third, to around 1000, and to initiate talks with Russia. Daryl Kimball wants more:

Former military officials, policymakers, and experts agree that a deployed strategic arsenal of 1,000 nuclear weapons is more than sufficient to guarantee the security of the United States and its allies against nuclear attack. In April 2012, Gen. James Cartwright, commander of U.S. nuclear forces under President George W. Bush, suggested moving toward a nuclear force of 450 strategic weapons by 2022.

Even that many warheads can pose a grave and unnecessary threat. An analysis conducted in 2002 by Physicians for Social Responsibility showed that a Russian attack with only 300 thermonuclear warheads hitting U.S. urban areas would kill 77 million Americans in the first half hour from blast effects and firestorms, to say nothing of the subsequent radioactive fallout. A U.S. attack of similar size would have the same devastating impact on Russia.

Joseph Stalin may have been willing to sacrifice tens of millions of innocent Russians in a nuclear exchange during the Cold War, but even President Putin would not.

Matthew Kroenig, on the other hand, argues for nuclear “overkill”:

Even if Russia agrees to match the president’s proposed cuts, the nuclear reductions would attenuate our advantages vis-à-vis Russia and eat into our margin of superiority against other nuclear-armed states, such as China, possibly increasing the likelihood that the United States will be challenged militarily and reducing the probability that we achieve our goals in future crises.

If there is at least some reason to believe that reductions could harm America’s strategic deterrent, then certainly those in favor of reductions provide concrete evidence that the benefits of reductions outweigh these costs, right? Alas, they do not.

https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/347541111688003585

Max Fisher considers the implications of the massive scrapping of military hardware:

It’s not because the vehicles are old or don’t work – they’re relatively new and appear to work well. The cost of moving them is just not worth the expense. And, maybe more than that, the United States doesn’t see itself as needing every single one of the 24,000 MRAPs designed for combat over sprawling, difficult terrain against bomb-making insurgents. That’s not really a mission the country is investing in anymore. …

The decision to turn these jaw-droppingly expensive vehicles into scrap metal reflects, [Ernesto] Londoño points out, “a presumptive end to an era of protracted ground wars.” It’s hard to miss the symbolism: This military tool, which cost billions to design and was launched to great fanfare just a few years ago as the perfect tool for America’s mission in Afghanistan, is just not as useful anymore. That’s not just a sign of how expensive it is to ship stuff out of Afghanistan, it’s a reminder of how radically America’s long-term interests have changed in the past six years.

Harold Maass notes the ironic justification for the move:

The decision to shred giant trucks and scrap other material was actually the product of a debate on how to reduce waste. Some military leaders wanted to bring home more equipment, but they were overruled because the cost of shipping heavy equipment out of war-torn, landlocked Afghanistan was too high.

Ed Morrissey, meanwhile, focuses on the image that the US projects by abandoning these vehicles:

If we were leaving as a successful pacification/occupation force, we would have allowed ourselves plenty of time to retrieve our equipment despite the logistical challenges that presents.  The need to have that heavy equipment on the ground in an accelerated withdrawal schedule points to the fact that we have not in fact succeeded in Afghanistan in anything other than achieving a stalemate after twelve years of fighting.

We wouldn’t be the first world power to end up leaving under those circumstances, and we can argue that we did better than the Russians and the colonial British in leaving on our own terms.  The haste of our exit, as exemplified by our abandonment of billions in military resources, makes that argument a little tougher to make, and in that region, the image of weakness is not a good impression to make.

Apparently being a sex advice columnist doesn’t make The Sex Talk with your kid any easier:

A few years ago, Dan podcasted a conversation with Amy Lang on how parents should talk to their kids about sex. In a recent WSJ Q&A, Dan explained another big talk, only this time one that DJ had to have with him and Terry:

[Q.] In “American Savage,” you talk about the heartbreak you and your husband, Terry Miller, felt when your son felt like he had to “come out” as straight to you. When you adopted DJ in 1998, did it ever occur to you that something like this would happen?

[A.] We weren’t heartbroken that he came out to us as straight — we’re not upset that he’s straight. Far from it. And we saw it coming a mile away. My mother, after she calmed down about me being gay, admitted that she kind of always knew. We kind of always knew that DJ was straight. What was heartbreaking was the realization that he was worried we might not react well to the news. We felt like we had gone out of our way to emphasize that he would most likely be straight, because well over 90% of everybody is, and that we loved him gay, straight, bi, whatever. But he was worried and that was heartbreaking for me. For us.

We had a few conversations when he was younger — prepuberty — during which he insisted that he would be gay. When he was nine he told us that he didn’t like girls and so, you know, case closed: going to be gay when he grows up. We told him that we loved girls when we were nine. Not liking girls when you’re a little boy is almost always evidence of straightness-to-come, not gayness. He doubled down and insisted he would be gay. Maybe that’s the reason he was hesitant — he’s pretty stubborn (wonder where he gets that?), and he basically had to admit that he was wrong.

Dan’s new book, American Savage: Insights, Slights, and Fights on Faith, Sex, Love, and Politics, came out a few weeks ago. My recent conversation with him at the New York Public Library is here. Dan’s previous answers are here. Our full Ask Anything archive is here.

Yesterday, a Republican farm bill unexpectedly failed in the House. Barro explains what happened:

Opposition was bipartisan. Almost all Democrats voted no because they opposed the food stamp cuts. But 60 Republicans also voted against the bill, mostly because it didn’t cut enough. This is another demonstration of the impossible hand that Speaker John Boehner is playing. He wants his caucus to pass alternatives to Democratic policy proposals from the Senate. But the conservative wing of his caucus places high demands and is willing to vote against leadership-backed proposals.

Chait sees the bill’s failure as “yet another self-defeating rebellion from the right”:

The ultraconservatives could have formed a coalition with liberals who like food stamps to cut agri-socialism. Or they could have formed a coalition with Republicans who like agri-socialism but hate food stamps. Instead, they decided neither one cuts enough money and sunk the bill altogether. It’s actually tragic that there’s finally a large block of Republicans willing to slash the worst domestic program in government, but they’re too crazy and hateful to actually get it done.

Weigel looks ahead:

We’re talking here about a bill that passed in fairly ideal Senate circumstances—a better than 2-1 bipartisan majority. What’s another bill that’s allegedly going to be built like that? The immigration bill, of course.

Beutler also focuses on immigration:

You can watch the farm bill fail and reason that Boehner might think immigration reform isn’t worth it. Or you can watch the farm bill fail and reason that he might decide to dispense with all the member management theatrics and throw in with Democrats and GOP donors. But you can’t watch the farm bill fail and see the House GOP passing a Hastert-rule compliant immigration reform bill and going into conference with the Senate.

Ezra Klein and Evan Soltas have a different perspective:

The prospects of immigration have always relied on the theory that it’s a unicorn — that Republicans see a strategic need to pass it, or let it pass, that they don’t see for virtually anything else in government. Or, to put it differently, the idea is that immigration reform is an exception to the precise rules that doomed the farm bill. Whether that’s true remains to be seen. But the farm bill’s failure doesn’t prove it false.