1/23/23
State Capital Steps, Columbia SC.
Joe Oddo speech transcript…
Thomas Jefferson
once said “A little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the
physical.” I don’t think he meant getting to this place - where confrontation and paralysis have become divided
government’s natural state.
Deep polarization
of the parties has made it harder to achieve bipartisan agreement. This is not the republic that our forefathers envisioned.
Polarization is not new. What was once intra-party disagreement has morphed into tribalism. What was once cross-party coalitions
are now dangerous levels of stalemate and dysfunction.
The upcoming debt
ceiling fight is the perfect example. Nothing but a strange booby trap, the debt ceiling severs Congress’s decision
to spend money, from its decision to pay its bills. Getting rid of it would bombproof the government’s operations against
political disaster. Debt ceiling bills have always been used to embarrass the other side. It’s like leaving a cocked
gun for reckless legislators to hold their country hostage until they get what they want. That just wasn’t how things
were done in American politics before.
Norms of cooperation and deference have given
way to crises, paralysis, and polarization. Political actors have to be responsive to the conflict amplifying media. Instead
of routine bickering, media-hungry politicians thrive on a full-blown crises. It’s theater at its worst. There are other
ways legislators can express their views, gain leverage, and grandstand that don’t threaten to tank the economy.
Political scholars have identified two basic norms that have been destroyed: mutual
toleration, or the understanding that competing parties accept one another as legitimate rivals; and forbearance,
resisting the temptation to use temporary legislative control to maximum partisan advantage. We see it right here in this
state house. Gerrymandering provided the majority the opportunity to draw districts where 72 of 124 seats did not even have
a major party challenger. And power, of course, begets power. The majority party intends to pass even more partisan measures
that will cripple our schools, restrict voting, and threaten women’s rights.
Modern polarization is rooted in the civil rights era. One Party chose to embrace racial equality. The other Party
provided a home to white backlash. Political scientists Ornstein and Mann see a party seizing on its majority to:
-- become ideologically extreme;
--
contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime;
--
scornful of compromise;
-- unpersuaded by conventional understanding
of facts, evidence and science; and
-- dismissive of the legitimacy of its political
opposition, all but declaring war on the government.
So-called smaller
government conservatives sell out for a ‘win at all costs’ methodology. An identity group under threat, they promise
their loyal voters protection and victories. In turn, their followers follow them to hell and back. Overspending and big government
concerns are brushed aside as long as they’re fighting against illegal immigration and pushing back against the left.
Because white conservatives realize they are in a narrow, rapidly diminishing majority,
they uniformly select a boogieman: the Left. They pour out one-liners that speak volumes of what they oppose: ObamaCare, Hillary,
Critical Race Theory, Woke Culture. Notice none of these state what they are for.
So we are here to remind this supermajority that the people are watching. We are gathered here to offer a resolution
to our troubled political structure. We seek to build a coalition that brings together groups with dissimilar – even
opposing – views on many issues. We don’t want to coalesce just with our friends, but with our adversaries. An
effective coalition in defense of American democracy requires that unnatural allies - moderates and progressives - forge alliances
with business executives, religious leaders, and Red-state Republicans. Business leaders have good reasons to oppose unstable,
rule-breaking politicians who threaten to tank the global economy.
Let’s
begin a dialogue about ranked-choice voting, voters could choose their favorite candidates in order. The least popular candidate
would be eliminated, and her voters would see their second choice counted. So even if your favorite candidate loses, your
vote still counts. You don’t have to live in a swing district for your vote to matter.
RCV creates more positive discourse among candidates who tend to form alliances with their adversaries
rather than throw mud. Their appeal to voters, “hey, if you can’t pick me first, pick me second.”
Many people actually thought that a victory of extreme polarization would rescue democracy.
Even after a shock of orange hair, a cardiovascular system and a twitter account, the weakened, but still effective checks
and balances provided soft guardrails of democracy. These guardrails barely held during the presidency of the wannabe autocrat
despite his attempts to weaponize the courts, usurp the media and rewrite the rules of politics to tilt the field against
opponents.
Democracy is a shared enterprise. Its fate depends on all of us.
Politicians don’t lead. They follow. I invite you to join our Better Ballot coalition. When outside forces demand change,
then and only then do politicians get down to business of making changes.
Get
involved in your community. Take Action Against Apathy. Run for office. Stop wasting your vote on a political system stuck
in quicksand. Demand accountability!
###
The
System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, Robert Reich, Alfred A Knopf, NY 2020
Having come across this 2020 Robert Reich book on the library shelf after the 2020 election, I was compelled
to not just read it, but give it a thorough going over. The title drew me in with a promise that I immediately doubted he
could deliver. “The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It” triggered my pessimism, since so many others have declared
such grand outcomes with little to no impact.
In this manuscript,
Former Labor Secretary and eminent scholar Robert Reich has delivered a powerful directive on how we the people can clear
the fog of fabrications. Previously unseen in clear daylight, Reich lifts the fog and exposes the details of the modern-day
oligarchy (the third in our nation’s history, according to the author).
Starting around 1980 up until 2019, the share of the nation’s household income going to the richest 1 percent
more than doubled, while the earnings of the bottom 90 percent barely rose (all adjusted for inflation). CEO pay increased
940 percent, but the typical worker’s pay increased 12 percent. “This has been accompanied by a dramatic increase
in the political power of the super-wealthy and an equally dramatic decline in the political influence of everyone else.”
With unashamed aplomb the oligarchy is back. Read this book
to fully understand how the government is being run, how legislation is drafted, and who really controls the purse strings.
Behind the platitudes and public declarations, where our public treasury funds are divvied out and who benefits from the nation’s
economic and financial policies and regulations (or lack thereof) really dictates who has the “Power” to govern.
Power is the ability to direct or influence the behavior of
others. On a large scale, power is the capacity to set the public the public agenda – to frame big choices, to influence
legislators, and to get laws enacted or prevent them from being enacted, to assert one’s will on the world.
Power is exercised by particular people that have outsized influence over running
the big institutions – big Wall Street banks, global corporations, the executive and legislative branches of government,
the Federal Reserve and the Supreme Court, the military, elite universities, and the media (including social media as organized
by Big Tech). These individuals include CEO’s large investors, hedge fund and private equity managers, media moguls,
key lobbying groups like the Business Roundtable headed by JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, and major donors to political candidates
and universities.
“Under their control”, according
to Reich, “there will be no substantial tax increases for them, no antitrust enforcement, no meaningful constraint on
Wall Street’s dangerous gambling addiction, no limits to CEO pay.”
Reich lifts a quote from the GOP nominee Donald Trump at the 2016 Republican convention, “Big business, elite
media, and major donors are lining up behind the campaign of my opponent because they know she [Hillary Clinton] will keep
our rigged system in place.” Could that been a foreshadowing that as president, Trump intended to break up the system?
If so, none could have envisioned it to come in a such a reckless manner.
This is not a new subject, of course. In 1976 authors Morton Mintz
and Jerry S. Cohen attempted to gain back power to the American citizens in their lengthy “Power Inc.”, which
detailed the difficulty of trusting governing to the wealthy elite. They forecasted the attempted 2021 presidential power
grab by pointing out gaps in the constitution that allow a strongman figure in the Executive branch and accurately predicted
that lobbying and the legalized corruption of the super-rich buying off politicians would continue to threaten our democracy.
“Concentrated economic power lies at the core of much
of the unrest, injustice, and unresponsive government that besets us. Until it is removed, we can fiddle with this and that,
but true progress will elude us... Diffusion of power is and must remain a foremost goal. If significant or concentrated power
cannot be reliably diffused, broken up, checked and balanced, or restrained by a putatively sovereign electorate, what can
be done?”
Larry Sabato reported back in 1985 a quote
by Fred Wertheimer, president of Common Cause in 1983: “Alarming, Outrageous. Downright dangerous. That’s the
only way to begin to describe the threat posed by the torrents of special interest campaign cash being offered up to our Representatives
and Senators by the special interest political action committees. This democracy-threatening trend must be stopped.”
Justification for PACs was also reported by Sabato. Patrick
J. Buchanan wrote in 1983, In Defense of PACs (Richmond Times Dispatch), “Destroy the PACs and you constrict the voice
of small business, and restrict the political access of the millions who support them __ enhancing the clout of Big Media,
Big Business, Big Labor and their ilk who can afford the maintain permanent lobbying representation in Washington.”
To ensure that his political pals got their slice of the pie, President Ronald
Reagan complained directly to business leaders before the 1978 election about the proportion of PAC funds being given to Democrats:
“I don’t think the Republican party has received the kind of financial support from corporate PACs that its record
deserves. . . . The best thing you can hope for by following [a split-giving] policy is that the alligator will eat you last.”
Here we are years later facing the same daunting questions, while the ruling
oligarchy has stripped the financial fortitude of the middle class, reducing it to less than a third of what it was then.
By having the power and the assertiveness to wield it, Reich
calls out the ruling elite class. He addresses the oligarchy directly, calling them “hidden bullies” crashing
up against democracy itself. He singles out individual actors and criticizes their ignorance or indifference to the depth
of dysfunction and resentment that has resulted from a diminished middle class. The bottom 90 percent are diverted from these
realities by being deceived into seeing Immigrants, African Americans, Latinos, Muslims among others as scapegoats for their
loss of status.
The nation is dividing into warring cultural
tribes as witnessed in Washington on January 6, 2021. Americans who are angry and suspicious of one another will fight over
crumbs rather than join together against those who have run off with most of the pie. This racism and xenophobia fueled by
the president drew an “astounding silence” from the vast majority of CEOs because “a divide-and-conquer
strategy gives them more room to maneuver.”
Corruption
has become systemic, reaching deep into both political parties, with neither committed to challenging the increasing concentration
of wealth and power in America. Both have come to depend on that wealth and defer to that power. They are adept at creating
diversions. For instance, investigative journalist Greg Palast’s 2012 book, “Billionaires & Ballot Bandits”,
details the Koch Brothers’ influence behind the Newt Gingrich “Contract with America” which served to gain
the majority in the House of Representatives for the first time in a generation. They created a fake populist movement by
purporting “plutocracy” and fawning rhetoric that attacked the “elite” and even the “rich”.
While their Contract expressed a lofty purpose, their actions and legislation did not match up to those promises. By the time
the left wrestled back control of the House, much favorable legislation had already been written to tighten the oligarchy’s
hold on the power they coveted.
That was just
one example in a vicious cycle of political shenanigans and influence peddling detailed in Palast’s book, and touched
on by Reich. Reciting a 2014 study by Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page to determine from where influence on legislation comes,
Reich concluded: The preferences of the average American (voter) appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero statistically
non-significant impact on public policy. Lawmakers tend to listen to the policy demands of big businesses and wealthy individuals
--- those with the most lobbying powers and deepest pockets to bankroll campaigns and promote their views. This detailed analysis
of 1,799 policy issues used data from 1981 to 2002, well before Citizens United.
Several writers in recent years have accurately pronounced the death of the old left-versus-right, conservative-versus-liberal
dichotomy of political reality. It has been replaced by the many against the few. Dr. Naomi Wolf declares, “Many ordinary
citizens these days say that they don’t see much difference between the two major political parties.” Instead,
candidates are subject to coronation by special interest. “In reality, both are largely beholden, albeit in different
proportions, to the Big Six, the major special interests: what I call War Inc. (and its emerging major subsidiary, Fear Inc.,
or the global surveillance and security industry), Big Pharma, Big Insurance, Big Oil, Big Agriculture, and Wall Street. We
can probably add Big Incarceration to that list now. Smart voters realize that whatever their political beliefs, those who
don’t hold power in these major industries … are getting screwed.”
Those views were lifted from the introduction of the third edition of “What You Should Know
About Politics…But Don’t”, by Jessamyn Conrad. This very well-written “Non-Partisan Guide to the
Issues that Matter” lists possible solutions like Ranked Choice voting, which would allow for more moderate and broadly
popular winners to emerge, because many voters would get their second if not their first choice. But, “since
it would take politicians to change the law, it’s unlikely to happen because they are the ones who benefit.”
It is this plutocracy that perpetuates the status quo of an unfair (especially
to independent candidates) electoral structure that diminishes the chance of any improvement in our nominating process. I
have been an independent candidate for office numerous times. It has always been a tougher struggle to earn a ballot position
not being in the top two parties. Even getting petition signatures is difficult as people have the misguided perception that
we indies strip votes from the others.
One good thing did come from my 12 to16
hour days in the trenches over a period of two dozen years is that I can testify that the allegations of voter fraud –
which rarely produce any evidence let alone convictions – are just overblown rhetorical scare tactics largely perfected
by those trying to protect their reducing “white” or “rich” minority. Fear works, especially tactics
like anti-immigration. As Wolf explains, big party candidates can use this issue “to divide and distract the electorate
without burning up any real political capital with special interests.”
Many political scientists hypothesized that the power of big corporations and Wall Street was offset by the power of
labor unions, farm cooperatives, retailers, and small banks. Of course, in the last 40 years these “countervailing powers”
have disappeared.
Grass roots membership organizations have
wilted because people have less time since their wages have stagnated and most work more hours or two jobs in order to make
ends meet. Union membership has plunged because corporations bust unions by sending jobs overseas, replacing striking workers,
or firing those that try to form unions. Other centers of countervailing power - retailers, farm coops, local and regional
banks – lost ground to national discount chains, big agribusiness, and Wall Street.
The problem is not excessive greed (Wall Street), it is the excessive quest for power. Reich identifies
members of this oligarchy and one of their objectives as ending free-choice government by destabilizing the electoral system
and destroying the whole system of representative government. This was a profound foresight practically predicting the Trump
destabilization tactics during his final two months move to retain power.
Reich particularly calls out JP Morgan’s CEO, Jamie Dimon. What makes him complicit is his
determination to propel government relations - a polite phrase for influence peddling - as JP Morgan’s “seventh
line of business”. According to Reich, “Dimon has also built a formidable lobbying machine in Washington –
far larger than the lobbying machines of Wall Street’s other big banks – replete with politically connected former
congressional staffers who battle daily on behalf of JPMorgan in the halls of congress, administrative agencies, and the courts.
JPMorgan also keeps on hand a fleet of Washington lawyers, tax attorneys, political consultants, and public relations professionals.”
Multiply his efforts as chair of the Business Roundtable, an association of 192
other CEO’s of America’s biggest companies, and you’ll realize the outsized voice that they achieve in Washington.
Reich’s reflection on the palace guard is telling. They
are highly educated, with over 40 percent of Ivy League graduates ending up in finance, management consulting, and corporate
law. They achieve annual incomes of more than $1.3 million. The richest 10 percent own 80 percent of the stock market. They
tend to reside around DC, New York, or coastal California, with low crime rates, and the best public schools and amenities.
And they are overwhelmingly white. PEW Research reports these minority percentages among the SuperRich: Latino 2.4 percent;
African-American 1.9 percent; other minorities including Asian and multi-racial 8.8 percent.
Studies report that most of these super-rich individuals are socially liberal, but would not criticize
their pay source or seek to reduce its power. They favor diversity, inclusion, equal marriage rights, and more attention paid
to the environment. But they avoid questions of class and power and overlook the demise of democratic institutions, as long
as more women and blacks are elected.
It seems as though Reich is conceding that
they hold the power and that we the people could appeal to the elitists to create favorable legislation. The problem, as Reich
hammers home so copiously, is that they only seem to answer the financial bell. Their careers are dedicated to preserving
and defending the system and to helping the oligarchy aggregate even more wealth and power. Peter Fenn of the Center for Responsive
Politics was correct when he observed that “the root of the problem is not PACs, it’s money.
What was previously defined as corruption was redefined in the Citizens United vs FEC case. The
court now defined “corruption” to mean the exchange of specific money for specific votes --- in other words, it’s
only bribery if it’s specific and intentional. General contributions to an independent political committee, on top of
whole cadres of lawyers and lobbyists, make it easy for an entity that needs it least - Big Oil - to reap a benefit of $2.5
billion returned in favorable legislation and subsidies on $150 million invested. These are fully disclosed, yet the legality
or morality of it goes largely unchallenged, since everyone playing along can join the revolving door of ex-Congressmen and
Senators and their staffers who become high paid lobbyists. Reich adds, “Government will provide even more corporate
subsidies, bailouts, and loan guarantees. It will continue to eliminate protections for consumers, workers, and the environment.
It will become a government for, of, and by the oligarchy.”
Palast
offered a simple solution: transparency. If the law of the land declares corporations are people, then we have the right to
know which corporations are acting like people and which are buying elections and purging voters from the rolls. Or we can
demand an end to the fiction. Corporations are not people.
Right
up to the end of the single term Trump presidency, it was easy for the ruling class to execute a nearly flawless culture of
control. The Republican Administration looked the other way while the over-the-top Trump antics finally drove their joyride
into the ditch. According to Reich, social unrest and divisiveness stoked by the one-term president, right up to the bitter
end, only served their objectives by obfuscating what is really taking place. The bully-in-chief stoked division and tribalism
so most Americans wouldn’t see CEOs getting exorbitant pay while they’re slicing the pay of average workers, wouldn’t
pay attention to the giant tax cut that went to big corporations and the wealthy, and wouldn’t notice a boardroom culture
that tolerates financial conflicts of interest, insider trading, and the outright bribery of public officials through unlimited
campaign donations.
Stoking racial resentments, describing human
beings as illegal aliens, fueling hatred of immigrants, and spreading fears of communists and socialists collectively gave
the oligarchy freer rein: It distracted Americans from paying attention while the oligarchy is looting the nation, buying
off politicians, and silencing critics.
According to Reich, Independent-declaring
membership has grown to over 42%. This book, “The System”, may have had enough gravitas to swing a few undecided
voters in the transactional vote that dumped Trump.
With a propensity
for self-destruction, Trump knew how to keep everyone stirred up: vilify, disparage, denounce, defame, and accuse the other
side of conspiring against America, and do it continuously. Schooled in reality television and the New York City tabloids,
Trump dominated every news cycle. He even had enablers like Lou Dobbs, who played along by reporting on trumped up claims
of election fraud, then later had to debunk his own irresponsible claims due to lack of evidence.
Trump wasn’t interested in converting large numbers to a cause. His goal was cynicism, disruption,
and division. That way, he and the oligarchy behind him could rig the system and then complain loudly that the system is rigged,
and the 2020 election was stolen.
I give credit
to Reich for attempting to detail the A-Z of the current political divide, which “is not between Republicans and Democrats.
It’s between democracy and oligarchy. Hearing and using the same old labels prevents most people from noticing they’re
being shafted.” Americans must come to understand the system and where the status quo of concentrated power and privilege
are most entrenched. They must also comprehend the corrosive relationship between great wealth and great power.
Big money in politics helps them continue corporate welfare, crony capitalism,
expand monopolies, and suppress votes. It weakens any countervailing power that unions, employee-owned corporations, or worker
co-ops might use to generate grassroots politics. Lawmakers listen only to the policy demands of big business and wealthy
individuals using a cadre of corporate chiefs, their legal and financial consultants, and government relations staffers who
find willing enablers in the legislative bodies and the media. With enough distractions, the current president (Biden) will
aid and abet these actions in the guise of draining the swamp. If wealth continues to concentrate at the top, it will be impossible
to contain the corrupting influence of big money.
It seems Professor
Reich’s main solution is for millions to be organized and energized, not just for a particular election but to reclaim
democracy so an abundance of good policies are possible.
Reich seems
to be nicely asking Mr. Dimon (and associates) to sacrifice share prices and their own increased pay that’s tied to
it; sacrifice (with higher taxes) in order to allow communities that need the higher tax revenue to pay for schools, roads,
clean water, and social services. In other words, reduce their power by drafting legislation that binds
every major corporation to require seating worker representatives on their board of directors (similar to ideas forwarded
by Ralph Nader and associates in the early 1970s), mandate shares of stock for workers, recognize unions when the workforce
majority wants one, and give communities a say before corporations abandon town. Reich is also asking these quasi-legislators
to treat the environment as their largest stakeholder because after all, a bad environment is equally bad for stakeholders.
Personally, I am not moved by Professor Reich’s appeal
to Mr. Dimon and his Business Roundtable to engage in conscious actions and activities, since they are convinced that nothing
is wrong with the system. The stark reality is that these enablers do not consider themselves bought or bribed. Their greedy
pursuits are justified as they multiply dollars so they can then engage in great and wonderful philanthropic things. They
echo John D. Rockefeller’s declaration during the second period of oligarchy dominance, “having been endowed with
the gift I possess, I believe it is my duty to make money and still more money and to use the money I make for the good of
my fellow man according to the dictates of my conscience.”
Analogous
to an apology tour, Reich’s “fix” is nothing more than an appeal to their consciousness. Speculating that
individual members of this established ruling class would find consciousness and do the right thing seems more like a bitter
professor’s empty rallying cry. It merely reveals a lack of understanding of the how business works and what motivations
are necessary for the “businessman” to thrive.
I expected,
and could not agree more, that Reich would make an appeal for citizens to more actively participate, though this will be dramatically
slowed by the recent pandemic crisis. “Some believe we elect politicians so the rest of us don’t have to be actively
engaged in politics. Politics is their job. This view is plainly wrong.” Agreed, but asking people to suspend
activities like arguably “less important (than engaging in politics) – swimming, crossword puzzles, cards or cooking,
for example” was a reach. Especially with so many of us staying home, we do have to cook Professor.
Reich masks his distaste for third parties by almost rallying for them. “Unless one or both
of the two major parties in the United States moves away from the established centers of political and economic power, a new
party could unite the disaffected and anti-establishment elements of both major parties and give voice to the 90 percent of
Americans who have been losing ground.”
Reich cites polls
from 2017 and 2018 that show well over 57 percent of Americans want a third party. But he quickly dismisses any chance of
that happening, “The American political system discourages strong third parties through winner-take-all rules that squeeze
out insurgents, which is why third parties tend to drain off votes from the dominant party closest to them in ideology or
voter preference.”
This is the reminder of my previous disagreements
with the Professor, however this time he is not specifically accusing us independents as stealing votes which I criticized
him for doing over the last several political contests when the Greens had a viable, articulate candidate in Dr. Jill Stein.
The Democratic party’s regurgitation of the tired old excuses for losing elections being pinned on assertive actions
by third parties runs off true Independents. This is one Democratic lie that severs my attempt at building an alliance with
them, even if they do produce a worthy candidate. As my Green party allies state, “If you’re still a soldier in
the Red vs. Blue War, they’ve got you right where they want you.”
Back to the positives. We are grateful that Professor Reich is calling for “an active engagement and commitment
of vast numbers of Americans who are morally outraged by how far our economy and our democracy have strayed from our ideal
and are committed to move beyond outrage to real reform. Possession of and the fundamental ideal of a fair and just society
are/is gravely endangered – only protected by engaged citizens who know the truth and are willing to fight to reclaim
our democracy.
The way to overcome oligarchy is for the rest of us to join
together and win America back. This will require a multiracial, multiethnic coalition of working class, poor, and middle-class
Americans fighting for democracy and against concentrated power and privilege, determined to rid politics of big money, end
corporate welfare and crony capitalism, bust up monopolies, stop voter suppression, and strengthen the countervailing power
of labor unions, employee-owned corporations, worker cooperatives, state and local banks, and grassroots politics.
“The agenda is neither right nor left. It is the bedrock for everything
else America must do.”
Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich is not
an individual with whom I found much common ground over the years. Having served in a Democratic Administration, his well-publicized
rants against his political opponents were background noise. But “The System” was a very articulated version of
our present reality. It was written for all to be able to understand, and could serve as a stimulus to get the American public
reinterested in politics.
Back in 1922 Walter Lippmann argued that
the broad American public didn’t know or care much about public policy. Now however with the trumped-up divisions and
assault on the Capitol in January 2021, that part of our history should not be repeated.
Apple Vs The FBI vs a Suggestion
Apple was instructed by the FBI to build a version of IOS that would let the FBI install
that version on a terrorist’s phone enabling it to use a brute force method of pushing through every possible combination
of passwords into the phone until it unlocked the phone. The goal is to find out if there is anything of value to the
FBI’s investigation into a horrific terrorist act.
If Apple were
to comply with the order, it is important to note that there is no certainty that anything at all would be accomplished.
If the terrorists in possession of the phone used a variety of letters, numbers and symbols
in their password, it could take minutes (if very lucky) or years to uncover the pin and unlock the phone.
Even if they were able to unlock the phone, there is no assurance that any 3rd party applications
that the terrorists used were not still further encrypted and not defeat able. The FBI would be able to get into anything
hosted by Apple’s apps and systems, but not necessarily the 3rd party apps or systems. So while Apple has taken on
the responsibility of the first step, theirs is potentially not the last step.
All of this is moot right now because Apple has refused to comply with the order. Here is Apple’s response .
Here is my response to Apple’s refusal:
Amen. A standing ovation. They did the exact right thing by not complying
with the order. They are exactly right that this is a very, very slippery slope. And while the FBI is attempting to
be very clear that this is a one off request, there is no chance that it is. This will not be the last horrific event
whose possible resolution could be on a smart phone. There will be many government agencies that many times in the
future, point to Apples compliance as a precedent. Once this happens, we all roll down that slippery slope of
lost privacy together.
To those that say that Apple should comply, I say
this:
Every tool that protects our privacy and liberties against
oppression, tyranny, madmen and worse can often be used to take those very precious rights from us. But like we protect
our 2nd Amendment Right, we must not let some of the negatives stand in the way of all the positives. We must stand up for
our rights to free speech and liberty.
Speech can only
be free when it is protected. We are only free when we can say what we feel we must in any manner of private or public that
we choose. We have a right to protect our speech from those, domestic or otherwise, who may watch or monitor
us. Which is why encryption is vitally important to all of us.
If
you think its bad that we can’t crack the encryption of terrorists, it is far worse when those who would terrorize
us can use advanced tools to monitor our unencrypted conversations to plan their acts of terror.
I’m not being paranoid. Encryption is easy. It is like wearing a seatbelt in your
car. For years we didn’t. Then we did and it was smart. Encryption is a simple step that Apple and others have helped
us take to protect us. It’s not paranoia. It is smart.
Now back
to Apple. What I thought was particularly interesting about Apple’s letter to its customers was the opening it
left when it wrote:
“The implications of the government’s demands
are chilling. If the government can use the All Writs Act to make it easier to unlock
your iPhone, it would have the power to reach into anyone’s device to capture their data. The government could
extend this breach of privacy and demand that Apple build surveillance software to intercept your messages, access your
health records or financial data, track your location, or even access your phone’s microphone or camera without your
knowledge.
Opposing this order is not something we take lightly. We feel
we must speak up in the face of what we see as an overreach by the U.S. government.”
Apple is signaling to us that the real problem here is the use of the All Writs Act. According to this article on the All Writs Act:
“The
All Writs Act is only applicable if no statute, law or rule on the books to deal with the specific issue at hand.”
This of course makes the Act a catch all for anything for which there is no law. What
is the solution to this problem ? Pass a law that deals with this issue.
The issue is not Apple’s. It is not even the FBI’s. The issue is that as often happens, technology
speeds past our ability to adapt or create new laws that match the onslaught of daily technological change. Typically,
I am for fewer laws rather than more, but I’m also pragmatic. We should be asking our lawmakers to enact a law
that fits the need of this situation and situations like this so rather than being on an eternally slippery slope of privacy
violations hidden behind the All Writs Act, we have a law that will truly limit the circumstances where companies like Apple
can be compelled to help a government agency crack a device.
What I would
propose is this:
A company can only be compelled to remove any type of
security or encryption from a smartphone or tablet, and only a smartphone or tablet, under the following circumstances:
- There has been an event, with casualties, that has been declared an Act of Terrorism
- There is reason to believe that the smartphone was possessed by a participant in the Act
of Terrorism.
- The smartphone must have been on premise during the event.
- The terrorist who was in possession of the smartphone or tablet must be deceased.
It would seem to me that if such a law could be proposed and passed, then the All Writs Act would
no longer apply. By eliminating the All Writs Act as a catch all then we significantly flatten out the slippery slope.
I’m not saying we will completely eliminate all privacy issues. We won’t. I’m not saying there isn’t
risk of unintended consequences. There always are when we ask politicians to fix complex problems.
I’m also cognizant of the possible hypocrisy of saying that we need to protect our privacy
and liberty even when its painful and at the same time suggesting that we create a law that could reduce those protections.
And for the sake of discussion, let me give you a hypothetical to think about.
What if Apple had started a business that charged $100 to unbrick stolen phones
? Would anyone have complained ? No one but the most astute privacy advocates would even notice. No one in the general
public would care. No one would be talking about it or debating it. It would be a non-event.
Even so, this is not an easy topic and there are no easy solutions. But we
certainly learn more when we talk about it than when we shout about it. I’m hoping this blog post gets us talking.
As always, I’m happy to discuss on Cyber Dust at BlogMaverick
