Politics: A new beginning

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by sgtclub
The fact that the government COULD in theory see what books I'm checking out of the library is but an insignificant concern.

I dunno, that pisses me off really a lot. I, for one, would certainly read books on bomb-making or miscellaneous urban-hostility-tactics purely out of curiosity, which I consider to be a good thing. (OK, also out of some latent "come the apocalypse I need to be able to fend for myself against gangs of cannibal mutants" tendencies I got growing up in the Patch.)

I can always ... buy the book (which would help the economy as well)

Check first for a security camera, and remember to pay cash.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
Well, just as one example, allowance for individual discretion resulted in highly disparate criminal sentencing based on race. That was the prime driver for the "anti-discretion" movement, but there are other examples, too. Point is, the only way to get rid of "discretion" is to substitute a complex, usually arcane, often thought-up-by-idiots explicit set of rules/procedures/criteria. It's the mindless imposition of those rules that usually gets called out as an example of bureaucratic stupidity, but, in reality, if you can't use discretion, you're going to have to deal with rules that can't possibly be made to fit nicely into every situation.

I have got to cut down on the anchovy pizza and Kool-Ade before bed, because I'm having this awful flashback to the first year of law school.

I understand the tension between rules and discretion. When a system based on discretion is working poorly, you can substitute rules. Or, you can try to improve the quality of those making the discretionary judgments. With the war on terrorism, I say we do the latter.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Yes. There is a list. Actually, there are several. CAPPS II, the program that was announced yesterday, has not been implemented yet. However, the TSA admitted as early as January 2003, that there is a watch list, and people with similar names to individuals on that list were subject to intense scrutiny before getting on board any airplane. In July 2003, pursuant to an FOIA request by the ACLU, the TSA released documents that confirmed that there were two lists: a "no fly" list and a "selectee" list. Airlines could not transport anyone on the no fly list and more intense scrutiny was required for anyone on the selectee list. See http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/Safe...ID=12740&c=206 for more information.

this list is if your name matches the name of a known terrorist, burger was talking about a list that uses profiling. you see the difference don't you? I mean we are allowed to search all Osama Bin Ladin that get on a US plane, aren't we?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
I dunno, that pisses me off really a lot. I, for one, would certainly read books on bomb-making or miscellaneous urban-hostility-tactics purely out of curiosity, which I consider to be a good thing. (OK, also out of some latent "come the apocalypse I need to be able to fend for myself against gangs of cannibal mutants" tendencies I got growing up in the Patch.)

It occurs to me that a lot of the concern about the erosion of individual privacy rights has as much to do with the pace of technological change and improvements in information technology as it does with the specific leaders we have. It's just a lot easier to locate and compile information about people now than it used to be.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Or, you can try to improve the quality of those making the discretionary judgments.

Does this mean smarter people? Or, people who are philosophically more to your liking?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Watchtower
that article RT found. So, Mr. Chianski, the list that doesn't exist happens to be 88 pages long?

You don't need me as your enemy, I'm trying to ease you into the board. By the wat, why so many new liberals? where is the newest fluffy?
Second, I didn't say the list didn't exist. You don't need to put words into my mouth that never came out- we already have a SAM. I simply asked for the list.
And so far everything mentioned has disappeared as a puff of smoke. I do not intend to comb 88 pages, when your Highlights are vapid. Politics board protocol requires you to summarize articles for the more well-accepted socks until you win an argument here decisively. No offense, but you are hopefully up to speed on your summarization skills if you intend to stay.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
It's just a lot easier to locate and compile information about people now than it used to be.

OTOH, it's also a lot easier to download a complete copy of The Anarchist's Cookbook. (Hint: when your seventh-grader asks, innocently, where one can buy saltpeter, check his web cookies.)

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
I have got to cut down on the anchovy pizza and Kool-Ade before bed, because I'm having this awful flashback to the first year of law school.

you should have accepted the invitation to attend ave maria school of law. you'd see better.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
Does this mean smarter people? Or, people who are philosophically more to your liking?

The former, you dope. I'm not talking about at Ashcroft's level, I'm talking about the people in the airport. This has nothing to do with their philosophy, although now that you mention it perhaps we ought to hire them only if they can explain Nietzsche. I want security in the airports to be talking to people getting on planes, asking odd questions and trusting their instincts to identify the people to really scrutinize. This is what the Israelis do, and they seem to have their shit together. Better that than having a bunch of know-nothings staring at shoes going through the x-ray machines. I trust those processes to do absolutely nothing.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
S_A_M and Burger and I agree on almost everything, but I say it angry-like.

btw, I notice extreme similarity between two SF socks in posts on infirm lately. There aren't that many of you really are there, or at least one less?

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
The former, you dope. I'm not talking about at Ashcroft's level, I'm talking about the people in the airport. This has nothing to do with their philosophy, although now that you mention it perhaps we ought to hire them only if they can explain Nietzsche. I want security in the airports to be talking to people getting on planes, asking odd questions and trusting their instincts to identify the people to really scrutinize. This is what the Israelis do, and they seem to have their shit together. Better that than having a bunch of know-nothings staring at shoes going through the x-ray machines. I trust those processes to do absolutely nothing.

What I meant was, do you want people who might be more suspicious of other people based on national origin? I'm guessing some would answer this by saying that national origin should mean nothing, that it is the "individual" circumstances which should be acted upon with discretion. (This example may not be clear, as such people would also fail in the "not smarter" category in my mind.)

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Uh, if it was "all about utility," we wouldn't need a Constitution in the first place.*

*I gather you would make a very special exception for 5Ad regulatory takings cases.

Uh, what do you think happens in practice under our constitution? Let's see Constitution says congress shall make NO law re free speech. Judges say this doesn't mean NO if utility calculation comes out right.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
What I meant was, do you want people who might be more suspicious of other people based on national origin? I'm guessing some would answer this by saying that national origin should mean nothing, that it is the "individual" circumstances which should be acted upon with discretion. (This example may not be clear, as such people would also fail in the "not smarter" category in my mind.)

I'm saying that we need smarter, better-trained people making the decisions, and you're talking about the rules they follow. I don't want them to categorically ignore ethnic or national origin. But focusing on it would not have caught Richard Reid, or Jose Padilla.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
I'm saying that we need smarter, better-trained people making the decisions, and you're talking about the rules they follow.

No, I'm just trying to make sure that "smarter" doesn't mean "follows Ty's rules". I would make NO rule concerning "no profiling". I would actually go for the "discretion" idea - I'm just doubting that others would unless the no-rules situation clearly encompassed some rules. Er, "understandings".

On another note, O'Neil is backtracking fast:

"He described the reaction to Suskind's book as a "red meat frenzy" and said people should read his comments in context, particularly about the Iraq war.

"People are trying to say that I said the president was planning war in Iraq early in the administration. Actually there was a continuation of work that had been going on in the Clinton administration with the notion that there needed to be a regime change in Iraq."

What surprised him, said O'Neill, was how much priority was given to Iraq by the president.

Asked about comments he did not believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the main reason cited for going to war, O'Neill said he never saw "concrete evidence" of such weapons.

"I think the fact that we have not found them makes the point. But that doesn't make the point that we should not have got rid of Saddam Hussein."

Asked about his comment that during Cabinet meetings Bush was like "a blind man in a room full of deaf people," O'Neill said he regretted some of the language he used to describe his former boss.

"If I could take it back, I would take it back. It has become the controversial centerpiece."

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=4117963

Didn't this exact same backtracking happen last time Susskind (sp?) wrote a semi-ghosted tell-all?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
Didn't this exact same backtracking happen last time Susskind (sp?) wrote a semi-ghosted tell-all?

Yes. Notably, he's regretting the tone, but not saying he was incorrect. Much like the last time Suskind got a former Bush official to talk.

Joe Conason:

• By the close of business on Monday, Dec. 2, there seemed almost perfect agreement between White House press secretary Ari Fleischer and John DiIulio, the former director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Both were advising everyone, in almost identical wording, to pay no attention to the troubling tales about the Bush administration that Mr. DiIulio had told writer Ron Suskind for the January issue of Esquire.
  
  The sequence of events during that day gave off an extraordinary Orwellian odor, as if the loquacious Mr. DiIulio had been subjected to a swift but thorough course of Republican thought-reform. The news cycle began with a story in The New York Times previewing Mr. Suskind's long, engrossing investigation of how Karl Rove and his minions grind out policy sausage in the West Wing.
  
  The paper reported that Mr. DiIulio had nicknamed the White House boss and his minions the "Mayberry Machiavellis." He had given Mr. Suskind a vivid, detailed view of the political evisceration of domestic policy; the intellectual vacuum on the President's staff; the absolute authority of the fearsome Mr. Rove; the dominating influence of the "religious right and libertarians"; and, in short, the Bush administration's failure to achieve anything of significance on the home front.
  
  That morning, Mr. DiIulio made matters slightly worse when the University of Pennsylvania, where he is a professor of political science, issued a brief statement on his behalf. He apologized for any hurt feelings and quibbled with two minor errors, but affirmed the Esquire story's substance.
  
  The White House quickly reasserted its will to control the news. At his noon briefing, Mr. Fleischer crisply informed the press corps that "any suggestion that the White House makes decisions that are not based on sound policy reasons is baseless and groundless." Although Helen Thomas tried to press the issue, the questioning instantly reverted to Iraq, where Mr. Fleischer wanted it. He did reveal, however, that Mr. DiIulio "has spoken with officials in the office--the faith-based office, and talked with them."
  
  Within less than two hours, another release emerged from the Penn press office: "John DiIulio agrees that his criticisms were groundless and baseless due to poorly chosen words and examples. He sincerely apologizes and is deeply remorseful." He promised never again to discuss or write about his frustrating experiences in the White House.
  
  Can we now put all this behind us and forget we glimpsed that man behind the curtain? Not this time.
  
  When a former government official is interviewed, and later retracts or denies what he or she said, that may create a reasonable doubt about a story. Frustrated people sometimes speak in haste and say things that may be inaccurate. Misunderstandings and misquotes happen too often. That's what the White House claimed when Mr. Suskind's last Esquire article appeared in July, with candid quotes from chief of staff Andrew Card about his fear that the departure of Presidential counselor Karen Hughes would mean unchecked power for Mr. Rove.
  
  But Mr. DiIulio did more than speak candidly with Mr. Suskind over a period of months. In late October, after mulling over their conversations, he sat down and wrote a seven-page, nearly 3,000-word letter that began with the words "For/On the Record." (Its full text can be found at www.Esquire.com.) The devastating remarks and anecdotes faithfully quoted from that letter in the Suskind article were not ill-considered quips delivered on a barstool. They were the written recollections and reflections of a widely published and quite conservative academic.
  
  Nor is Mr. Suskind a writer "with a notorious reputation"--as Robert Novak quickly said in attempting to discredit him--unless the 1995 Pulitzer Prize he won for feature writing at The Wall Street Journal lent him a certain notoriety for skill, accuracy and polished prose. For all its negative aspects, his portrait of the Bush White House is nuanced and painstakingly fair. He quotes Mr. DiIulio at length on the finer qualities of George W. Bush. And he opens with a charming sketch of Mr. Rove putting up Christmas decorations with a group of children at the home of a former Clinton aide.
  
  Consider for a moment how the national press corps would have treated such a story from within the Clinton White House in December 1994. They habitually gave far more attention and credibility to material of far less substance during the eight years of that administration. And there is no way that Mike McCurry or Joe Lockhart would have been able to shut down questioning about an article like Mr. Suskind's as curtly as Mr. Fleischer did.
  
  Then consider, after reading the Esquire article, which will soon appear on newsstands, what the press apparently cannot report (and probably doesn't know) about the inner machinations of the Bush White House. The new occupants have changed the tone, indeed: It's either happy talk or dead silence.