Update no.633

Update from the Heartland

No.633

27.1.14 – 2.2.14

Blog version:  http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/

To all,

Update from the Heartland, edition no.633, has been posted at:

http://heartlandupdate.blogspot.com/

Visit Cap’s website:

http://www.parlier.com

– for the latest information about his writing – published & unpublished.

The follow-up news items:

-- Attorney General Holder announced the government’s approval for federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty against accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev [592].  I expect the prosecutors to do their job well and the jury to convict him of his crimes.

After the Edward Snowden betrayal [599], President Obama created and charged the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies (PRG-ICT) to carry out an independent review of the United States Government (USG) intelligence and communications systems as well as information handling.  The review group issued its report last December [627, 628], before the two relevant federal district courts cases:

Klayman v. Obama [USDC DC Civ. 13-0851, 13-0881 (RJL)] [630], and
ACLU v. Clapper [USDC NY SD 13 Civ. 3994 (WHP) (2013)] [632].

The 300-page PRG-ICT report took longer than expected to get through as kernels of information branched off into more research.  The PRG-ICT made 46 specific recommendations on a wide variety of related issues.  NOTE: My use of the third-person plural pronoun “they” refers to the PRG-ICT.

            Rather than assess, summarize or dissect the report, some broad impressions from my perspective might be useful for discussion topics. 

            Perhaps, the PRG-ICT report is either incomplete as a prima facie unclassified document, or I am misreading the words offered; however, the report suggests an apparent naïveté regarding national security intelligence operations that presents a serious flaw in the PRG-ICT effort.

            No consideration of the collector’s processes, risks or consequences.  While not the mandate of the PRG-ICT, they could have (and in my opinion, should have) at least recognized the extraordinary difficulty intelligence operatives and analysts have to find the needle-in-the-haystack before it can prick any American or Allied citizen.  We cannot know what we do not know, or as Donald Rumsfeld so succinctly labeled the unknown-unknowns.  We must consistently, persistently and perpetually search for little bits of disassociated information that when placed in proximity to other bits begin to construct an image to either sound alarms or focus other more definitive collection assets at determination, i.e., make the unknown-unknowns into known-unknowns for more concentrated reconnaissance.  As I read the PRG-ICT report, they seem to focus on the known-unknown and subsequent part of the intelligence process.  They at least gave us an appropriate acknowledgment analogy, comparing “‘the task of stopping’ the next terrorist attack ‘to a goalie in a soccer game who must stop every shot,’ for if the enemy ‘scores a single goal,’ the terrorists succeed. To make matters worse, ‘the goalie cannot see the ball—it is invisible. So are the players—he doesn’t know how many there are, or where they are, or what they look like.’  Indeed, the invisible players might shoot the ball ‘from the front of the goal, or from the back, or from some other direction—the goalie just doesn’t know.’”  As daunting as the collection-analysis process is, the PRG-ICT recommends we make the process exponentially more complex and difficult by adding lawyers, regulation and bureaucracy that will blindfold the goalie, and place a lawyer holding one hand and a bureaucrat holding the other hand.  The PRG-ICT addresses the management-supervision elements, while virtually ignoring the operational consequences of their recommendations.

            Chapter IV and Recommendations 12 through 15 seek to extend U.S. constitutional protections to non-citizens worldwide as the noble and proper thing for the United States to do . . . essentially to treat all people worldwide as if they were U.S. citizens.  They are indeed correct; such magnanimity is generous and quite idealistic, much like Rodney King’s famous pronouncement.  Unfortunately, the United States has no law enforcement or prosecutorial authority beyond its borders, and realism must temper such blatant idealism.  Then again, perhaps Chapter IV was meant more for foreign consumption than domestic legislation.

            A good example of the conflict between idealism and realism appears in Recommendation 28 and the Public Interest Advocate to the FISA Court (FISC).  Prima facie, this recommendation suggests an advocate be injected into the FISC application assessment and that actually makes sense in our system of justice.  Yet, the FISC is not a prosecutorial facility within our Article III judicial system; it is more akin to a judicial warrant review and issuance process.  To make FISC more judicially bureaucratic may assuage some of our apprehension regarding the NSA electronic surveillance programs, but they will not serve the interest of national security.  Further and sadly, the PRG-ICT felt the need to inject political partisanship into the selection of FISC judges in their rationale, so that we can make this very important national intelligence debate as politically polarized and calcified as the moribund legislative fiasco we have endured for too long.

            Idealism is nice and sweet as a philosophical discussion topic . . . not so much as the practical ethos in a world with bad people intend on doing harm to others for their self-aggrandizement and egocentric megalomania.  We live in a real world, not some idealized utopia.

            The PRG-ICT gave us a good, thought-provoking view of a critical element of the question that does in fact touch us all – Internet freedom and proliferation.  Commerce depends upon freedom and market security.  They note numerous national efforts to isolate segments of the Internet or localize server support.  Like so many other aspects of this broad question, such actions will complicate the NSA’s mission and ultimately will diminish our security.

            The pervasive tone of the report seems to hold a presumption that leaks are a natural occurrence . . . with five million people granted clearances and access.  They acknowledge the differentiation between military and civilian intelligence and information control processes.  The PRG-ICT makes no reference to the recent violators; Bradley (Chelsea) Manning was a smaller version of Edward Snowden; leaks can occur in both military and civilian segments of classified intelligence information control.  The problem of classified information control is the same for both systems.  Regardless, we cannot lose sight of the fact that the lives of citizens depend upon the efficacy of our Intelligence Community (IC).  We need the IC to have to tools to be successful and reduce the hobbles of the goalie noted above.

            The PRG-ICT waited until Chapter VIII – the last chapter – to address the event that created the review group and the need for their assessment, in the first place.  They do not discuss the Snowden betrayal (perhaps because the investigation is still open, or perhaps like me not wanting to give him any more print than he has already garnered) other than a “major incident” at the hands of a “disloyal employee” [understatement, if you ask me].  They touched upon the access and handling of classified material, but only indirectly illuminated the root access of IT contractors that apparently allowed Snowden extraordinary, unprecedented and unchecked access to highly classified, sensitive and compartmented, national security information.  I do not understand why the PRG-ICT avoided the elephant in the room during their assessment; they just did.

            We are creating an atmosphere, environment and tone for the warfighters and IC that essentially demands a bevy of lawyers accompany them to ensure compliance with the mounting regulatory burden they must operate under in an operational world that is far more complex, interwoven, dirty and indistinguishable than any prior time in human history.  While we must find some semblance of balance between personal freedom (a citizen’s fundamental right to privacy) and national security interests, we must resist this growing penchant for regulatory oversight and seek the means to control, filter and digest highly sensitive intelligence information.

            At the bottom line, the PRG-ICT investigation and report is a worthy effort and result, despite my misgivings noted above.  In conclusion, I am left with one stark, overarching take-away – more bureaucracy is NOT the answer!

President Obama delivered his constitutionally mandated (Article II, Section 3) State of the Union (SOTU) address.  I did not find it to be particularly inspiring.  The most notable element was the President’s recognition of Sergeant First Class Cory Remsburg, USA, who was gravely wounded during his 10^th deployment to the Middle East as a Ranger.  The tone of the speech was indeed more confrontational, as if to show his frustration with the partisan political quagmire that Congress has become.  Surprisingly, the President said he could not tolerate intransigence anymore, and he intended to go it on his own without legislation, using executive orders to get things done.  From the debate forum standpoint, the first direct action in his SOTU speech was to raise the minimum wage for federal contracts to US$10.10 per hour.  The President’s statement reopened a favorite topic of mine.

            We love to define poverty by money, as if money will solve everything.  I have long maintained that money does not establish quality of life.  I have always rejected that particular metric as defining poverty.  In all such questions, I invariably ask, where do we draw the line?  OK, so the President has determined that US$7.25 is not adequate for a low-skill, entry level job; it is below the poverty level – another arbitrary threshold some bunch of someones has determined is an acceptable standard of living.  I ask, why not $20 per hour, or $50, or $1000?  Where do we draw the line?  Indigenous tribes have no money, and yet their standard of living is pretty good; they live within their means; they do not have many if any material possessions.  My father’s favorite job to malign someone – the proverbial ditch digger – has little skill and no responsibility; yet somehow, we have convinced ourselves the ditch digger should own his own home, have a TV, an iPhone, and an automobile because those are material things we consider essential to life.  Further, we cannot possibly comprehend the reality that there are some folks who are quite content to game the system; they are also quite content to have Uncle Sugar handle life’s responsibilities and burdens for them, so they can do more important stuff.  Lastly, Mister President, we are paying that federal contractor’s minimum wage, not you.  So, I ask, why is US$10.10 per hour the correct wage to pay someone with low-skill and no job responsibilities?

Wouldn’t you just know it!  Two recent, federal, district court rulings have apparently put the fear in the hearts of socially repressive legislators here in Kansas, despite the fact the Supremes issued a stay to the judge’s order [630] in the Kitchen case, to hear the appeals.

Kitchen v. Herbert [USDC UT CD case 2:13-cv-00217-RJS (2013)] [629]

Bishop v. Oklahoma [USDC OK ND no. 04-CV-848-TCK-TLW] [631]

On 5.April.2005, the voters of Kansas passed Proposed Amendment 1 by 70% to 30% that became the 16^th Amendment to the state constitution and prohibited the recognition of any form of marriage other than monogamous heterosexual marriage.  Both Utah and Oklahoma are in the jurisdiction of the 10^th Circuit Court of Appeals as is Kansas.  The Kansas House of Representatives may well see the train-a-comin’, and is considering HB 2453 – Protecting religious freedom regarding marriage.  If the bill makes it through the legislature, Governor Brownback would undoubtedly sign it, as this sort of thing is right up his alley.  Ostensibly, the bill would protect any business that refuses to serve anyone they believe are involved in or associated with same-sex marriage or couples, and presumably non-heterosexual citizens in general, based on their religious objection(s).  I would not expect a clearly discriminatory bill to make it very far in most reasonable states, but here is Kansas, these things are possible.  Regardless, I cannot believe any bill like HB 2453 could withstand constitutional scrutiny; bills like HB 2453 are moral projection, plain and simple.  I object!

President Obama intends to nominate Vice Admiral Michael S. Rogers, USN, currently Commander 10^th Fleet – the U.S. Fleet Cyber Command – to replace General Keith Brian Alexander, USA, USMA 1974, as Director National Security Agency (NSA).

News from the economic front:

-- The British Office for National Statistics reported the country’s economy grew 0.7% in 4Q2013, down from a 0.8% expansion rate in the two prior quarters.  The stumbling results may strengthen policy makers' resolve to keep stimulus flowing to encourage further growth.

-- The U.S. Federal Reserve reduced its monthly asset purchases by another US$10B to US$65B in Chairman Ben Bernanke’s final meeting.  The move offers no respite to countries such as Turkey and South Africa that have raised interest rates in an effort to stabilize their currencies.

-- The Commerce Department reported the U.S. economy grew at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.2% in 4Q2013, which yielded a full year growth rate of 1.9% for all of 2013, as consumers spent more, and businesses increased investments, marking one of the best six-month periods of growth in a decade.

Comments and contributions from Update no.632:

Comment to the Blog:

“I am not surprised that USIS stands accused of flawed investigations, but that might apply to any of the verification services I had contact with in a former job. USIS a bit more perhaps, but professionalism is hard to come by in that business.

“You note the difference between the two decisions regarding the NSA's spying on Americans is the concern about abuse versus the law as passed. (The “facts” come from one of the parties and are therefore subject to doubt.) It seems obvious, given your needle-in-the-haystack analogy that is supported by proponents of NSA power, that more cases of abuse will occur than detections of alleged terrorists. We must await Supreme Court decisions before we can debate the implications of such decisions, assuming we are permitted to continue such debates.

“According to a news report that I cannot attribute right now, Virginia's former Governor McDonnell is the first Virginia Chief Executive to be indicted in a criminal matter, which places Virginia behind several other states in criminality. I do not recall New Jersey's history, but we can go back through history in all parties and understand that Governor Christie's troubles are nothing new.

“I fail to understand why Naval Academy graduates would be expected to meet a higher standard than, say, Yale alumni. (“The dark side”? Interesting choice of phrasing.)

“I find it hard to believe that Governor Christie's problems will last until 2016, as much as I would like to see the Republican Party divide itself over them. Fortunately for progressives, they are finding other ways. The Arizona GOP has censured Senator McCain, the Tea Party will offer a separate rebuttal to the State of the Union message from the “mainstream” Republicans, and Rand Paul will add his own viewpoint on that. By the time the dust settles, the Republicans will be out of power.”

My response to the Blog:

            Re: USIS.  I suspect they will be looking for other business soon, or closing down operations.

            Re: NSA court cases.  Those two recent cases were at the district court level.  They must grind their way through the respective Appeals Courts, and then if the Supremes see a constitutional issue and/or disparity between the two appeals court rulings, then we might have the Supremes weigh in.  That process could take several years, unless someone makes the argument successfully for an expedited sequence.  I suspect we are a long way from the Supremes passing judgment.

            No matter how hard we try, “politicians” and “corruption” appear to be inseparable and mutually inclusive terms.  The real clue is always, does a politician accumulate wealth in office?  Public service is not, or rather should not be, about self-aggrandizement.

            The service academies have required ethics classes and have a heavy emphasis on moral integrity.  Yet, as you note, no matter how good the training, there are always bad apples in every population that believe morality does not apply to them, only to other schmucks like me.

            The political forces at play will ensure the Christie problems will be a slow bleed for maximum penalty to the Republican Party.  I watched the President’s State of the Union speech.  I have not yet watched the opposition response, and Rand Paul’s perspective is a rather distant objective.

Cheers,

Cap

 . . . follow-up comments:

“The Christie mess has accelerated. Apparently a former Bridge Authority official has turned on him, and CBS News' anchor stated tonight (1/31/2014) that Christie has been "thrown under the bus." I have no way of reading the minds in charge of the Republican Party, but I see their best course as getting this over as quickly as may be. If not, Democrats get a big advantage in 2014 and potentially into the Presidential year of 2016.

“The rest of these topics are perennial or long-term. The NSA cases, for example, could be affected by whether Obama or his successor get an opportunity to appoint Supreme Court justices. 

“Political corruption has been with the United States since its inception. Any solution to that would involve important changes based on some methods showing success elsewhere. I really doubt that a truly novel approach will ever be accepted here, but advocates who can point to some cleaner government elsewhere might find an audience. 

“Banking and investment remain prone to the issues surrounding any human beings entrusted with large amounts of money. My school also has mandatory ethics instruction, and I suspect most do nowadays. Obligating undergraduates to think about ethics for a semester will not counteract the lure of millions of dollars a few years later. I had hopes that the classes might help, but the evidence is against it.

“Finally, we will never run out of things to talk about on this or any blog that follows politics.”

 . . . my follow-up response:

            Re: Christie.  Numerous news sources reported claims of documents that directly link the governor to the GWB fiasco.  I’m sure the Republican Party, or at least the Christie supporters within the Republican Party, want the GWB problem resolved quickly – either way – get it done.  The Democrats want to stretch this out to maximize the pain – this is bare-knuckles, blood sport politics; for Democrats, a two-year investigation and a 2016 impeachment would do just nicely.

            Re: topics.  We are rarely in want of topics to discuss or debate.

            Re: political corruption.  Like most of our freedoms, if not all, we walk a very fine line between rights and boundaries.  The only realistic approach is layered penalties for transgressions and some form of oversight.  Humanity is flawed by definition, and morality is a very private matter – what someone does when no one is watching.  Morality is taught and learned in childhood, not something a person acquires in adulthood.  All the more reasons why are votes must be cast with due diligence, deliberation and purpose, and we must find the will to hold parents accountable.

            Re: ethics.  I’m glad to hear your school requires ethics classes.  As noted above, ethics like morality are learned in childhood.  Bad people will do bad things no matter what classes they take.

            We always have plenty to talk about in this humble forum.

My very best wishes to all.  Take care of yourselves and each other.

Cheers,

Cap                        :-)