FISA Court's Chief Judge: I'm Not a Rubber Stamp

The United States' FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court) institution is an American judicial anomaly. Its principal role is to evaluate and rule on federal government requests to snoop on "suspected" terrorists and other clear and present dangers to this country.  The case, the evidence, and the rulings are secret. Only Department of Justice attorneys may present a case; no other attorney or representative is permitted. Judging from recent revelations about the American surveillance state, it seemed FISA played the matador to the Justice Department's bull.

Not so, claimed FISA's presiding judge Reggie B. Walton, as The Washington Post reported in today's online edition. In a letter Walton sent to Senate Judiciary Committee members Patrick Leahy (D) and Charles Grassley (R), he asserted FISA sent nearly one in four requests back to the Justice Department for "substantive changes." (For more on Walton's judicial background, you should explore his official biography, posted on the US District Court for the District of Columbia's website.)

FISA judge Reggie B. Walton

That left three of four either requiring a lower degree of modification or no change at all. That means the DOJ legal team is batting .750 on its requests to spy on alleged political bad actors. Included in that .750 average is a FISA ruling approving the sweeping collection of Americans' phone records. That was the haystack, as the NSA characterized the massive data grab, security teams needed to create in order to find a terrorist needle. If that notion seemed like a good idea to a FISA judge, one wonders about the content or intent of the rejected DOJ motions.

Meanwhile, a declassified 2009 ruling sheds some light on the surveillance state's assault on privacy. As the Post story noted:

...Walton scolded the government for repeated violations of court orders and falsely assuring the court it was following required steps to protect Americans' privacy.

General Keith Alexander

Privacy procedures "have been so frequently and systematically violated that it can be fairly said that this critical element of the overall [phone records] regime has never fully functioned effectively," Walton wrote. He added that the explanation of the misunderstanding of the court's order by Gen. Keith Alexander, NSA's director, "strains credulity."

NSA Chief Rips Media's Coverage of Surveillance Flaps

General Keith Alexander
(Image: abcnews.go.com)

NSA boss General Keith Alexander didn't get the memo about the federal government's shutdown. He's still on duty; I salute him for that action (no pun intended). America's Chief Surveillance Officer (CSO) did find time today to deliver a public speech to the Telecommunications Industry Association about the media's coverage of recent revelations about the NSA's surveillance efforts. The story appeared in today's online editions of The Washington Post.

His address to the collected telecom insiders repeated the NSA mantra about "damage" to the nation's security and how the media mismanaged reporting the spy agency's virtuous labors on behalf of freedom everywhere. Alexander, who also runs the military's Cyber Command, said somehow the nation would manage despite Edward Snowden's information about the extent of NSA snooping on ordinary American citizens. He noted l'affaire Snowden caused an erosion of trust, notably in the very industries the NSA has assiduously courted and, at times, strong armed. That's a fair point.

NYPD Surveillance Camera

However, Alexander did not allude to the increasing mistrust some Americans have toward allegedly "benign" surveillance. Then again, America's CSO doesn't have a profound desire for informed citizens to ponder what the NSA has wrought. He must have the insiders to buy into the "needs" of the surveillance state. He certainly does not want the extent of America's military-technology complex openly considered by a thoughtful electorate. Those industrial-governmental relationships were the heart of Snowden's revelations. I doubt General Alexander will be making any speeches on that topic in the near future.

Do You Trust "Sell By" Dates?

Image: Marybeth Feutz/agricultured.org

My supermarket adventures include some uneducated guesswork about how fresh the food is. My wife, who uses dairy products in her coffee, asks me to find the cream, half-and-half, or milk with the latest available "sell by" date. We take the plunge and assume the stated date is reasonably close to a sort of "truth in packaging" claim.

After reading today's Washington Post story on "sell by" dates, I may reconsider that belief. The piece, largely based on findings in a Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic report, asserts that the United States' "sell by" information is so wildly inconsistent that one cannot rely upon it. At the heart of the issue is the lack of a uniform, national "sell by" code. Instead, each state has created its own rendition of "sell by." The messy result leads to confusion and waste.

Rather than trust sell dates, I trust my senses. My nose, my eyes, and my tongue remain superb guides to the merits of items prone to spoilage. They don't yet have end dates.

Baratunde Thurston's Internet "Detox"

Baratunde Thurston

Creating an online recollection of one's detox "vacation" from the digital world takes a combination of imagination, chutzpah, and time. The writer Baratunde Thurston produced such a work, which appeared in fastcompany.com and is featured in recent editions of The Washington Post.

It would be easy to pick apart the inconsistencies in Thurston's approach, such as having a "chief of staff" handle his timely professional contingencies during his sabbatical. How many mere mortals have the equivalent of an industry valet? In fairness, he's aware of them and does consider them in his entertaining piece. What's far more interesting is his discovery of the difficulty fully disconnecting from the digital networks. Thurston discovered that the principal social media firms make adieu from their data empires nearly impossible to execute. This awareness seems much more ironic now, in the wake of our sense of the depths of data mining undertaken by the military-technology complex (to restate Dwight Eisenhower's famous characterization).

Thurston's story embraces plenty of wit, a warm sense of humanity, and self-awareness that's mostly refreshing and occasionally promotional. You should read it before you decide to unplug, either temporarily or permanently.

Justice Dept to Apple: Open iPhone and iPad to Amazon.com apps

The Washington Post reported that a recent US District Court ruling against Apple has opened the legal door for the Amazon-friendly Department of Justice and a majority of the nation's state attorneys-general to make commercial demands on the late Steve Jobs' company. The government's brief included demands that Apple open its e-book store to competitors' links. This is supposedly being done so that consumers can have access to "competitive pricing."

However, the Feds' Amazon-friendly lawyers didn't stop there. The demand expands the judge's intent to include any digitial and print content, including video, streaming movies, printed books, and music. It's clear that the DOJ's demand, as Apple attorneys noted, goes well beyond the district court's ruling. The DOJ's broadside's impact obviously benefits Amazon, under the guise of "helping consumers." The Justice Department brief did not mention the data collection Amazon and others would be able to reap as a result of opening Apple's walled shopping garden. There's money -- big money -- in the data, as Amazon has amply demonstrated. I suppose the DOJ was absent from that presentation.

The story, unsurprisingly, was reported on a slow news summer Friday. Most media outlets, including Silicon Valley and Seattle outlets, played down the story's implications, with the The New York Times' ho-hum account of the episode doing the light lifting for many mainstream publications. The irony is that Amazon has experienced a fabulous week with Barack Obama and friends, and no one really wants to ask why.

Here's this week's Obama Administration-Amazon scorecard:

• President Obama visits an Amazon warehouse, touting its $11/hour jobs as an entry point to the middle-class. The story gets national coverage.
• POTUS 44 offers Amazon a one-on-one interview exclusive.
• The interview is available for free via amazon.com as an "Amazon Single". (Does anyone think it's available at Apple or Barnes & Noble?)
• The DOJ hammers Apple's content merchandising advantage and essentially demands that Apple accept becoming a free gateway and data collector for Amazon sales.

If Mitt Romney or George W. Bush had shown such blatant favortism to a corporation, liberals would have screamed. They're notably silent on the Amazon issue, perhaps because they're addicted to shiny Kindles.

Again, I ask the question: Why is President Obama and his administration so tight with Jeff Bezos' Amazon?

FAA Plans Six Domestic Test Sites for Drones

Someone who invested in drone manufacture must be very happy these days. The unmanned flying devices, once the military's newest and quite effective toy, has become embraced by domestic law enforcement constituencies, corporate interests, and institutional users. The demand for drones is so hot that the FAA is ready to open the gates to widespread use in the United States.

According to a report in The Washington Post, the federal agency has requested permission to open a half-dozen drone test sites across the country. Apparently, the FAA plan is to have states compete for the "honor" of housing a drone test site.

Drone prototype/United Kingdom
(photo and related video: guardian.co.uk)

The Post article notes the enormous amount of money behind the "must have a drone" movement. "Industry experts," the Post observed, "predict the takeoff of a multibillion-dollar market for civilian drones as soon as the FAA completes regulations to make sure they don't pose a safety hazard to other aircraft."

The FAA has supposedly cared about individual privacy in this matter, including a stipulation that each test center follow relevant federal and state laws "and make a privacy policy publicly available."

That tricky tray of regulations and good intentions is unlikely to offer a great deal of tangible privacy. In the meantime, people will experience a continued erosion of their privacy. What happens, for example, when a tabloid hires a drone to photograph celebrities? Or a private detective agency rents some time to document the movements of a suspect? Or a social media firm decides to provide "real time" images from public areas, such as a sports stadium? (Air rights could become a significant legal issue in those cases.) While one could argue the FAA would simply deny access to sensitive or high-profile venues, one could also suggest that everything has a price. What would you pay for drone-free privacy?

Olympic Committee Recommends Dropping Wrestling from 2020 Summer Games

You don't have to follow legitimate wrestling or the Olympic Games to cry "foul" over the International  Olympic Committee's (IOC) executive committee's recent recommendation to drop the sport from the 2020 Summer Games. That's right: the sport associated with the original, ancient Greek Olympics is going to be dumped. This action, and its indefensible rationale, has generated worldwide condemnation. The IOC managed to pin a truly worldwide sport to the mat of TV popularity and commercial endorsement.

Antique Greek Cup Showing Athletes
(photo: British Museum)

Wrestling's advocates in the United States have quickly published op-ed articles, interviews, and other publicity initiatives protesting the IOC's outrageous decision. A Bloomberg video segment with Fortress Investment Group principal Michael Novogratz articulates the case against the IOC's decision. Among the printed, high-profile opinion pieces was one former Secretary of Defense (and Princeton University wrestler) Donald Rumsfeld published in The Washington Post.

Rumsfeld mentions that his athletic activity helped develop his ways of thinking and his character. He has considerable company in that line of reasoning. When I was a pre-teen, I had what today are called "self-esteem" issues. I had just failed a junior life-saving program that, along with other disastrous life changes, brought my self-confidence down to zero. My father thought one way to reverse that trend was to take boxing lessons at a private, somewhat privileged neighborhood athletic club. However, one look at boxing and I wanted out. I thought my chances of getting slugged in the ring were far greater than any punishment I could deliver. Wrestling seemed a safer play.

The wrestling lessons were taught by the boxing instructor, a short man who could argue with either his wits or his fists. My usual opponent was an age peer who lived in the neighborhood, but didn't fit the prosperous area's demographic profile. He lived in an apartment above some shops. He was raised by a single mother and I believe went to public school. Both circumstances were unusual for a 7th grade Catholic kid in Forest Hills at that time. He was a better wrestler than I was, and he was quicker and stronger than I was.

There was a public competition at the athletic club; my usual nemesis and I were names on the wrestling card. This time, I beat the odds, mostly by using a defensive strategy. My opponent never really displayed what he could do, and I won. Did I feel good about the victory? No. I didn't really win as much as avoided defeat. Much more significantly, I felt badly for my opponent. The result clearly hammered his self-confidence. I felt guilty that happened. How would his life have changed had he performed as he had practiced? As a consequence of his defeat, was he destined to be trapped in a world where he always ended up on the wrong side of the tracks, the losing end of an argument, the runner-up in a two-person race?

Clarissa Mei Ling Chun
US Female Olympic Wrestler
Bronze Medal/London 2012 Olympic Games
(photo: Reuters, and shown in the Christian Science Monitor)

I realize people overcome disappointment, and that is as much character building (maybe even more so) as the cult of winning fosters. Meanwhile, the experiences and lessons from my brief encounter with wrestling have stayed with me for a lifetime. They have done so for others, from august American cabinet ministers to anonymous athletes from obscure nations. They have done so for centuries. Why the International Olympic Committee chose to drop wrestling from its 2020 Games defies common sense and global experience.