Protests in Zimbabwe

Nice to see people standing up to Leviathan:

• Protesters take on Mugabe’s thugs (Times Online)

For those of you who came in late, Mugabe is driving Zimbabwe headfirst into the ground. He’s managed to keep the population in line with Orwellian police work, but has yet to realize that he can’t change the principles of economics with jackboots and truncheons. The above article sums it up nicely:

Inflation is estimated by bankers to be about 13,000% and a military-imposed campaign of price controls has left nothing on the shelves. As the economic crisis grows, police brutality, long a feature of the Mugabe regime, has worsened.

In a typical incident nine days ago, police descended on Nyaradzo funeral home in Harare and prevented a service taking place for 24-year-old Memory Jenaguri. Her home had been destroyed in Operation Murambatsvina (Drive Out the Filth), a government demolition campaign that began in 2005, and she had been living in the open for the past two years until dying of hunger. The police arrested all 60 mourners.

According to the article, however, people are getting upset en masse with Zimbabwe’s nonfunctional economy and abusive State. For example, when a Harare police officer tried to nightstick his way into a cheap taxi ride:

Someone from the crowd stepped forward and told the officer that what he was doing constituted “a human rights abuse” and he should stop.

Masamwi laughed and hit him too. The man again told him that what he was doing was wrong as there were hundreds of people waiting. This time the crowd joined in, turning on the policeman and beating him.

The officer called in riot police. They dispersed the crowd violently and arrested the taxi driver, who is still in jail two weeks later.

A few days after the incident, however, Masamwi received a legal summons. Then last week about 500 people gathered outside his police station to demonstrate. This protest was also broken up by riot police and 11 people were arrested, but the demonstrators returned the next day.

(Please note the writing’s strong, if workmanlike, structure and its forceful composition. This is how one ought to write!)

Bravo to the anonymous “man” and “crowd”.

When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, ‘This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,’ the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything–you can’t conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.
– Robert A. Heinlein

If you have nothing to hide, you have plenty to fear

Those of us who express reservations about ubiquitous surveillance and personal information-gathering are generally told that only those nasty criminals or nefarious terrorists have anything to fear from the evaporation of privacy. After all, we’re told, if we have nothing to hide, why should we hide at all?

This is why:

• Government Official Uses Homeland Security Data To Stalk Ex-Girlfriend (Jon Holato)

Benjamin Robinson, a 40-year old government agent from Oakland, CA within the Department of Commerce, has been charged with illegally accessing a Homeland Security Database in order to stalk his ex-girlfriend and her family. His indictment by a federal grand jury in San Jose this week was in connection with allegations that he accessed the Treasury Enforcement Communications System (TECS) over 163 times to track the woman’s movements.

The big fear is usually a Stasi-like police state (or, in the case of ubiquitous corporate data gathering, a William Gibson-esque megalocorporate plutocracy), but even the “little” fears like this one are plenty frightening enough. You may be willing to give up your privacy to “the Government”, trusting that it won’t really turn vicious and vindictive in your lifetime — but are you really willing to give up your privacy to every government bureaucrat, employee, and contractor? Are you willing to bet that not a single individual with access to your data will sell it to make a quick buck (or pay off a nagging debt), or store it on an unsecured (and easily stolen) laptop, or even use it to fuck with you for the sheer misanthropic power rush?

(Note to self: don’t date government employees.)

Related commentary at Donkelephant:

• But Hey, If You Don’t Have Anything To Hide….

Good news for a change

This is an unusual experience: I’m reporting good news.

• A Small Victory (The Liberty Papers)

To make a long story short: Paey received serious injuries in a car accident, his doctor prescribed pain medication, Paey moves to Florida, Paey could not find a doctor who would renew his prescriptions, Paey forges prescriptions to relieve his pain, Paey is arrested, convicted, and receives a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 ½ years.

[...]

Florida Governor Charlie Crist gave Richard Paey a full pardon—a development which went beyond his own legal team’s request to commute his sentence. Richard Paey was wheeled out of prison by a prison guard a free man with all of his civil rights restored!

It gets better:

”This is not a pleasant case,” said Attorney General Bill McCollum, who noted that he supported mandatory-minimum sentences when he was in Congress. “Our laws are very much to blame.”

There’s something you don’t see every day: a politician admitting that there’s something desperately wrong with the War on (Some) Drugs.

HOWTO: Snatch defeat from the jaws of victory

An interminable and unpopular war, dismal leadership, and scandal after sex scandal are destroying the Republican party as we’ve known it for the past fourteen years.  (Good riddance!)  Surely the Democrats can’t possibly lose the White House in 2008?  Surely they can’t possibly fail to gain a true majority in the Senate, and pad their existing majority in the House?

• Republicans More Happy With the “Democratic” Congress than Democrats (The Agonist)

The only thing the Dems have offered in the past year is “being not Republican”.  That was enough to get them parity in the Senate and a majority in the House, but it’s failing miserably now that they have a certain amount of power and steadfastly refuse to do anything decent with it.

While there are ways the Dems could, in theory, put pressure on Republicans to force the issue sooner, they aren’t going to do it, because a large group of them (including Reid for sure), don’t want to. It’s really that simple. Habeas corpus, or ending the war, just aren’t very important to them.

Both parties seem to be doing an outstanding job of alienating their grass-roots supporters, while the only “realistic” candidates on either side of the fence promise more of the same.  I predict record-low voter turnout in 2008, much wailing and gnashing of teeth about “low levels of civic involvement” (blaming the voters for the inadequacy of the candidates), and still more talk from the Murthas and Rangels about reinstating the draft to build “civic spirit”.

Is it the smoke or the smoking?

Okay, I stole that title from Reason Magazine:

• Is it the Smoke or the Smoking? (Reason)

Briefly: public smoking bans are ostensibly intended to promote public health, because second-hand smoke is pretty nasty shit.  Fair enough, but if properly-designed ventilation can whisk away tobacco smoke before it can be inhaled by non-smokers, shouldn’t businesses with said ventilation be permitted to permit smoking?

You don’t suppose that those who advocate public smoking bans don’t in fact give much of a shit about public health, do you?  It’s not particularly unreasonable merely to suspect that some of the most vocal proponents of a tobacco-free society are more interested in forcing other people to adhere to their own mores and standards than they are in, say, preventing lung cancer among waitstaff.  I find cigarette smoke disgusting, and I’m quite happy to be able to walk into just about any bar in the greater Vancouver area and not marinate in the stuff… but I have no problems with people wanting to smoke.  I just want them to smoke in a way that doesn’t involve me.  The problem, of course, is that some people do take issue with smokers, and insist upon imposing their own values upon anyone who dares to light up.

I should add that I haven’t always held this belief.  Maybe a decade ago, when I was younger, more zealous, and Marxist, I was a real dick about people smoking.  I figured that I was doing capital-g Good when I tut-tutted someone about inhaling high-temperature ash.  I’ve changed.

Now, there are reasonable grounds for society-in-general to punish people for smoking, or for otherwise unnecessarily endangering their health.  In a country with nationalized health care, every taxpayer gets dinged — ever so slightly — for every hospital visit, every carcinoma, every heart attack.  As such, it’s perfectly reasonable for those taxpayers who are paying for your health care — whether you (or they) want it or not — to ask you not to endanger yourself unnecessarily.  Of course, it’s unpopular to talk about public health issues this way, so most people don’t.

Besides, it’s much more fun to impose one’s own morality upon others.

This strong loonie we have

If you haven’t heard, the loonie is roughly equivalent to the greenback these days:

• $1 Cdn = $1 US (CBC.ca)

Now, some people — even those who purport to be responsible — will have you believe that the “strength” of the Canadian dollar is a clear and unmistakable indication that Canada’s economy is enviably strong. For example, this guy:

“It’s a hallmark of successful economies that they also have strong currencies,” Ross Healey, CEO of Strategic Analysis Corp., told CBC News.

Of course, there’s no such thing as a “strong currency”. Currencies are units of exchange, which have value only in relation to other things — in this case, the American dollar. Yes, the loonie is strong against the greenback, but claiming any sort of inherent “strength” from that one datum is irresponsible.

For example, the Canadian manufacturing sector is expected to suffer:

For Canadians, it makes for cheaper imports from the U.S. and cheaper vacations in the U.S. But for industries that sell most of their wares south of the border — manufacturers, lumber companies, auto-parts makers — it’s been a nightmare. They’re struggling to compete with a built-in 60-per-cent handicap, compared with five years ago.

That doesn’t sound quite as optimistic, now does it? Even our intrepid Finance Minister, who not too long ago crowed about the “strong Canadian dollar”, is having second thoughts:

• U.S. dollar ‘the real story’ behind soaring loonie, Flaherty says (CBC.ca)

Yeah, it turns out that it’s not so much that Canada’s economy is stronger as that the American economy is weaker. Shocking:

“The real story here is the rather dramatic decline in the U.S. currency in recent days and as a result of that the Canadian dollar is up significantly,” Flaherty told reporters in Ottawa.

[...]

[H]e did express concern about the weakening U.S. housing market and a credit crunch, which are partly responsible for the U.S. dollar’s decline and could signal an economic slowdown there.

“With respect to the U.S. housing market, this is a significant concern,” Flaherty said. “Our forestry industry and many of our manufacturers supply that market in the United States and it’s going through a difficult time.”

“We are a major exporter of automobiles. Most of the vehicles built in Canada are exported to the United States so we expect less demand there because of the difficulties in the U.S. economy and that will affect the Canadian economy,” he said.

(I think we’re a bit beyond the point of “could signal an economic slowdown” in the United States. Still, this is a politician speaking, and we should count ourselves fortunate that he’s come within visual range of the truth.)

I find it surprising that people can look at serious economic troubles in our biggest trading partner and see it as an indication that our economy’s doing well. Well, maybe not surprising, but certainly irritating. It’s blazingly obvious to me that, if the country that buys most of our exports gets into economic trouble, we should be worried.

Speaking of the blazingly obvious, Ron Paul (who else?) just bitch-slapped (U.S. Federal Reserve chairman) Bernanke:

• Bernanke Stumped by Representative Ron Paul (Minyanville)

Quoth Dr. Paul:

“I want to follow up on the discussion about moral hazard. I think we have a very narrow understanding about what moral hazard really is. Because I think moral hazard begins at the very moment that we create artificially low interest rates which we constantly do. And this is the reason people make mistakes. It isn’t because human nature causes us to make all these mistakes, but there is a normal reaction when interest rates are low that there will be overinvestment and malinvestment, excessive debt, and then there are consequences from this. My question is going to be around the subject of how can it ever be morally justifiable to deliberately depreciate the value of our currency?”

How indeed?

The surveillance state keeps doing its thing

About a month ago, Bruce Schneier pointed out that surveillance cameras don’t help solve crimes in San Francisco.  Unsurprisingly, the same is true in the world’s most spied-upon city: London.

• Tens of thousands of CCTV cameras, yet 80% of crimes unsolved (This Is London)

(Hat tip: Lew Rockwell dot com)

The theory behind the dubious notion that surveillance cameras can prevent crime is anchored in the assumption that criminals whose crimes are caught on camera are easier to catch.  Therefore, the reasoning goes, criminals who see cameras will refrain from crime, and we’ll all be happy and safe as long as we shelter under Leviathan’s watchful and unblinking eye.  However:

A comparison of the number of cameras in each London borough with the proportion of crimes solved there found that police are no more likely to catch offenders in areas with hundreds of cameras than in those with hardly any.

In fact, four out of five of the boroughs with the most cameras have a record of solving crime that is below average.

[...]

The figures appear to confirm earlier studies which have thrown doubt on the effectiveness of CCTV cameras.

A report by the criminal justice charity Nacro in 2002 concluded that the money spent on cameras would be better used on street lighting, which has been shown to cut crime by up to 20 per cent.

Shocking.

So, if cameras don’t deter crime, and don’t help police solve crimes, what are they good for?  I have a feeling that surveillance cameras are primarily a way for politicians to act like they’re doing something about crime (and, these days, “terrorism”).  You spend a big impressive chunk of (the taxpayers’) money on a surveillance camera network, get your name in the papers, and act as though you give a shit about public safety.  In that sense, surveillance cameras function precisely as designed: they give politicians a quick and easy way to spend money on “crime prevention”, which is apparently what the grass-eaters want out of Leviathan these days.

Meanwhile, on this side of the pond, the always-creepy Department of Homeland Security is tracking your reading material:

• U.S. Airport Screeners Are Watching What You Read (Wired)

International travelers concerned about being labeled a terrorist or drug runner by secret Homeland Security algorithms may want to be careful what books they read on the plane. Newly revealed records show the government is storing such information for years.

Privacy advocates obtained database records showing that the government routinely records the race of people pulled aside for extra screening as they enter the country, along with cursory answers given to U.S. border inspectors about their purpose in traveling. In one case, the records note Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder John Gilmore’s choice of reading material, and worry over the number of small flashlights he’d packed for the trip.

(Those small flashlights really freak people out, too.  I cannot fathom why.)

So now Big Brother’s tracking what we read on airplanes?  This “data mining” thing has moved beyond offensive into the realm of the perverse.  I find it difficult to believe that tracking passengers’ reading material gives the DHS any meaningful information; this is civil espionage for its own sake.  Covert surveillance and privacy violation have become reflexive.

Unfortunately, with Clinton and Giuliani leading their respective packs, I don’t see it coming to an end any time soon.

Habeas corpus and the dangers of government power

Remember how, about ten months ago, we all cheered when Joe Lieberman won his seat because he promised to caucus with the Democrats? Yeah, well, not so much:

• Lieberman Votes Against Habeas Corpus (Donklephant)

(Brilliant photo, by the way.)

Here’s what Lieberman has to say in his defence:

“If you’re a citizen of the United States, you’ve got a right to habeas,” he said. “If you’re not a citizen, and you’re declared an illegal enemy combatant and adjudicated to be so after one of these military tribunals, I don’t think you have a right to go to court on a habeas action. No more than German or Japanese POW during the Second World War would have a right to somehow find their way into court in America to appeal the conditions of their detention.”

Gardner’s response:

I know he’d say the same thing about me, but Joe just doesn’t get it. Neither do the Republican Senators who keep voting against restoring habeas corpus. Theirs is old thinking for old wars. This is a new war, and it’s about ideas. Why they don’t understand that is beyond me.

The War on Terror, like the War on (Some) Drugs, is a “war” without a victory condition. This “war” won’t end with a couple of nukes and a ceremony on the deck of a battleship, or with overloaded helicopters dripping humans onto the rooftops of a far-away city, or even with a grudging paranoid ceasefire across an increasingly fortified strip of “demilitarized” terrain. It will never end, because we don’t know how to end it. “We’re in it to win it”, but we have no idea what “winning” means. Appealing to WWII is deceptive. We’d better be willing to put up with any “special war powers” indefinitely.

Gardner quotes Claire McCaskill on this point:

“When they say ‘enemy combatants,’ what they’re really saying is anyone accused of terrorism anywhere in the world from now on and that is very open-ended,” said McCaskill Tuesday. “And that is why I think it is important that we re-establish habeas corpus.”

(emphasis added)

When was the last time your government gave up power?  In Canada, the income tax was originally imposed to finance the First World War.  Somehow, it didn’t disappear after 1918, and by the time the Second World War came around, the federal government was taking most of its income from that “temporary war measure”.  It’s no use blaming any particular Prime Minister, government, or party, either: every PM and every government has had a chance to repeal the tax, and has conspicuously failed to do so.

The same can be said for the GST.  Ever since Mulroney introduced the damn thing back in 1991, every government has promised to get rid of it… at least until the votes were counted.  Those of us living in the Great White North will notice that we still have a federal GST.

Here’s a thought experiment for any Republicans reading my blog: suppose your favourite horror-movie Democrat (probably Clinton, but Edwards makes me almost as nervous) gets elected with habeas corpus still suspended.  Do you really want to give that much power to someone whose policies and inclinations you fear so much?  (I’m picking on the Republicans here because I trust that Democrats are already properly frightened by the prospect of a federal government without habeas corpus — although given the way they tend to idolize Lincoln I probably shouldn’t take that for granted.)

Government power is like nuclear waste without a half-life: it never goes away by itself.  If you give your favourite benevolent ideologically-correct government all the power it needs to do whatever you want it to do (except, perhaps, get the hell out of your way), that power will still be there when your heroes get voted out of office and replaced with people you hate and fear.  Power given to the populist will be inherited by the tyrant.

A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.

– Barry Goldwater