C-Span video here. Is legislation adjusting the Espionage Act necessary to deal with the ease at which secrets can be made public?
- ReadWriteWeb.
Showing posts with label government secrets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label government secrets. Show all posts
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Friday, December 10, 2010
The World Post-Wikileaks
A discussion in the NYT:
In the tempest that has followed the release of a trove of secret government files by WikiLeaks, officials and security experts are trying to figure out how to stop such a large-scale breach from happening again.
While Julian Assange, the Wikileaks founder, defended publication of the documents as a victory for openness, national security officials see a dangerous precedent.
Even if WikiLeaks itself can be controlled, have the gates opened to a flood of similar enterprises and even more damaging disclosures?
Perhaps it was inevitable that once the web was developed it would be impossible to keep secrets anymore.
- Wikileak's War on Secrecy.
In the tempest that has followed the release of a trove of secret government files by WikiLeaks, officials and security experts are trying to figure out how to stop such a large-scale breach from happening again.
While Julian Assange, the Wikileaks founder, defended publication of the documents as a victory for openness, national security officials see a dangerous precedent.
Even if WikiLeaks itself can be controlled, have the gates opened to a flood of similar enterprises and even more damaging disclosures?
Perhaps it was inevitable that once the web was developed it would be impossible to keep secrets anymore.
- Wikileak's War on Secrecy.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Sunday, October 18, 2009
The Holy Trinity: Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and JPMorgan
Frank Rich argues that little has been done to reform the financial system which continues to enjoy the fruits of the bailout:
The first stab at corrective legislation emerging from Barney Frank’s Financial Services Committee in the House is porous. While unregulated derivatives remain the biggest potential systemic threat to the world’s economy, Frank said that “the great majority” of businesses that use derivatives would not be covered under his committee’s much-amended bill. It’s also an open question whether the administration’s proposed consumer agency to protect Americans from mortgage and credit-card outrages will survive the banking lobby’s attempts to eviscerate it. As that bill stands now, more than 98 percent of America’s banks — mainly community banks, representing 20 percent of deposits — would be shielded from the new agency’s supervision.
If it’s too early to pronounce these embryonic efforts at financial reform a failure, it’s hard to muster great hope. As the economics commentator Jeff Madrick points out in The New York Review of Books, the American public is still owed “a clear account of the financial events of the last two years and of who, if anyone, is seriously to blame.” Without that, there will be neither the comprehensive policy framework nor the political will to change anything.
The only investigation in town is a bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission created by Congress in May. It is still hiring staff. Its 10 members are dispersed throughout the country, and, according to a spokeswoman, have contemplated only a half-dozen public sessions over the next year. Such a panel, led by the former California state treasurer Phil Angelides, seems highly unlikely to match Congress’s Depression-era Pecora commission. That investigation was driven by a prosecutor whose relentless fact-finding riveted the country and gave birth to the Securities and Exchange Commission, among other New Deal reforms. Last week, we learned that the current S.E.C. has hired a former Goldman hand as the chief operating officer of its enforcement unit.
As with similar reform efforts, the collective strength of the affected interests make the efforts difficult. Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and JPMorgan may be the tail that wags the dog. This fits comfortably with our discussion of agency capture and iron triangles.
The first stab at corrective legislation emerging from Barney Frank’s Financial Services Committee in the House is porous. While unregulated derivatives remain the biggest potential systemic threat to the world’s economy, Frank said that “the great majority” of businesses that use derivatives would not be covered under his committee’s much-amended bill. It’s also an open question whether the administration’s proposed consumer agency to protect Americans from mortgage and credit-card outrages will survive the banking lobby’s attempts to eviscerate it. As that bill stands now, more than 98 percent of America’s banks — mainly community banks, representing 20 percent of deposits — would be shielded from the new agency’s supervision.
If it’s too early to pronounce these embryonic efforts at financial reform a failure, it’s hard to muster great hope. As the economics commentator Jeff Madrick points out in The New York Review of Books, the American public is still owed “a clear account of the financial events of the last two years and of who, if anyone, is seriously to blame.” Without that, there will be neither the comprehensive policy framework nor the political will to change anything.
The only investigation in town is a bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission created by Congress in May. It is still hiring staff. Its 10 members are dispersed throughout the country, and, according to a spokeswoman, have contemplated only a half-dozen public sessions over the next year. Such a panel, led by the former California state treasurer Phil Angelides, seems highly unlikely to match Congress’s Depression-era Pecora commission. That investigation was driven by a prosecutor whose relentless fact-finding riveted the country and gave birth to the Securities and Exchange Commission, among other New Deal reforms. Last week, we learned that the current S.E.C. has hired a former Goldman hand as the chief operating officer of its enforcement unit.
As with similar reform efforts, the collective strength of the affected interests make the efforts difficult. Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and JPMorgan may be the tail that wags the dog. This fits comfortably with our discussion of agency capture and iron triangles.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Torture and the Marketplace of Ideas
While discussing the marketplace ideas in my 2301 classes, and the related question regarding whether certain topics should be off the table, a debate was ignited over releasing the memos covering just how torture policy was carried out in recent years.
Some wonder whether it is appropriate to even discuss this at all, which suggests that some believe that torture -- whether it should be done, how it should be done and how effective it might be -- should not be part of the marketplace of ideas.
Here's what I think is a neat summary of the dilemma:
Had the torture debate been fully engaged when the Bush team was making the decisions it made in 2001-02, I think it is plausible that the political process would have produced a consensus that would have been far more sympathetic to the Bush position than the present day consensus appears to be. At a minimum, it would have made it impossible for Congressional Democrats to claim, as they implausibly do now, that despite all the briefings they received they just can't remember coming down one way or the other on the issue.
The Bush team erred by not grounding the policy more firmly in the bedrock of the political process that the Framers identified for contentious issues -- namely, in involving Congress and the public -- and, instead, by relying on the penumbra of the Commander-in-chief clause. We non-lawyers have learned one thing from the abortion debate: The penumbra is a lousy place to park contentious issues.
I predict that, for better or worse, the political framework will be the decisive one going forward. At this point, debates about the legal or ethical arguments are probably impossibly entangled with political questions. And, should the larger worm turn -- should the terrorists succeed in launching another attack on the United States -- then I would not be surprised to see the political debate shift dramatically again.
At the center of this debate, it seems to me, is the question whether American can sensible and effectively discuss certain issues. Another question of course is whether elected leaders want to public to discuss certain things. How much of what government does ought to be secret?
Some wonder whether it is appropriate to even discuss this at all, which suggests that some believe that torture -- whether it should be done, how it should be done and how effective it might be -- should not be part of the marketplace of ideas.
Here's what I think is a neat summary of the dilemma:
Had the torture debate been fully engaged when the Bush team was making the decisions it made in 2001-02, I think it is plausible that the political process would have produced a consensus that would have been far more sympathetic to the Bush position than the present day consensus appears to be. At a minimum, it would have made it impossible for Congressional Democrats to claim, as they implausibly do now, that despite all the briefings they received they just can't remember coming down one way or the other on the issue.
The Bush team erred by not grounding the policy more firmly in the bedrock of the political process that the Framers identified for contentious issues -- namely, in involving Congress and the public -- and, instead, by relying on the penumbra of the Commander-in-chief clause. We non-lawyers have learned one thing from the abortion debate: The penumbra is a lousy place to park contentious issues.
I predict that, for better or worse, the political framework will be the decisive one going forward. At this point, debates about the legal or ethical arguments are probably impossibly entangled with political questions. And, should the larger worm turn -- should the terrorists succeed in launching another attack on the United States -- then I would not be surprised to see the political debate shift dramatically again.
At the center of this debate, it seems to me, is the question whether American can sensible and effectively discuss certain issues. Another question of course is whether elected leaders want to public to discuss certain things. How much of what government does ought to be secret?
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