Why Does The Author's Guild Refuse To Even Acknowledge Views Of Authors Who Disagree With It?

from the they're-not-representing-authors dept

Could the organization calling itself the "Authors Guild" (from its behavior, better understood as a lobbying arm for big publishing houses) get more fearful and brittle? In response to a typically lopsided AG blog post yesterday, in which the Author's Guild mentioned, but failed to link to, a petition in favor of low ebook prices and fair wages for authors, I left the following comment:

For anyone inclined to consider thoughts a bit less hidebound than those of the "Authors Guild," here are a few good posts:

• More Preston Nonsense
• Authors United? I Wish It Were So
• Amazon/Hachette -- The Sounds of Silence
• Konrath and Eisler vs Richard Russo: The Sequel

Not for the first time, my comment didn't make it past the censor moderator. Why? Did I use obscene language? Insult anyone? Engage in unacceptably trollish behavior? Or did I simply link to a few posts that offer opposing viewpoints? It's funny, I write about the AG, and former president Scott Turow, and AG pitchman Richard Russo, and Douglas Preston's self-serving anti-Amazon efforts fairly regularly. And I always link to, and extensively quote from, anything I'm discussing. Not just because I want my readers to be able to make up their own minds. Not just because I have some integrity. But also because I want people to see exactly what the AG and its legacy-publishing shills are saying. Their positions are so illogical, so self-contradictory, and so self-serving that I believe the more light I can shine on them, the better people will understand what the AG and its people are really about.

But when an organization tries to conceal what its critics are saying, it's fair to surmise that something else is driving its behavior. And I don't know what that thing could be other than fear of contrary opinions the organization senses are more compelling than the organization's propaganda. Because really, what can you say about an organization so brittle, so insular, so fearful... that it won't even permit a few contrary links in a comment section? What can you say about an organization calling itself an "Authors Guild"... that censors the voices of authors whose opinions it doesn't like?

Filed Under: books, fear, publishing
Companies: amazon, authors guild, hachette

UK Home Secretary: UK Isn't A Surveillance State... And I'd Give You Proof, But You Might All Die Because Of It

from the oh-do-shut-up dept

Theresa May, the UK's Home Secretary has hit back after the UK's Director General of the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism, Charles Farr, revealed how the UK believes it can spy on all "external" communications without a warrant and that it's definition of "external" was pretty close to "everything" (and that's only a slight exaggeration). May's response might be summarized as denying everything and insisting that if the UK government revealed any details, everyone might die. First up, the denial:

"Some people have alleged that GCHQ is exploiting a technical loophole in legislation that allows them to intercept external communications - that is, communications either sent or received outside the UK - at will and without authorisation. This is... nonsense."

Okay, so perhaps you could reveal more details about what GCHQ is actually doing and whether or not it's actually got any purpose towards national security? Oh, sorry, that would be "helping the terrorists win" of course:

But Mrs May warned that it would be "cavalier and reckless" to let the public know details of which terrorist plots had been thwarted by the security services.

"Considerable" threats to UK security were developing with the emergence of militant group Isis, the collapse of Syria, the activities of Boko Haram in Nigeria, and the "expanding scope" of cyber crime, the home secretary said.

In other words: FUD FUD FUD, be afraid!!! Oh, and of course, in her mind, she'd actually prefer it if the UK were even more of a surveillance state:

She concluded by renewing a call to change the law to hand the security services more powers to scrutinise online communication

She's specifically discussing the so-called Snooper's Charter, which has been soundly rejected by both the public and other politicians, but which her party still wants... because they're scared of fictional TV crime dramas (that's not a joke).

I'm sorry, but this continuing game of "we're not spying on you... but we need more powers to spy on you because FEAR FEAR FEAR... and we can't give you any evidence because you all might die" is getting rather tired.

Filed Under: fear, fud, gchq, surveillance, surveillance state, theresa may, uk

General Keith Alexander Is An Opportunistic Coward

from the shielded-in-shame dept

In all that we've written about General Keith Alexander, former chief guy at the NSA who has overseen the most egregious overreach in domestic spying American history, we've learned a great deal about him. For instance, we know logic eludes him, after he insisted that we need more spying because current spying is encouraging terrorism. We also know he doesn't give a damn about the whole freedom of the press thing, what with his support for press gag orders. And we know he's a man of limited imagination, having told Congress he just can't think of any other way to keep you and I safe without the NSA's massive surveillance programs.

You know what else Keith Alexander is? A coward. I say that absolutely knowing that I'll probably get killed in the comments for suggesting a man who signed up to serve the public, serve in the military, and serve in intelligence is a coward. Well to hell with anyone who suggests you can't call a man who serves a coward. Where were all of you when Edward Snowden was getting lambasted in the exact same way? Still, accusing a man like Alexander of cowardice requires an explanation. Get yourself started by watching this clip of his appearance on CNN.

"It's going to get more dangerous. I would rather be sitting here in the hot seat defending what we're doing than sitting here in the hot seat after a terrorist attack and you asking me 'how did we fail the country?' It's a bad place out there. They're trying to kill us. These are some of the tools. If you take away some of the tools, it is my assessment after forty years in the business, and today is my fortieth anniversary in joining the army, it is my assessment that it is going to get tougher. And these leaks have hurt us. They will get tougher."

Okay, let's get the obvious out of the way. All this harm that has supposedly been done by Snowden's leaks turns out to be smoke and mirrors, as far as what the government is willing to prove is concerned. Now that that's out of the way, perhaps unlike some of my colleagues here, I too believe there is a very real danger from international terrorism. That said, a blanket statement about how bad things are and how "they" are trying to kill us is about as useful as a rectum on a houseplant. Nobody is arguing that there isn't at least some degree of danger, the argument is over how far we're willing to let our government go to protect the liberty at which they're chipping away, nevermind the way we comport ourselves as a member of the international community.

But it's the first part of that statement that really pisses me off and it's that same part that reveals the cowardice inside Alexander. This constant hint-dropping of how much more difficult it is to prevent the next domestic terrorist attack now that the public is aware of the massive surveillance program is a pretty clear attempt at innoculation of responsibility. It's as if these spy chiefs looked at the damning of public officials that occurred after 9/11 (far too little of it, in my opinion) and decided to shield themselves from possible future criticism by proactively blaming Snowden's leaks for forthcoming attacks. Read another way, his hot seat comment reads to say: if sometime in the future, thousands of Americans end up dead in an attack, don't come blame us, you took our tools away from us.

For me, it's hard to imagine a more cowardly statement. Is Alexander so afraid to face potential failure that he would scapegoat someone who, at the very least, thought he was doing his patriotic duty? Would he have the intelligence community sidestep their responsibility simply because the public now recognizes the NSA's overreach? Would he cast off his duty simply because sunlight has finally marked his underground lair?

That kind of chess-piece positioning isn't the act of a patriot. It isn't the act of a hero. It's the act of a coward, which is exactly what General Keith Alexander is, and I'm happy to treat him like one. After all, the brave thing to do is to understand that freedom comes with danger and to bear that danger gratefully and willingly.

Filed Under: danger, fear, fud, keith alexander, threats

NJ Gov. Chris Christie: Opposing NSA Surveillance Is A 'Strain Of Very Dangerous Thought'

from the because-protecting-civil-liberties-is-like-hugging-terrorists dept

New Jersey governor Chris Christie may be looking forward to a possible presidential run in 2016, which would at least partially explain his broadside attack on Justin Amash (of the "defund the NSA amendment") and Rand Paul and their "strain of libertarianism" that's now threatening established American institutions like domestic spying and fighting Wars on Stuff.

Christie invoked an old standby to criticize recent legislative activity like the narrow defeat of Amash's amendment and Rep. Rush Holt's recently introduced bill to repeal the PATRIOT Act.

“As a former prosecutor who was appointed by President George W. Bush on Sept. 10, 2001, I just want us to be really cautious, because this strain of libertarianism that’s going through both parties right now and making big headlines, I think, is a very dangerous thought,” Christie said.

Asked whether he includes Paul — a fellow potential 2016 presidential candidate — in his criticism, Christie didn’t back down.

“You can name any one of them that’s engaged in this,” he said. “I want them to come to New Jersey and sit across from the widows and the orphans and have that conversation. … I’m very nervous about the direction this is moving in.”

Christie went on to characterize these debates as "esoteric" and "amnesiac."

“I think what we as a country have to decide is: Do we have amnesia? Because I don’t,” he said. “And I remember what we felt like on Sept. 12, 2001.”

For starters, debates pertaining to the rights of millions of Americans are hardly "inside baseball," indicating Christie isn't familiar with the definition of the term he chose to deploy. As for being "amnesiac," Christie might be best served with a blow to the head to jog his memory -- many aspects of these programs were in place pre-9/11. The 9/11 attacks ushered in the PATRIOT Act, something hurriedly passed with bipartisan support. Now that the bipartisan movement (a.k.a. "strain of libertarianism") is moving in the opposite direction, Christie suddenly feels this sort of cooperation is "dangerous."

But the most depressing part of Christie's rant is how completely rote the argument is, as Gene Healy at Reason points out:

[H]aven't the arguments for unrestrained spying gotten any better over the last 11 years? Talk to the "widows and orphans," visualize a smoking crater, and write a blank check to the Security-Industrial Complex?

At some point during any discussion of the NSA's programs, defenders invoke an attack that wasn't prevented and/or attacks theoretically prevented by this surveillance. Very occasionally another attack that wasn't prevented is dragged into the mix (the Boston bombing), its rare appearance largely due to the fact that all of these programs failed to prevent the sort of terrorist attack we're always being told the programs are in place to prevent.

Continually going back to the "9/11" well does very little to push the "discussion" forward. Defenders of the surveillance state obviously prefer it this way. If the discussion moves forward, the shortcomings of the programs are revealed and the abuses uncovered are left without a credible defense. Justifying future abuse using a past tragedy is nothing more than baldfaced attempts to guilt the public (and their representatives) into exchanging more liberty for security.

At this point, defenders like Christie are taking on the appearance of Sally Struthers stand-ins, dragging victims of terrorist attacks through smoking ruins, asking members of the public to donate some of their "excess" privacy in order to "ensure" a future free of further attacks. Obama has said he "welcomes" a debate on these issues, but then slams the door by calling legislative efforts like Amash's counterproductive. Other politicians running flack for the national security agencies have made no such overtures, but tellingly, their reactions and justifications are largely the same.

This "strain of libertarianism" doesn't threaten anything more than the growth of government and its intrusion into everyday lives of American. The fact that it has gone unchecked for so long is what's actually "dangerous," to use Christie's words. To derail the discussion by continually invoking 9/11 is nothing more than a cheap form a manipulation.

Filed Under: 9/11, chris christie, civil liberties, fear, libertarians, nsa surveillance

TIME/CNN Poll Shows Increasing Number Of Americans Won't Give Up Civil Liberties To Fight Terrorism

from the the-government-can't-give-you-safety,-but-it-can-take-your-rights dept

When discussing NYPD Police Chief Ray Kelly's assertion that "privacy is off the table" as a result of the Boston bombing, I mentioned I hadn't heard any public outcry demanding the government and law enforcement step in and do something (i.e., curtail civil liberties) in response to the tragedy. The responses we were seeing seemed to be nothing more than legislators and law enforcement officials pushing their own agendas.

This isn't just me not hearing what I don't want to hear. There's actual data available that explains the lack of concerned noises from Americans. A CNN/TIME poll shows that nearly two-thirds of Americans aren't interested in sacrificing rights to combat terrorism.

When given a choice, 61 percent of Americans say they are more concerned about the government enacting new anti-terrorism policies that restrict civil liberties, compared to 31 percent who say they are more concerned about the government failing to enact strong new anti-terrorism policies.

This is a vast improvement over 1996, when a post-Atlanta Olympics bombing poll showed only 23% opposed giving up freedom in exchange for fighting terrorism.

Breaking it down further, the poll also shows a bit of split along party lines. Self-identified Democrats are most likely to put their faith in government/law enforcement to make the U.S. "safer" by curtailing freedoms (51%). Republicans are less likely to favor this exchange (41%). For independents, less than a third (32%) are willing to give up some freedom to combat terrorism.

There is a bit of bad news contained within this generally positive indicator that Americans are less willing to give up something of theirs in exchange for the vagaries of "safety." The percentage of respondents who support additional surveillance in public areas has increased to 81% from 63% the week after the 9/11 attacks. On the other hand, there's a growing reluctance among Americans to allow the government to expand its surveillance efforts to cover more private venues, like email or cell phones. Only 38% approve of these efforts, down from 54% after 9/11.

Now, when legislators and law enforcement reps make strides towards reducing civil liberties, they do have some support. Those over the age of 50 (across all political parties) are most likely to support a loss of freedom (50%, as compared to only 34% for those under 50). Tellingly, this is pretty much the same demographic that feels video games are a bigger "safety threat" than guns (72% of respondents over the age of 45).

Unfortunately for the under-50 crowd, the over-50 demographic is historially the most active at the polls. If this perception of widespread support for invasive policies and legislation is going to change, the under-50 demographic is going to need to do a whole lot more voting. If not, these politicians are going to be able to truthfully say they have support for these policies -- at least, the only support that matters: die-hard voters.

Filed Under: civil liberties, fear, fud, terrorism, the public

As CISPA Hits Congress, Cybersecurity Company Hypes The Fear Of Anonymous

from the fearing-fear-itself dept

Through TNW, we learn of a survey published by threat protection company Bit9 that states an attack by Anonymous is the number one thing IT security professionals fear. Doubtless the release of this survey was timed to coincide with CISPA, the dangerous cybersecurity bill that is being debated in the House this week. It's no surprise that a security provider would want to play up the fear of cyber attack, but I'm reminded of a quote from comedian Dara O'Briain: "Zombies are at an all time low level, but the fear of zombies could be incredibly high. It doesn't mean we have to have government policies to deal with the fear of zombies."

Apart from the fact that the fear of something is pretty meaningless (except to those who sell security, and those who want to pass bad laws), the details of the survey make it clear that this is entirely a matter of the hype around Anonymous:

61% believe that their organizations could suffer an attack by Anonymous, or other hacktivist groups.

Despite the utter sense of fear that Anonymous has created over the years, 62% were more worried about the actual method of attack, with malware accounting for the most cause for concern at 48%.

Only 11% of the respondents were concerned about one of Anonymous’ actual methods of attack – DDoS, while fears over SQL injections dipped to a measly 4%. Phishing was a concern for 17% of the respondents.

So, despite the fact that Anonymous apparently has them shaking in their boots, they know that their real vulnerability is malware—and that's not really Anonymous' game. The fear is manufactured.

What this survey calls attention to, though, is a fact that deserves more attention: under CISPA or a similar law, Anonymous would make a juicy target. Security companies and the government could collude and share data not only to strengthen their networks against attack, which would itself be perfectly reasonable, but also to identify and investigate Anonymous members, notwithstanding any other privacy laws. Regardless of how you feel about Anonymous' tactics, this should concern you: privacy rights and the 4th Amendment exist for a reason, and CISPA would wash them away online. The authors of the bill insist that it targets foreign entities, but it is arguably an even stronger weapon against domestic hacktivism that will inevitably be used and abused.

Filed Under: anonymous, cispa, cybercrime, fear, security

Cybersecurity Bill Backers Insist This Isn't SOPA... But Is It Needed?

from the think-they're-scared? dept

Lots of folks have been waiting on the Senate's version of the cybersecurity bill that's been talked about for a while, and what's clear from the details and the press release put out by the Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee is that the folks behind this bill are bending over backwards to point out that this bill is not like SOPA:

The Senators stressed that the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 in no way resembles the Stop Online Piracy Act or the Protect Intellectual Property Act, which involved the piracy of copyrighted information on the internet. The Cybersecurity Act involves the security of systems that control the essential services that keep our nation running—for instance, power, water, and transportation.

Indeed, the details make it clear that the bill is much more limited than previous versions (or suggestions). For example it has dropped the idea of a "kill switch" (which was already exaggerated) and made it clear that private companies could appeal any security regulations that they fall under. It certainly appears that the bill is designed to be limited by focusing on core "critical infrastructure" -- such that it only will apply to those facilities where a disruption "would cause mass death, evacuation, or major damage to the economy, national security, or daily life." Of course, that could be interpreted broadly. Hell, the MPAA would argue that file sharing created "major damage to the economy," even if there's little to no evidence to support that.

A bigger question, however, should be whether there is any empirical evidence that we need this cybersecurity bill. I'm not saying that it's absolutely not needed -- and I'm glad that it appears the backers of the bill are trying to bend over backwards to hear from all concerned parties (and to avoid a SOPA-like situation). But one of the key things that we learned from SOPA is that Congress needs to stop pushing legislation without real evidence of the nature of the problem, and the evidence here remains lacking. The article linked above, by Jerry Brito and Tate Watkins, highlights all of the hype around cybersecurity and the near total lack of evidence of a problem, other than ominous "trust us, it's a problem!" scare-mongering. They have three suggestions before moving forward with cybersecurity legislation:

• Stop the apocalyptic rhetoric. The alarmist scenarios dominating policy discourse may be good for the cybersecurity-industrial complex, but they aren’t doing real security any favors.
  
  
• Declassify evidence relating to cyber threats. Overclassification is a widely acknowledged problem, and declassification would allow the public to verify the threats rather than blindly trusting self-interested officials.
  
  
• Disentangle the disparate dangers that have been lumped together under the “cybersecurity” label. This must be done to determine who is best suited to address which threats. In cases of cybercrime and cyberespionage, for instance, private network owners may be best suited and have the best incentives to protect their own valuable data, information, and reputations.

Good luck seeing any of that happen, of course. The big companies pushing this bill are profiting heavily off of the fear, as the government spends billions on "cybersecurity." This bill would ensure the gravy train continues, even as the evidence suggests that the "hacking" threat may be less and less of an issue. Of course, most of the press loves to just lap up claims of threats and damages without digging into the details. Fear about impending cyberdoom attracts attention. Talking about reality doesn't.

Of course, who knows if this bill will ever actually get anywhere. Already, many in the Senate are pushing back and asking Senator Harry Reid to slow down with the bill.

Filed Under: cybersecurity, fear, hype, laws, online security, regulations, sopa

The Many Killers Of The Film Industry Vol. 3: Post-Ellipsis And Beyond Television

from the vhs:the-metallic-killer/new-revenue-stream dept

[If you're just joining us, be sure to check out Volume 1 and Volume 2 in this series, which tells the true story of how the movie industry was killed over and over by each new advancement in eyeball-oriented entertainment. Volume 3 is the exciting followup to the breathtaking "..." that ended Volume 2. What lies beyond? Words. A lot of them.]

Post-Ellipsis
The movie industry, flush with success, strutted away from the battle that never was, having successfully fended off its new drinking buddy, television. Up to its collective ears in record-breaking movie receipts, the film industry (yet again) kicked back on its gold-plated laurels and lazily watched the money roll in.

The cinema was enjoying a new Golden Age, ushered in by the advent of the multiplex, the still-viable drive-in industry and some of the finest movie-making ever, in the form of Airport, Airport '75, Airport '77 and Airport '79: New Moon.

But as was foretold by the harrowing ellipsis at the end of the last volume, a new enemy would rise (mostly from the East). This new invention would kill the film industry harder that it had ever been killed before.

The VCR
Japanese electronics company JVC kicked Old Man Movie right in the throat with its VHS (Video Home System) player that promised a new era of TV and movie-dependent independence. Now people could watch television and movies in the comfort of their own home, on their own schedules. No more standing in line at the box office or endless waiting for their favorite programs to hit syndication. The public was now in command of its mostly pre-recorded destiny, leading to skyrocketing VCR sales and new highs in box office receipts.

Quite obviously, home taping was once again killing an industry.

An apoplectic Jack Valenti (representing the MPAA) stormed a listless Congress, demanding that they get off their overstuffed asses and do something, goddammit. During his Oscar-worthy performance, Valenti compared the theoretical damage done by home taping to a combination of the Holocaust, My Lai Massacre and that time when he got beat up in grade school.

The television industry fought back, claiming that the public had no right to watch their favorite shows and movies whenever and wherever the hell they wanted to. "What of our precious and highly annoying advertising?" it pleaded. "They'll be able to skip past it, thus rendering our efforts useless. Not to mention blockbuster lineups like ‘Must See Thursday,' which will now become ‘Can See Whenever the Hell We Want, Possibly Even Next Week.'"

The Positive Negatives of the VCR Invasion
Fortunately, the film and TV industries greatly overestimated the public's willingness and ability to program their VCRs, meaning that most viewing was still prerecorded movies or "live" TV. In fact, the general inscrutability of the VCR usually meant that it was regarded as a minor household diety whose mood swings and impenetrable manual were tolerated in exchange for nearly "on-demand" viewing.

Much like any diety, the VCR would periodically demand a sacrifice, devouring random tapes like "Child's First Birthday" (priceless) or a New Release rental from Blockbuster (considerably more expensive).

Not only that, but the VCR's entropic delivery system caused videotapes to degrade steadily in a short period of time, soon reducing the act of re-watching an "old favorite" to a tedious hour or two of dicking around with the tracking in a futile attempt to make the movie look like something other than scrambled Cinemax porn featuring dialogue recorded underwater.

"Boon:" Not Actually a Dirty Word
Not every industry felt threatened, however. The new videotape proved to be a boon to the porn industry, which was thrilled to have another delivery system. Porn theater staffers were thrilled to see their semen cleanup time drop by over 50%. Porn aficionados were thrilled to be able to "privatize" their perversions, without fear of being accosted by women's right groups, soft news journalists or the Sarasota, FL Sheriff's Department.

Unfortunately, a related industry fell victim to this new portable, rentable menace. The suddenly embattled trench coat industry fought this turn of events with "Home Masturbation is Killing the Trench Coat Industry" pickets. This movement never really took off however, mainly due to the fact that few people were willing to wear t-shirts or hoist signs with the word "masturbation" prominently featured.

As the years went on and prices dropped, the movie industry began to embrace this "threat" as a powerful ally in its constant struggle to make even more money. They were delighted to discover that the public was more than willing to purchase something they had most likely already paid to watch in a theater. They were made positively giddy with the realization that the public would buy the same movie twice, provided one version was slapped with a "Special Edition" label and contained a cursory 5-minute "Making Of" featurette cobbled together from second unit footage and "found sound" recordings.

The movie rental business was thrilled as well, what with it suddenly having a reason to exist, along with the opportunity to charge $3.99/night for "New Releases" that had been on the "Just In" wall for nearly half a decade.

Coming up next:
A veritable rogue's gallery of industry killers, each more diabolically deadly than the last.

Filed Under: disruption, fear, innovation, internet, movies, television

Homeland Security Doesn't Do Cost/Benefit Analysis; They Just Do Fear And Bluster

from the you-might-die!!!!!! dept

This should hardly come as a surprise, but a new paper that analyzes money being spent on Homeland Security finds that it's incredibly wasteful (found via Julian Sanchez). You can read the full report (pdf) by John Mueller and Mark G. Stewart, which probably confirms what most people were already thinking. Basically, Homeland Security has ratcheted up spending at a massive rate, and there's little to no effort to judge that spending against the actual risk reduction. That is, there's simply no one doing any sort of real cost-benefit analysis on this spending. The report seeks to do some of that, and what it finds isn't pretty. From the abstract (with my emphasis):

The cumulative increase in expenditures on US domestic homeland security over the decade since 9/11 exceeds one trillion dollars. It is clearly time to examine these massive expenditures applying risk assessment and cost-benefit approaches that have been standard for decades. Thus far, officials do not seem to have done so and have engaged in various forms of probability neglect by focusing on worst case scenarios; adding, rather than multiplying, the probabilities; assessing relative, rather than absolute, risk; and inflating terrorist capacities and the importance of potential terrorist targets. We find that enhanced expenditures have been excessive: to be deemed cost-effective in analyses that substantially bias the consideration toward the opposite conclusion, they would have to deter, prevent, foil, or protect against 1,667 otherwise successful Times-Square type attacks per year, or more than four per day. Although there are emotional and political pressures on the terrorism issue, this does not relieve politicians and bureaucrats of the fundamental responsibility of informing the public of the limited risk that terrorism presents and of seeking to expend funds wisely. Moreover, political concerns may be over-wrought: restrained reaction has often proved to be entirely acceptable politically.

In seeking to evaluate the effectiveness of the massive increases in homeland security expenditures since the terrorist attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, the common and urgent query has been "are we safer?" This, however, is the wrong question. Of course we are "safer"--the posting of a single security guard at one building's entrance enhances safety, however microscopically. The correct question is "are the gains in security worth the funds expended?" Or as this absolutely central question was posed shortly after 9/11 by risk analyst Howard Kunreuther, "How much should we be willing to pay for a small reduction in probabilities that are already extremely low?"

Among other things, the report looks at everyone's favorite DHS boondoggle, the naked radiation scanners at the airport by the TSA. Apparently, DHS was directly told by the GAO to study the cost-benefit and it refused to do so. The same is true of other DHS expenditures:

Indeed, at times DHS has ignored specific calls by other government agencies to conduct risk assessments. In 2010, the Department began deploying full-body scanners at airports, a technology that will cost $1.2 billion per year. The Government Accountability Office specifically declared that conducting a cost-benefit analysis of this new technology to be “important.”12 As far as we can see, no such study was conducted. Or there was GAO’s request that DHS conduct a full cost/benefit analysis of the extremely costly process of scanning 100 percent of U.S.-bound containers. To do so would require the dedicated work of a few skilled analysts for a few months or possibly a year. Yet, DHS replied that, although it agreed that such a study would help to “frame the discussion and better inform Congress,” to actually carry it out “would place significant burdens on agency resources.”

Of course, from a political perspective, this makes perfect sense. It's all game theory. You don't get praised and promoted for doing a cost-benefit analysis that saves taxpayer money from wasteful and useless projects if a terrorist attack happens. So the end result is that the incentives for everyone at DHS to just spend as much as possible in the hopes that it stops something, knowing that if anything bad happens (as it inevitably will), all of the blame will go towards anyone who said "we shouldn't do project x that would have prevented attack y."

Of course, the real problem is that this is exactly what our enemies would like. They don't care about "terror" for the sake of terror. They want the US to spend itself silly to completely bankrupt the country. And it appears to be working. That doesn't make me feel any safer at all, no matter what the cost.

Filed Under: benefit, cost, fear, homeland security

Why Schools Should Learn To Use Online Services Like Facebook & YouTube Rather Than Banning Them

from the embrace-and-use,-rather-than-fear-and-block dept

It's no secret that we live in a world of moral panics -- where new technologies are feared by those who don't understand them, often leading to regulations that block their potential. For years now, a number of politicians have sought laws to ban social networks in schools, assuming that they are either bad or simply inappropriate for schools. While those laws have yet to pass, many schools already do ban access to social networks and other sites. I've never quite understood how this makes sense. Rather than training students to use those sites properly, now they're seen as forbidden -- which only makes them more attractive to students, while making it even clearer that students won't be prepared to handle those sites properly. On top of that, as more powerful mobile phones become popular, students will easily bypass the school's own network and access those sites on their own -- and there will be nothing the schools can do about it.

So it's nice to see a sensible opinion piece in Slate arguing that rather than ban or block social online services like Facebook and YouTube, schools should be embracing them and looking for ways to incorporate them into the learning process. There are a variety of strong arguments for why this makes sense, but two that stick out:

1. Students already like using these sites quite a bit. Using those sites to make other things more relevant and interesting seems like a good way to reach kids in a manner that they understand, and which doesn't feel quite as much like "education," but more like something fun that they want to do.
2. Using these kinds of free tools may be cheaper, easier and much more effective than a number of the super expensive e-learning tools out there, which would require a steep learning curve anyway. But incorporating lesson plans and info and assignments into the tools that students already use would be both cheaper and more likely to actually be used.

Of course, some will decry that these sites are automatically bad for kids -- or that it makes no sense to waste time on such issues. But the fact is kids are going to use these sites no matter what. Ignoring that doesn't change that. Banning the sites doesn't change that. It just makes the activity more underground without any oversight or reasonable lessons. But incorporating the technology into the educational efforts could actually get a lot more attention. Yes, some of the examples in the Slate article seem pretty lame (and would be seen as such by the kids), but if done right, it really could add a lot more value to students' educations.

Filed Under: embracing, fear, moral panics, schools, social networks