Giving as Much as I Spend on Myself to Charity for the Next 3 Years

Given how horribly my society is behaving I have decided to give at least as much money as I spend on myself to charity each of the next 3 years.  My guess is that I will continue this past 3 years, but I will see how it goes and then re-access my long term plans.

I don't spend much, compared to my middle class USA peers (for housing, health insurance, food, car, technology, travel …). I have been spending more over the last couple of years and I expect spending will continue to go higher.

I think it is important for us to take action to protect the USA and the world from the horrible behavior by those in charge of the USA government now. Like most of those in the USA, that have prospered, most of my wealth is due to living in the USA. I feel I must use some of that wealth to fight the incredible damage being done to the people of the USA and world by the Republican party.

The USA Capital (photo by John Hunter)

We need many others to take meaningful steps to protect the world from the USA's actions. Direct action (volunteering in a food bank, for get out the vote efforts, to provide legal help for those being harmed by the USA government's violating the constitution and the rule of law…) is great; money need not be the way you participate. For me, giving money to charity is way I can make a difference. For others, different actions may be sensible.

My charity donation posts on Mastodon - https://fosstodon.org/@curiouscat/tagged/charity

Some of my 2025 donations

Trickle Up  

https://trickleup.org/

Southern Poverty Law Center   

https://www.splcenter.org/

Navajo Hopi Health Foundation  

https://navajohopihealthfoundation.org

Develop Africa  

https://www.developafrica.org/

Marketplace  

https://www.marketplace.org/about-us/

Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School 

https://www.brennancenter.org/

Electronic Frontier Foundation 

https://www.eff.org/

Texas Civil Rights Project    

https://www.txcivilrights.org

Partners for Health  

https://www.pih.org/

I hope you will take time to consider how much you have benefited from the rule of law, common decency, civil rights, the previous commitment to science and engineering in the USA, relatively minor corruption (certainly compared to the current kleptocracy level of Republican corruption we now are in the midst of), health care policy that wasn’t ignoring science…

And then consider making serious sacrifices to make sure the USA reverses course and makes meaningful changes to the disastrous policies and behavior they have engaged in and encouraged recently.

I fear for our future if those of us who can do much more chose not do so and just pretend their actions don’t matter. We must take action to stand up to the incredible abuses of our government today, if not, the harm to all of us, and even more so to future generations, will be heartbreaking.

Certainly the USA has long had many problems. I thought for most of my life that even if our progress toward fairness, decency, improved economic opportunity (for those that are not trust-fund babies)… was too slow, in significant ways we were getting better decade after decade. The last decade has seen us destroy decades of progress. I also now think, my estimation of how much progress we were making was far too optimistic.

I hope a decade from now the USA has fundamentally changed and realizes how close we came to critically damaging the future of hundreds of millions of USA citizens and billions of people around the world.  I am old enough and wealthy enough that the harm my society is inflicting on ourselves, future generations and the world are likely to be very minor compared to most of the billions of people that will be harmed. 

What I am concerned about is the damage my society is doing. I need to do something substantial to try and help halt the damage that is increasing every week and hopefully start to recover from this catastrophe.  So this is my attempt to help do what I can to protect the world from the catastrophic damage my government and the Republican Party are doing to the USA and the world. 

Related: I Fear for the Future of the USA if We Do Not Vote in Favor of the Rule of Law this Year (2024) - Society is being shaped for us while we are busy making other plans (2011) - Disregard for the Rule of Law by Government (post from 2013, things are so much worse now that it is shameful how badly we have chosen to behave recently) - Freedom Increasingly at Risk (2008)

Critical Thinking is Needed to Counter Propaganda

As everyone expected the continuing investigation by the US Justice Department has further detailed the attempts by Russians to spread propaganda and influence the USA election. I find it amazing that the Trump Administration and many Republican representatives have continually attempted to discredit the attempts to investigate the actions taken by Russians to interfere in the USA election.

As with any attempts to manipulate people through propaganda, misinformation and distraction the solution is critical thinking and transparency.

The attempts by talking heads to turn the focus to the paper and pencil used (or the which particular websites were) to spread the misinformation and propaganda should be a transparent attempt to misdirect our next steps. What is needed is for this investigation to continue and expand. And I really don't understand how political leaders can be cooperating with attempts to block investigations into the attempts to subvert democracy by foreign actors.

Acting as though Facebook or Twitter are the focus is about as useful as saying text and spoken language are responsible. Sure there is some amount of looking at the lack of transparency of any speech (and who is hiding behind the lack of transparency). And to some extent that specific risk (people pretending to be something other than what they are) is an issue on various webs sites. But the issue isn't the website it is the lack of transparency and that lack of transparency is what needs to be addressed (whether it is on Twitter or using front interest groups to hide the identity of those special interests, or using advocacy groups to run ads on TV without disclosing clearly who is funding those organizations, etc.).

Photo of the White House in Washington, DC

There is a great deal of history of Russian money being used to finance Donald Trump's businesses. Donald Trump's refusal to provide transparency about that should have been enough to keep people from voting for him to be President but it was not. Given that history and the evidence that has been known to our political representatives for more than a year it is unconscionable that many of them have not demanded investigation into these very deep ties and the deep ties to others in the administration (such as Jared Kushner).

That Russians used propaganda and misinformation to attempt to get voters to vote for Trump is important. But the main thing that should have prevented those attempts is sensible critical thinking. The best defense against propaganda is critical thinking and transparency. If the population is trained and accepts being lead to conclusions with obvious propaganda it doesn't matter if you shut off one path for propaganda, others will emerge.

What you need to do is create an expectation of reasoned debate. Sadly the USA has done a very poor job of this. We have allowed politicians get away with obviously false claims. We have promoted not critical thinking but the unthinking following of propaganda.

Until we greatly increase the respect for critical thought and debate we are in trouble. It doesn't matter much what form those seeking to use propaganda use to manipulate people what matters is how susceptible a large number of people are to propaganda.

All talking heads that are interested in democracy and patriotism should be calling on the exploration and the making visible the ties between those with large financial ties to Russia and the attempts to block and weaken efforts to investigate the meddling in our election. My guess is we will instead see the continued attempts oto hindering investigations into making visible what should be made transparent.

On an somewhat related and important matter, for at least 10 years the extremely poor computer security of the voting process has been noted by computer experts and ignored by our governments (federal, state and local). It doesn't appear that direct hacking of votes took place in the last election. The continued failure to adopt secure voting methods is a disgrace. And it seems we may well continue to neglect this matter until an election is impacted with direct evidence of large scale abuse. This is obviously an extremely poor way to manage a process that is critical to a functioning democracy.

Related: Preaching False Ideas to Men Known to be Idiots - The USA Should be Ashamed of Who We have Elected - The People We Elect Recently Are Dramatically Falling Us - When You See the Problem as Capitalism Instead of Corruption You Seek to Solve the Wrong Problem - Money Is Corrupting Our Political Process

Stopping Selfish Jerks From Abusing Society

Fake service animals would be criminalized under a bill that just passed the Colorado House

It has taken decades, Walpole said, for service animals to be respected and understood by society. He fears any trust that has developed is in the process of crumbling due to posers who slap a vest and phony credential on their animal to sneak it into restaurants, shops and other public places.

Exactly right. If you allow selfish people to abuse society you risk society deciding that accomadations for those with needs isn't worth the costs of selfish people.

In a similar way those that abuse handicaped parking have resulted in handicapped parking being seen by many people as just parking for selfish bozos. Most people in society want to provide accomadations for those that need service animals, special parking etc.. But if what happens is society is taken advantage of by selfish people society will eventually just decide the accomodations are mainly just for selfish bozos and eliminate them.

What we need to do instead is stop selfish jerks from screwing over society and those with real needs.

Sadly, while the number of people so obnoxious they would abuse the idea of service animals is very small. The abuse those few jerks subject society to is so great their selfishness risks the tolerance of society for those with real needs.

Related: Appeasing Rude Selfish People Just Makes them Behave Even More Selfishly - Reasonable Accommodations Becoming Unreasonable - Acting Considerately

Selling Out the Country - We are Electing the Wrong People to Control Our Government

Sadly the corruption of the USA political parties has been growing dramatically the last few decades. It is true they have always had a fair amount of corruption and a bit longer ago they were even more corrupt. But the ethics that had been growing that corruption was bad and should be reduced has been decimated by the leadership of both parties the last few decades.

Warren Buffet provided more comments about the damage being done to the country by this corruption.

With Citizens United and other decisions that enable the rich to contribute really unlimited amounts, that actually tilts the balance even more toward the ultra-rich…The unlimited giving to parties, to candidates, really pushes us more toward a plutocracy. They say it’s free speech, but somebody can speak 20 or 30 million times and my cleaning lady can’t speak at all.

I am very frustrated by us continuing to elect people that sell out the country for their person gains (both as politicians and even more importantly staff). The politicians couldn't sell out the country if their staff were not also bought and paid for (normally most completely by the revolving door of huge salaries on completion of selling out the country for the benefit of those paying you huge salaries). The advertising cash for politicians is important but less so than the ability to corrupt the staff.

The corruption, corrupts the entire process. If the parties and staff cared about the country they would not go along with much of the selling out of the country. The differences on tactics to benefit the country would still be in conflict. But if we had patriots in positions of power they couldn't be paid to sell out the country in this instance and then we will let you sell out the country in this other instance to earn your pay (from those corrupting them).

There really is little to do about it until the political scene is much different. As long as the parties are lead by people happy to sell out the country and we continue to elect them things won't change. The process of changing that is difficult. There is a system that re-inforces this corrupt systems continuation. With so much of the power structure so corrupt you can't do much with the few crumbs around the edges that are not interested in selling out the country for personal gain.

And when the public accepts absolutely pitiful journalism and doesn't pay attention to the few worthwhile efforts to look at what is going on it is hard to have people learn about the deeply embedded corruption. The parties play a game of distraction between themselves which when the journalists and public allow to set the conditions for discussion puts the issue of embedded corruption across the board of the political establishment off the table.

To some extent the embarrassing details of the extent of some corruption can be used pressure to reduce the level (not change the system) of corruption. I have a pipe dream that the continued evidence of such wide spread and thorough corruption finally seeping into the understanding of the public, but I really don't believe this will happen - I just hope it does. For now the only real hope is limited the scale of corruption by publicizing the worst and easiest to understand corruption.

To some extent I look to help shine the light on the corruption of the political process (mostly in the USA) on the cash for votes subreddit. I would have thought things like the absolutely horrid practices of Comcast, At&T, Verizon... would at least stop the political parties from acting in the same corrupt way they do with everything for those organization that have actively caused so much pain to so many in the USA. It is a sign of how bad the corruption is that even those companies easily buy majorities of both parties who happily profess that those companies are deserving of favors. When such obvious sell out are so widespread you can be certain the level of other corruption is beyond comprehension.

The damage this does to the USA is enormous.

The current political parties are selling out the country, it isn't quite as noticeable as if they attempted to auction off the Louisiana Purchase for the benefit of themselves, their staffs and their friends but it is doing as much damage as that would do.

Related: The Aim of Modern Day Political Parties is To Scare Donors Into Giving Cash - Reducing Corruption - Research by Princeton and Northwestern Professors Shows USA Political System Very Focused on Doing What Rich Want Done - Lobbyists Keep Tax Off Billion Dollar Private Equities Deals and On For Our Grandchildren - Monopolies and Oligopolies do not a Free Market Make - Anti-Market Policies from Our Talking Head and Political Class

Terrorism Response by the USA is Society’s Immune System Attacking Itself

Simon Phipps states very well and concisely what the results of the reaction to terrorism driven by the USA in his post On Terrorism

Terrorism isn’t just performing a terrifying act. It’s provoking society’s immune system into attacking itself, making its defence systems attack the values and people they are supposed to be defending. Terrorism is an autoimmune disorder of democracy. You don’t fight terrorism by attacking the virus; you fight it by strengthening the immune system.

Related: Living Through Your Society Becoming a Police State (2013) - USA Encouraging Governments Worldwide to Spy and Hack Globally is Very Dangerous - Freedom Increasingly at Risk (2008) - What Principles Does the USA Government Still Honor? - Liberty and Support or Control and Hate - Disregard for the Rule of Law by Government - Anti Liberty Sentiment in Congress (2012) - Liberty Again Denied - It is Sad How Little We Seem to Care (2011)

Homicides by Gun Have Declined a Great Deal in the USA the last 20 Years - Still Over 11,000 People Killed with Guns in the USA Every Year

Homicides using guns in the USA have seen a big decline in the last 20 years. In 2010, CDC data counted 11,078 gun homicide deaths, compared with 18,253 in 1993 which is a rate of 3.6 gun homicides per 100,000 people, compared with 7.0 in 1993. This is great news. But this leaves the USA with 11,078 gun homicides in 2010 which is horrible.

From 1993 to 2000, the death rate dropped 45%. From 2000 to 2010, the death rate declined only 7% more.

The Pew Research report provides a large amount of detail on this aspect of our safety and health.

Deaths from mass shootings are a relatively small share of firearm homicides. According to a recent Congressional Research Service report (Congressional Research Service, 2013), 78 public mass shootings occurred in the United States from 1983 through 2012, claiming 547 lives and injuring 476 people.

... The United Nations Global Study on Homicide (UNODC, 2011) estimated that 199,000 homicides, or 42% of the 468,000 worldwide total in 2010, were committed by firearm.

According to U.N. statistics, the U.S. firearm homicide rate and overall homicide rate are higher than those in Canada and in Western European and Scandinavian nations, but lower than those in many Caribbean and Latin American countries for which data are available.

Where does the U.S. rank internationally in terms of gun crime of all types? A report that compared 2003-2004 victimization survey data for 30 countries, including most developed nations, found that the U.S. ranked about average in an overall index of common crimes (Van Dijk et al., 2007).

However, the report placed the U.S. among the top countries for attacks involving firearms. “Mexico, the USA and Northern Ireland stand out with the highest percentages gun-related attacks (16%, 6% and 6% respectively).” The U.S. had the highest share of sexual assault involving guns.

If the USA had the rates of gun homicides as Western European countries over 9,000 people would spared every year. At the Japan rate nearly 11,000 people would be spared every year.

USA rate for 2011 4 per 100,000 (homicide 3.6 + accident .3 + undetermined .1)
France = .68
Canada = .59
Italy = .47
Germany = .3
Spain = .2
UK = .07
Japan = .02

The improvement in the USA is good, but we shouldn't ignore the 9,000 people killed every year that other societies have shown is not necessary. That is 90,000 people every decade. That is a huge number, even based on the lower rate of gun homicides we have today compared to 20 years ago.

Related: Militarized Police Culture Creates Long Term Large Scale SWAT Raid Failure for Society - Using Deming’s Management Ideas to Reduce Violence in Prison - Police Failing to Enforce Law If Lawbreaker is a Police Officer - Police State

USA Encouraging Governments Worldwide to Spy and Hack Globally is Very Dangerous

I think as bad as just the USA governments global spying and actions shredding the US constitution are the even greater damage is the encouragement the USA government policy gives for every other country to spy on every person, business and government across the globe.

I do believe the USA government is unlikely to have a huge amount of criminal information security spun off their massive spying efforts. But you can just look at all the examples of TSA agents (and others - that have been cleared by the TSA to work jobs inside the "security bubble") stealing from people forced to go through security theatre to see it is certainly possible for the USA governments actions are aid criminal enterprises including those by USA government employees.

Those risks are real. They will lead to damage to USA citizens. But they are small, I believe, compared to the damage USA citizens will suffer due to the mass increase in the global surveillance culture the USA has spearheaded the last 10+ years. Granted few countries have government so rich that they can afford to spend so much money on global internet surveillance and hacking (as the USA has done).

But there are at least 10 that have money and or resources that can do a huge amount of damage if they follow the USA's lead (lets just list a few China, UK, Germany, Japan, Korea, Brazil, India, Russia, Turkey, Taiwan). Some countries have more cash, some have large hacking (not just criminal hacking or government sponsored hacking but just software hacking talent in general wether for good, questionable good and/or questionably legal or downright bad definitely illegal) talent pools, some have large experience with large scale surveillance operations. and/or Certainly the USA has no justification to argue that any country can't do what the USA claims it not wrong for it to do. And the number of countries that could do a huge amount of damage with focused global surveillance and hacking is very large indeed and will grow going forward.

The result of the risks to everyone globally, including those in the USA, to the practice of massive government intrusion into private communications, internet activity, etc. of everyone is extremely damaging.

Related: Watching the Watchmen - Disregard for the Rule of Law by Government - NSA Spying on Apps Shows Perils of Google+, ‘Candy Crush’ - Little Watchmen - Freedom Increasingly at Risk

What Principles Does the USA Government Still Honor?

When government's hide policy behind secrecy how are we to know what they will do. The SUA seems pretty clear that they will break international law intentionally and in secret (spying on private communications of heads of allied countries, hacking devices of others…). The extent to which the USA has chosen to secretly and very intrusively spy on billions of private communications is shocking.

The hypocrisy of that same government denouncing other governments for doing the same thing (supposedly spying on the USA, spying on businesses communications, hacking business and government computers) makes the actions by the USA government even more unacceptable. Blaming others for behaving unethically, immorally and illegally while you do the exact same thing is pitiful behavior.

In the past I felt it was reasonable to assume mainly the USA government attempted to do things like uphold the constitution, support liberty, support privacy, etc.. While knowing there were plenty of examples of this behavior being violated it was largely confined to extremes that could hide their actions from view (and so the bad behavior was not so much accepted but allowed because the huge government has weaknesses and those allowed bad actors to take bad actions). Now even beyond that there has always been lots of corruption and malfeasance by extremely powerful actors (Watergate, J. Edgar Hoover, …).

So while far from perfect I figured when crazy stuff like Iran-Contra debacle went on it was a sign of bad government not a sign that the government no longer cared about the rule of law if it was inconvenient. But the disaster of the last 15 years where the constitution seems to have been thrown away for the convince of those with power I no longer have confidence I have a clue about what the core principles of the USA government are.

The last 2 administration have responded to the shredding of the constitution in the same way the Nixon Administration did to Watergate. They have put the force of their administrations behind hiding their actions and in defending the governments behavior. None made more than token comments about addressing the rot at the core of government. Instead they seek to silence those exposing the bad behavior of their government.

While industrial sabotage (at least of allies - which for the USA really means puppet states of the USA - UK, Germany, Canada, Japan, etc.) would certainly be something beyond crazy in my expectations of how badly the USA government would behave. I don't have nearly as much confidence for that belief. While I still think that idea is crazy I no longer think the government would avoid such behavior because it is just clearly wrong. They are doing so much now that is clearly wrong (and trying to hide that behavior from the public view) without any sensible explanation that how are we to know what else they no longer feel obligated to do?

Those destroying the idea of the rule of law for the USA government are not complete idiots. They have done well to make classify their actions as "classified" in order to prevent the public from knowing what they are doing. They have a crop of talking heads on TV that are able to spout talking points and fail to address the issues that should be addressed. I find it hard to believe these people would think they could use industrial sabotage and industrial spying to directly benefit specific companies, in coordination with those companies without that leaking and doing enormously more damage than has already been done. I suppose their hubris could be greater than my estimate. I sure hope not.

This article doesn't support the tile (as far as I can see) but does raise the question of what seem to be one of the few remaining lines that have not yet for the USA government to consciously and intentionally dismantle the idea of the rule of law, German TV: Edward Snowden says NSA is involved in industrial sabotage. It is very dangerous for the USA to act as though what matters if might makes right and the rule of law is only enforced on those without enough might.

It seems to be the principle the USA government cares about is might makes right. After that it is hard to see what principles the government values enough to actually follow itself.

Related: Liberty and Support or Control and Hate - I Can Spy on You, But You Can't Spy on Me - Disregard for the Rule of Law by Government - Living Through Your Society Becoming a Police State

Liberty and Support or Control and Hate

I hold these truths as worthy of support

• all people have the right to life and liberty
• we are better led by those that aspire to love than those that feed on hate and fear
• we are better led by those that seek to support than those that seek to control
• people that can abuse power far too often do so, creating systems that ignore this is dangerous
• societies are built and held together by communities cooperating and being bound by social conventions
• those with authority should have that authority limited, challenges to those in authority should be supported and encouraged
• communities that are built on fear and hate are dangerous and should be challenged

Those granted wisdom, health and/or wealth should seek to help others wherever those people live.

National boundaries matter, we are still having a great deal of trouble building nations that are not corrupted by those abusing authority to control others and enrich themselves. But the worth of people is not defined by their passport. Those that seek to gain support through promoting the hate and fear of others should be challenged and rejected.

Those of us in rich countries are far too concerned with our own material wealth and far too unconcerned with corrupt leaders (politicians, business leaders and others with power) and those less fortunate than us.

We should expect that people everywhere have the right to food, clean water and basic health care.

Implementing solutions based on broad principle is very hard. It isn't surprising that we struggle doing so. But that we fail so utterly far before we get to such difficulties disappointing.

Related: Society is being shaped for us while we are busy making other plans - Preaching False Ideas to Men Known to be Idiots - Living Through Your Society Becoming a Police State - Security Theatre Thinking is Damaging the USA - The Anti Liberty Sentiment in Congress

It Seems to be Confirmed That the USA Government Has Been Ignoring the Rule of Law

I figured the USA had abandoned the practice of concern for the rule of law when it wasn't convent for the government. Of course, choosing to support the rule of law only when you find the laws personally useful and ignoring it otherwise pretty much makes the rule of a law a farce.

update: it appears Norway did the spying on its own citizens that is then shared with the USA. That would appear to satisfy the legal requirements in this example. I still question the legality of many actions by the USA - it just seems likely violations of laws of other countries are frequent. We can't violate other's laws and they expect them to obey the laws we want them to. NSA logged 33m calls in Nato ally Norway

Torstein Olsen, head of Norway's telecoms regulator, said that it was illegal for anyone apart from telecommunications companies to collect such data. "If Dagbladet's information is correct that 33 million mobile phone calls in Norway were registered by someone other than the telecommunication companies, that would be a crime under Norwegian law," he said.

Also the USA government was I believe successful in preventing USA citizens and companies from using encryption that was safe while knowingly encouraging other governments to spy using the advantage of poor encryption. Given the continuing stream of evidence on bad practices the USA government tried to hide from public condemnation the USA government has effectively given cart blanche to every sovereign state to spy electronically as much as they want to.

So it seems the USA government has sold out the ability of its citizens to protect themselves from not just spying from its own government but all other governments spying on all personal, business and political activities in the USA (based on the actions the USA has taken they certainly can't expect other governments to be less intrusive than the USA has been to their citizens and political leaders - and at this point we would certainly have to assume businesses also).

The repeated, crushing blows to the rule of law, respect for the right of people and honorable behavior by the USA the last 15 years is extremely disheartening. The USA it seems to me fell far short of the standards it should have set the last 50 years but at least the USA seemed to have some credibility when attempting to encourage others to behave in accordance with the rule of law which would make the world a better place. Now I can't imagine what country is more consistently and aggressively flaunting their disrespect for the rule of law. The USA currently seems to have only one justification for their actions: might makes right. We can do whatever we want because you can't stop us militarily and we can crush you economically if you don't do whatever we tell you to do.

Choosing to follow some laws and then expecting other countries to follow all the laws you care about is not sensible behavior.

I seriously hope we can recover from the disastrous behavior of our government the last 15 years. We recovered from McCarthyism and Watergate but this behavior seems much worse to me (and those were very bad).

It has gotten so some of the most far fetched "conspiracy theory" claims are superseded by what the USA government actually does. That is a very bad state of affairs.

Related: I Can Spy on You, But You Can't Spy on Me (isn't a sensible expectation) - Watching the Watchmen - Librarians Standing Up to the Madness - Freedom Increasingly at Risk

TPP Transparency Confirms the Worst: USA Government Still Trying to Strip Away Rights of Citizens in USA and Elsewhere

TPP Leak Confirms the Worst: US Negotiators Still Trying to Trade Away Internet Freedoms by the EFF

The leaked text, from August 2013, confirms long-standing suspicions about the harm the agreement could do to users’ rights and a free and open Internet. From locking in excessive copyright term limits to further entrenching failed policies that give legal teeth to Digital Rights Management (DRM) tools, the TPP text we’ve seen today reflects a terrible but unsurprising truth: an agreement negotiated in near-total secrecy, including corporations but excluding the public, comes out as an anti-user wish list of industry-friendly policies.

The anti-liberty policies of those we elect continues. They continue to sell out basic rights to provide favors for those giving them lots of cash. The extent to which our elected officials go to hide their actions from public scrutiny is despicable. But the real damage is the consistent march to reduce liberty while providing favors for those providing politicians cash. The damage to society by this consistent pattern is enormous.

It was easy to predict the massive effort to stop SOPA would only temporarily delay the politicians anti-liberty policies. And sadly that prediction has proven accurate (not just TPP but many attempts, some successful already, to pass SOPA's provisions when the public isn't shining the light on the terrible actions congress and the administration are pursuing). They merely keep trying to implement SOPA, SOPA-like and even much worse policies than even were in SOPA over and over. TPP is just one of the most egregious examples of anti-liberty policies and the governments attempts to hide their actions from the public.

Related: Society is being shaped for us while we are busy making other plans - We Continue to Vote for Those that Sell Out the Country for Cash Gifts - Good Journalism Aids Society by Shining the Light on Corruption (and government trying to hide their policies from public debate) - Cash for votes subreddit (links to politicians sellout out their country for cash)

Continued Refusal to Address Abuse of the Constitution by Government

McCain: If you believe that Mr. Snowden didn't give the Russians information that he has, then you believe that pigs can fly.

From: UK spies continue “quantum insert” attack via LinkedIn, Slashdot pages

If you believe the political and government administration leadership in the USA are not abusing the constitution and making false statements to cover up that behavior and ignoring evidence that has been made public of such abuses then you believe pigs can fly.

It is pitiful how far our political leaders and talking heads have fallen (the exceptions are few, sadly). They would have been cheering on the House committee on un-American activities. It is so incredibly sad what is happening to our country.

Related: Disregard for the Rule of Law by Government - The People We Elect Recently Are Dramatically Falling Us - Living Through Your Society Becoming a Police State - Security Theatre Thinking is Damaging the USA - Freedom Increasingly at Risk (2008), the abuses have been apparent for quite a long time

Disregard for the Rule of Law by Government

I have trouble with the violation of international and other country's laws when it suits your purpose while claiming to support the rule of law.

The USA has done many things wrong in spying on its citizens and others around the world. The main defense seems to be to

1) make people fearful (essentially they are copying what the house committee on "un-american activities" did)

2) lie

3) hide extremely bad policy (and most likely lots of illegal activity) behind claims of "national security"

4) say we are no worse at breaking laws than others are

One is bad, but at least not illegal. Still it is the type of behavior we shouldn't tolerate but we have been. Openly debating policy is what should be done. When we allow government to hide their bad policy from even being debated the extremes to which that bad policy goes very quickly becomes horrible (based on our past, and current, experience).

I don't know of an exception to following laws that amounts to -- lots of people kill people so what if I do. But that is the USA spying defense. Yes, we tapped the phones or leaders of Western democracies (and did an unbelievably long list of other violation of laws) but all countries violate laws all the time, so don't worry about it. Why do we bother having laws if the USA doesn't believe they should be followed whenever the USA government doesn't feel like following them?

The whole idea of the rule of law is that everyone has to follow the law not just those who are less powerful than those enforcing the law. The USA government seems to think it is perfectly ok to break laws if other people do (well about every single law is broken by other people) and you are more powerful than the law enforcer - this seems like a bad idea, and it certainly isn't the "rule of law" it is just "might makes right."

It seems like the last 2 adminstrations have just decided laws dont' matter for them. They can jsut do whatever they want because of fear and might makes right. I think the trampling of liberty that has been apparent for a decade and we get a worse and worse picture of as the attempts to hide extremely bad policy from the public view is reduced.

We need people shedding the light on behaviors of the government that are shredding the liberty of people across the globe and shredding the concept of the rule of law. Using the types of tactics that fit only with an organization like the House Un-American Activities Committee is something we should have stopped accepted over half a century ago.

I am very surprised and disappointed to be living through the type of behavior by our government I thought had disappeared with my Grandparents. I realized we would have small type corruption, scandals of very bad behavior by senior government officials, etc.. But the long term commitment to suppress the truth and using extra legal force of government to attack those seeking to expose government wrong doing is extremely disappointing.

Playing games with "classification" to hide the policies that are extremely anti-constitutional and then "un-classifying" (or even just leaking without un-classifying) little bits to attack those that seek to expose the un-constitutional behavior of government is despicable. Never addressing any of the illegal behavior the government has, and continues to pursue, while attacking those that seek to expose government abuse with extra legal might of the federal government is something that shouldn't be tolerated.

A government has the power to take away liberty from individuals. Hopefully that is done when it is necessary for the best interests of society (imprisoning murders etc.). That power however is enormous. The rule of law much protect the people. When the government decides it doesn't need to obey the rule of law that is a very dangerous situation. We have been living through it for more than a decade now and things seem to just be getting worse and worse. That isn't surprising as the abuse of the the rule of law is tolerated those who get away with doing so will likely keep increasing how far from the rule of law they will go.

We have seen over and over how this works in countries. And we are seeing it the last decade plus in the USA. The path we are on, is very scary.

I have always known the USA government did plenty of stuff wrong. But I also did believe we were helping make the world a better place. I am very disappointed now. I think we are not making the world a better place. And sadly, there are not good options to counteract the abandonment of advocacy for the rule of law and liberty that the USA used to promote. We never were perfect at doing so, but we did push those causes more than we pushed against them. Now we clearly are pushing against them much more than we are aiding efforts to promote liberty and the rule of law; both in the USA and globally.

Related: Living Through Your Society Becoming a Police State - The People We Elect Recently Are Dramatically Falling Us - Freedom Increasingly at Risk (2008) - Security Theatre Thinking is Damaging the USA

Living Through Your Society Becoming a Police State

I don't like the USA government hiding its actions from the citizens of the USA. I don't believe claims that most of what is hidden is for national security reasons. It is hidden for the simple reason that it is politically unacceptable to admit what they are doing and so they seek to hide what they are doing. Doing so is extremely damaging as it will force us to distrust the government's claims on national security. When you abuse national security for political expediency it is exactly like the children's story of crying wolf. When you hide your politically unpopular decisions behind a fake cry of wolf eventually people won't believe your claims - even when they are true. If you care about national security you cannot allow it to be sacrificed for political expediency.

Governing is hard. When you give in to political expediency instead of dealing with the hard challenges you sacrifice the future of the country so you can avoid having to confront the challenges. It is easy to see why people would make this choice. But it does great damage to the country.

I fear we are entering a phase where the government will move to more and more McCarthyist tactics to hide their actions: using threats against those seeking to hold the government accountable, deploying the police powers of the state against those who find their policies unconstitutional but for which the government has no right to investigate (until you accept the police state arguments that we can do whatever we want because we have police state powers that we granted ourselves secretly and no one is allowed to talk about it, character assassination of those that question the powers that be, granting powers to those that will support the policies...).

We don't have a great track record in the last 100 years. So most likely we will once again allow government to do horrendous stuff that a few decades later we say "oh boy that was bad, but it was a long time ago" (look at all the people we used the FBI to spy on and intimidate in the last 100 years including the only person we named a national holiday in honor of in the last 100 years - Martin Luther King). I always wondered how those people could sit by and watch Japanese Internment, McCarthyism, massive FBI abuses...

Now I am living through it and I see how easy it is for those with power to seize control of a society and make it into something anyone looking back on would be thinking "how could they allow such things to happen."

Related: Society is being shaped for us while we are busy making other plans - NSA and the Pandora’s box of surveillance by Jack Shafer - Security Theatre Thinking is Damaging the USA - The TSA doesn’t give a hoot about security

SWAT Culture

Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

The numbers are staggering. In the early 1980s, there were about 3,000 SWAT "call-outs" per year across the entire country. By 2005, there were an estimated 50,000. In New York City alone, there were 1,447 drug raids 1994. By 2002, eight years later, there were 5,117 -- a 350 percent increase. In 1984, about a fourth of towns between 25,000-50,000 people had a SWAT team. By 2005, it was 80 percent.

Today, the use of this sort of force is in too many jurisdictions the first option for serving search warrants instead of the last. SWAT teams today are used to break up poker games and massage parlors, for immigration enforcement, even to perform regulatory inspections.

This is a very sad state of affairs. Our police departments have lost a view of themselves as members of society aimed at promoting peace and liberty. The SWAT militarization is one outcome of this cultural mindset. Infringing on photographers rights (even violently at times) and destroying evidence of criminal action in doing so is all too common. There are still a majority of police that have not adopted the burnt earth mentality of enforcement but the overwhelming reliance on militaristic thinking has damaged the good will that good efforts provide. This cultural change is extreme and very damaging to society.

We need police to return to the thinking that makes them an important aid to society. The best work in this area that I know of is: Improving Police by the former police chief of Madison, Wisconsin.

Related: The System is Broken: SWAT Raids - Failure to Address Systemic SWAT Raid Failures - More SWAT Failures - Tired of Incompetent Government Harassment - Police Failing to Enforce Law If Lawbreaker is a Police Officer - Security Theatre Thinking is Damaging the USA

I Can Spy on You, But You Can't Spy on Me

It seems to me there are numerous essentially vassal states of the USA that adopt largely whatever measures the USA really presses them on - for security or enforcing extremely long and counterproductive copyrights (the system doesn't do what it was suppose to do - instead has been turned into a system to help a few big business copyright cartel companies that give USA politicians lots of cash) but he USA has pretty much dictated legislation to numerous other nations that have capitulated.

I don't have much info but my impression is that states like Canada, UK, Germany and Australia are pretty much going to let the USA have whatever it wants. If they seek to avoid being vassal states to the USA it seems to me you have to chose a legal system and government that have shown some ability to stand up to USA pressure. I have thought this would be a smart thing for some countries to do for years but I haven't noticed any countries interested in taking on this role.

Germans accuse U.S. of Stasi tactics before Obama visit. My guess is Germany does nothing, other than making a few harmless noises. Pretty much Europe has been limited to voicing a bit of displeasure occasionally but for anything that requires action they act like a vassal state and go along with the USA (which often means big USA campaign contributors). Maybe Germany, or others, will want to step out from the shadow they have been in basically since the end of World War II, but I doubt it. There just haven't been any significant examples.

My guess is eventually some nations will, but my guess it will be nations that are not so tied to the USA and that can play the USA and China against each other to refuse to be a vassal to either one (but that is just a wild guess). How much longer it will take is the question. Or maybe people will just end up choosing between which police state policies they want to accept USA, China or some other one. Maybe countries like Canada will be like flavors of Linux so Canada is USA vassal but actually refuses to go along with a couple minor points here or there (and if you care most about those minor points you chose Canada).

It will be interesting to see if any nation stands up to the USA spying on their citizens. It doesn't seem too likely - other than a few oddballs that don't expect the USA the USA could do anything more to them, short to attacking the country militarily, and figure that isn't likely. It is odd to hear the USA talk about China tech companies facilitating Chinese government spying and then give secret order that the USA tech companies (or librarians) are not allowed to disclose that result in spying on citizens of other countries (and citizens of the USA).

Other than might makes right I don't exactly understand the philosophical system the idea that "you can't spy on us but we of spy on whoever we want"?

Here is one example of the perniciousness of the spying: U.S. officials sent back to German Facebook-mails. If you want to argue that we have to ignore Jefferson, Franklin, Patrick Henry, etc. due to big huge scary risks you must not abuse the spying for trivial matters. Yes, government agencies get caught up in their own fear mongering and grabs for power (which is one reason most sensible people and bright people don't trust government to gain absolute power to spy on citizens) and start to believe silly things like their security theatre is related to what they said the constitution needed to be abandoned to protect us from big scary things. If you use the abdication of liberty to block people from violating minor rules (such as working without a permit - the link above) in my mind you forfeit the right to claim your constitution defying actions are needed for a more important purpose.

Related: Governments Shouldn't Prevent Citizens from Having Secure Software Solutions - Freedom Increasingly at Risk - Liberty Again Denied, It is Sad How Little We Seem to Care - Security Theatre Thinking is Damaging the USA (May 2013)

Police State

The USA (and maybe other countries) seem to think that police states are only police states if the police are consciously, actively, only interested in evil. Most of those creating and maintaining police states are not evil. They are just doing what they can within the system. The individual actions make sense to someone trying to do good. They just neglect liberty a bit in order to get things done and then a bit more and then a bit more but don't see themselves as creating a new police state.

The USA constitution has fairly good protections in place. McCarthyism gives a extremely clear example of the dangers when those with power allow a few to abuse the system. And we have many more than a few abusing the system now.

I doubt most of those in the KGB wanted the KGB to have more and more power to be evil. They wanted the KGB to have more and more power because they saw challenges to what the KGB wanted to accomplish and giving the KGB more power would help. And they really believed that this would be good for people. If they could just stop the troublemakers then thing would be better.

I believe most of those required to carry out the security theatre of the TSA are repulsed by what they have to do. They need a job though. And so they do what people do in those situations they justify the behavior to themselves. They attempt to justify their behavior to themselves in order to make it tolerable to participate in such behavior. Many will suffer as the attempts to mask their true feelings are far from perfect. A few will actually enjoy mistreating others. And some will not see a problem - there are plenty of people that happily go along with things many others believe they have to be corrupt to go along with (but that assumption is wrong, they see things differently and most often have overly simplistic world views that work pretty well for keeping them happy, I just do what the TSA tells me and whatever they tell me must be good because they are in charge).

Not that this is 100% of what everyone thought that everyday, but this is the main model of those police states. Sure you have a few deranged people that see a system ripe for abuse and they have power and take advantage of it. And sure, authoritarian police state administration will attract more power hungry psychopaths that don't have much respect for individual liberty. But I still think the main force is just people trying to get by and if the rules are such that authoritarianism and disrespect for individual liberty are allowed they go along because such thinking has been made acceptable (not because they think they are being evil and they like it).

The police state apparatus builds an ethos that freedom is risky and must be monitored - not to be evil - but to help. Those in the USA perpetuating the police state are not doing so to promote big brother government. They just got trapped into a system where they see the dangers of freedom and they believe they are on the site of right and good.

The danger of authoritarian government was understood. The constitution puts barriers in place to protect society. But those with power see the barriers are mere inconviences to avoid. In the last 10 years the extent of our slip into a police state has been dramatic and is critically dangerous to our society. But the most important point is once you reach a point where this is beyond all reasonable debate it is far far far too late. Corruption of liberty must be addressed early on. If the police state is allowed to grow it becomes nearly impossible to turn back. I fear we are already too late in the USA. But who knows where that fulcrum really is. Maybe we are not too late.

Totalitarian thinkers don't like freedom of citizens, so they are likely to outlaw using tech that doesn't allow the police state full access. So the most totalitarian states won't allow citizens legal access to protection from the state. My guess is many states are going to take extreme totalitarian views on this. It sure seems the USA couldn't be more totalitarianism in their current stance on this issue. It appears to be that you have no rights to freedom if technology is involved.

It is hard to separate that thinking from evil-big-brother-thinking but I think it is a mistake to think that those wanting big brother style government intrusion think they are trying to create the big-brother-government from Orwell's 1984. They have convinced themselves that really we are just trying to get a bit of information why can't you just trust us to be different than all those warnings you have that actions such as ours (police state) are bad. We are not like all those others that did it for bad reasons (either in history of literature) we are doing so because how else can we control dangerous risks. This is true for the SWAT team members crashing into innocent people's houses over and over and over. And it is true for the politicians that really seem unable to both appeal to voters and think effectively about policy.

And is probably most true for leaders of those at the DHS, NSA, FBI, CIA, NSC and in the White House. They are so fearful of all the risk and they have so much trust of their government organizations that they can't see the obvious comparison of what they have created and a police state. They know they will be blamed if catastrophes happen. Eliminating the risks of those events in the short term is nearly 100% of their focus. Concerns about individual liberty just don't enter their thoughts. They don't see themselves as big brother. They see that as ludicrous, not worthy of consideration. Certainly not something to moderate their behavior. That is the risk. That is the danger. And we have already created such a powerful police state that dialing back the big brother thinking is going to be extremely difficult, if it is possible at all.

The recent news on the NSA has sparked outrage and fear but this doesn't seem like much news to me. The police state mentality of the last 10+ years has carried with it this type of thinking. I find many of the previous revelations much more troubling than this latest one.

Related: Librarians Standing Up to the Madness (2009) - Freedom Increasingly at Risk (2008) - Security Theatre Thinking is Damaging the USA - Watching the Watchmen (2008) - Tired of Incompetent Government Harassment (2007) - Failure to Address Systemic SWAT Raid Failures (2007) - Lawmakers now use so much 1984 Orwellian speak you can't trust what they say (2005) (check them with trustworthy authorities EFF and others)