Wednesday, February 26, 2003

Gaining an Empire, Losing Democracy (Norman Mailer) There is a subtext to what the Bushites are doing as they prepare for war in Iraq. My hypothesis is that President George W. Bush and many conservatives have come to the conclusion that the only way they can save America and get if off its present downslope is to become a regime with a greater military presence and drive toward empire. My fear is that Americans might lose their democracy in the process. By downslope I'm referring not only to the corporate scandals, the church scandals and the FBI scandals. The country has gone kind of crazy in the eyes of conservatives. Also, kids can't read anymore. Especially for conservatives, the culture has become too sexual. Iraq is the excuse for moving in an imperial direction. War with Iraq, as they originally conceived it, would be a quick, dramatic step that would enable them to control the Near East as a powerful base - not least because of the oil there, as well as the water supplies from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers - to build a world empire. The Bushites also expect to bring democracy to the region and believe that in itself will help to diminish terrorism. But I expect the opposite will happen: terrorists are not impressed by democracy. They loathe it. They are fundamentalists of the most basic kind. The more successful democracy is in the Near East - not likely in my view - the more terrorism it will generate. The only outstanding obstacle to the drive toward empire in the Bushites' minds is China. Indeed, one of the great fears in the Bush administration about America's downslope is that the "stem studies" such as science, technology and engineering are all faring poorly in U.S. universities. The number of American doctorates is going down and down. But the number of Asians obtaining doctorates in those same stem studies are increasing at a great rate. Looking 20 years ahead, the administration perceives that there will come a time when China will have technology superior to America's. When that time comes, America might well say to China that "we can work together," we will be as the Romans to you Greeks. You will be our extraordinary, well-cultivated slaves. But don't try to dominate us. That would be your disaster. This is the scenario that some of the brightest neoconservatives are thinking about. (I use Rome as a metaphor, because metaphors are usually much closer to the truth than facts). What has happened, of course, is that the Bushites have run into much more opposition than they thought they would from other countries and among the home population. It may well end up that we won't have a war, but a new strategy to contain Iraq and wear Saddam down. If that occurs, Bush is in terrible trouble. My guess though, is that, like it or not, want it or not, America is going to go to war because that is the only solution Bush and his people can see. The dire prospect that opens, therefore, is that America is going to become a mega-banana republic where the army will have more and more importance in Americans' lives. It will be an ever greater and greater overlay on the American system. And before it is all over, democracy, noble and delicate as it is, may give way. My long experience with human nature - I'm 80 years old now - suggests that it is possible that fascism, not democracy, is the natural state. Indeed, democracy is the special condition - a condition we will be called upon to defend in the coming years. That will be enormously difficult because the combination of the corporation, the military and the complete investiture of the flag with mass spectator sports has set up a pre-fascistic atmosphere in America already. (SOURCE: International Herald Tribune, via Common Dreams News Center) 7:54:03 PM    comment [] The Memory Hole (rescuing knowledge, freeing information) "The Memory Hole demonstrates how powerful a tool the Web can be when it comes to the retrieval and dissemination of information (especially information that certain parties would prefer to suppress)" (Christian Science Monitor) 7:34:32 PM    comment [] Detailed Patriot II Analysis Online at ACLU To: Interested Persons From: Timothy H. Edgar, Legislative Counsel Date: February 14, 2003 Re: Section-by-Section Analysis of Justice Department draft "Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003," also known as "Patriot Act II" The Department of Justice (DOJ) has been drafting comprehensive anti-terrorism legislation for the past several months. The draft legislation, dated January 9, 2003, grants sweeping powers to the government, eliminating or weakening many of the checks and balances that remained on government surveillance, wiretapping, detention and criminal prosecution even after passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, Pub. L. No. 107-56, in 2001. Among its most severe problems, the bill Diminishes personal privacy by removing checks on government power, specifically by Making it easier for the government to initiate surveillance and wiretapping of U.S. citizens under the authority of the shadowy, top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. (Sections 101, 102 and 107) Permitting the government, under certain circumstances, to bypass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court altogether and conduct warrantless wiretaps and searches. (Sections 103 and 104) Sheltering federal agents engaged in illegal surveillance without a court order from criminal prosecution if they are following orders of high Executive Branch officials. (Section 106) Creating a new category of "domestic security surveillance" that permits electronic eavesdropping of entirely domestic activity under looser standards than are provided for ordinary criminal surveillance under Title III. (Section 122) Using an overbroad definition of terrorism that could cover some protest tactics such as those used by Operation Rescue or protesters at Vieques Island, Puerto Rico as a new predicate for criminal wiretapping and other electronic surveillance. (Sections 120 and 121) Providing for general surveillance orders covering multiple functions of high tech devices, and by further expanding pen register and trap and trace authority for intelligence surveillance of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents. (Sections 107 and 124) Creating a new, separate crime of using encryption technology that could add five years to any sentence for crimes committed with a computer. (Section 404) Expanding nationwide search warrants so they do not have to meet even the broad definition of terrorism in the USA PATRIOT Act. (Section 125) Giving the government secret access to credit reports without consent and without judicial process. (Section 126) Enhancing the government's ability to obtain sensitive information without prior judicial approval by creating administrative subpoenas and providing new penalties for failure to comply with written demands for records. (Sections 128 and 129) Allowing for the sampling and cataloguing of innocent Americans' genetic information without court order and without consent. (Sections 301-306) Permitting, without any connection to anti-terrorism efforts, sensitive personal information about U.S. citizens to be shared with local and state law enforcement. (Section 311) Terminating court-approved limits on police spying, which were initially put in place to prevent McCarthy-style law enforcement persecution based on political or religious affiliation. (Section 312) Permitting searches, wiretaps and surveillance of United States citizens on behalf of foreign governments - including dictatorships and human rights abusers - in the absence of Senate-approved treaties. (Sections 321-22) Diminishes public accountability by increasing government secrecy; specifically, by Authorizing secret arrests in immigration and other cases, such as material witness warrants, where the detained person is not criminally charged. (Section 201) Threatening public health by severely restricting access to crucial information about environmental health risks posed by facilities that use dangerous chemicals. (Section 202) Harming fair trial rights for American citizens and other defendants by limiting defense attorneys from challenging the use of secret evidence in criminal cases. (Section 204) Gagging grand jury witnesses in terrorism cases to bar them from discussing their testimony with the media or the general public, thus preventing them from defending themselves against rumor-mongering and denying the public information it has a right to receive under the First Amendment. (Section 206) Diminishes corporate accountability under the pretext of fighting terrorism; specifically, by Granting immunity to businesses that provide information to the government in terrorism investigations, even if their actions are taken with disregard for their customers' privacy or other rights and show reckless disregard for the truth. Such immunity could provide an incentive for neighbor to spy on neighbor and pose problems similar to those inherent in Attorney General Ashcroft's "Operation TIPS." (Section 313) Undermines fundamental constitutional rights of Americans under overbroad definitions of "terrorism" and "terrorist organization" or under a terrorism pretext; specifically by Stripping even native-born Americans of all of the rights of United States citizenship if they provide support to unpopular organizations labeled as terrorist by our government, even if they support only the lawful activities of such organizations, allowing them to be indefinitely imprisoned in their own country as undocumented aliens. (Section 501) Creating 15 new death penalties, including a new death penalty for "terrorism" under a definition which could cover acts of protest such as those used by Operation Rescue or protesters at Vieques Island, Puerto Rico, if death results. (Section 411) Further criminalizing association - without any intent to commit specific terrorism crimes - by broadening the crime of providing material support to terrorism, even if support is not given to any organization listed as a terrorist organization by the government. (Section 402) Permitting arrests and extraditions of Americans to any foreign country - including those whose governments do not respect the rule of law or human rights - in the absence of a Senate-approved treaty and without allowing an American judge to consider the extraditing country's legal system or human rights record. (Section 322) Unfairly targets immigrants under the pretext of fighting terrorism; specifically by Undercutting trust between police departments and immigrant communities by opening sensitive visa files to local police for the enforcement of complex immigration laws. (Section 311) Targeting undocumented workers with extended jail terms for common immigration offenses. (Section 502) Providing for summary deportations without evidence of crime, criminal intent or terrorism, even of lawful permanent residents, whom the Attorney General says are a threat to national security. (Section 503) Completely abolishing fair hearings for lawful permanent residents convicted of even minor criminal offenses through a retroactive "expedited removal" procedure, and preventing any court from questioning the government's unlawful actions by explicitly exempting these cases from habeas corpus review. Congress has not exempted any person from habeas corpus -- a protection guaranteed by the Constitution -- since the Civil War. (Section 504) Allowing the Attorney General to deport an immigrant to any country in the world, even if there is no effective government in such a country. (Section 506) Given the bipartisan controversy that has arisen in the past from DOJ's attempts to weaken basic checks and balances that protect personal privacy and liberty, the DOJ's reluctance to share the draft legislation is perhaps understandable. The DOJ's highly one-sided section-by-section analysis reveals the Administration's strategy is to minimize far-reaching changes in basic powers, as it did in seeking passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, by characterizing them as minor tinkering with statutory language designed to bring government surveillance authorities, detention and deportation powers, and criminal penalties "up to date." This ACLU section-by-section analysis of the text of the legislation, however, reveals that the DOJ's modest descriptions of the powers it is seeking, and the actual scope of the authorities it seeks, are miles apart. The USA PATRIOT Act undercut many of the traditional checks and balances on government power. The new draft legislation threatens to fundamentally alter the constitutional protections that allow us as Americans to be both safe and free. If adopted, the bill would diminish personal privacy by removing important checks on government surveillance authority, reduce the accountability of government to the public by increasing government secrecy, further undermine fundamental constitutional rights of Americans under an already overbroad definition of "terrorism," and seriously erode the right of all persons to due process of law. (Detailed section-by-section analysis follows. Thanks to Privacy Digest for the pointer) 12:30:40 PM    comment [] Swarm Intelligence (Eric Bonabeau) DS: Okay, let's dig in a little bit and tackle swarm intelligence. You've commented in some of your previous writings that the world is becoming so complex that no single human being can comprehend it. And that swarm intelligence offers an alternative way of designing "intelligent" systems in which autonomy, emergence, and distributedness replace control, preprogramming, and centralization. So let's start at the 30,000 foot level here. In broad strokes, how is swarm intelligence a different approach, compared to the typical way we use now, to managing vast amounts of information? EB: The most amazing thing about social insect colonies is that there's no individual in charge. If you look at a single ant, you may have the impression that it is behaving, if not randomly, at least not in synchrony with the rest of the colony. You feel that it is doing its own things without paying too much attention to what the others are doing. But sometimes you also see "ant highways," that is, impressive columns of ants that can run over hundreds of feet. Ant highways are highly coordinated forms of collective behavior. Human beings suffer from a "centralized mindset"; they would like to assign the coordination of activities to a central command. But the way social insects form highways and other amazing structures such as bridges, chains, nests (by the way, African fungus-growing termites have invented air conditioning) and can perform complex tasks (nest building, defense, cleaning, brood care, foraging, etc) is very different: they self-organize through direct and indirect interactions. In social insects, errors and randomness are not "bugs"; rather, they contribute very strongly to their success by enabling them to discover and explore in addition to exploiting. Self-organization feeds itself upon errors to provide the colony with flexibility (the colony can adapt to a changing environment) and robustness (even when one or more individuals fail, the group can still perform its tasks). With self-organization, the behavior of the group is often unpredictable, emerging from the collective interactions of all of the individuals. The simple rules by which individuals interact can generate complex group behavior. Indeed, the emergence of such collective behavior out of simple rules is one the great lessons of swarm intelligence. This is obviously a very different mindset from the prevailing approach to software development and to managing vast amounts of information: no central control, errors are good, flexibility, robustness (or self-repair). The big issue is this: if I am letting a decentralized, self-organizing system take over, say, my computer network, how should I program the individual virtual ants so that the network behaves appropriately at the system-wide level? I'm not telling the network what to do, I'm telling little tiny agents to apply little tiny modifications throughout the network. Through a process of amplification and decay, these small contributions will either disappear or add up depending on the local state of the network, leading to an emergent solution to the problem of routing messages through the network. So that's the main concept here. Solutions to problems are emergent rather than predefined and preprogrammed. The problem is that you don't always know ahead of time what emergent solution will come out because emergent behavior is unpredictable. If applied well, self-organization endows your swarm with the ability to adapt to situations that you didn't think of. This approach has proven itself in a number of situations, ranging from network routing to factory scheduling to supply chain optimization to controlling groups of UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles). But it does require a drastic shift in mindset. (SOURCE: Swarm Intelligence: An Interview with Eric Bonabeau published in O'Reilly's Network Newsletter)   An excellent and fascinating book on this subject -- and many other topics -- is "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines" by Kevin Kelley. From the website (where, by the way you can read the book online):   "Out of Control is a summary of what we know about self-sustaining systems, both living ones such as a tropical wetland, or an artificial one, such as a computer simulation of our planet. The last chapter of the book, "The Nine Laws of God," is a distillation of the nine common principles that all life-like systems share. The major themes of the book are: As we make our machines and institutions more complex, we have to make them more biological in order to manage them. The most potent force in technology will be artificial evolution. We are already evolving software and drugs instead of engineering them. Organic life is the ultimate technology, and all technology will improve towards biology. The main thing computers are good for is creating little worlds so that we can try out the Great Questions. Online communities let us ask the question "what is a democracy; what do you need for it?" by trying to wire a democracy up, and re-wire it if it doesn't work. Virtual reality lets us ask "what is reality?" by trying to synthesize it. And computers give us room to ask "what is life?" by providing a universe in which to create computer viruses and artificial creatures of increasing complexity. Philosophers sitting in academies used to ask the Great Questions; now they are asked by experimentalists creating worlds. As we shape technology, it shapes us. We are connecting everything to everything, and so our entire culture is migrating to a "network culture" and a new network economics. In order to harvest the power of organic machines, we have to instill in them guidelines and self-governance, and relinquish some of our total control." 11:56:39 AM    comment []

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