Archive for September, 2009
Eye of Neutrality, Toe of Frog
I won’t go on at too much length about FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s speech at Brookings announcing his intention to codify the principle of “net neutrality” in agency rules—not because I don’t have thoughts, but because I expect it would be hard to improve on my colleague Tim Lee’s definitive paper, and because there’s actually not a whole lot of novel substance in the speech.
The digest version is that the open Internet is awesome (true!) and so the FCC is going to impose a “nondiscrimination” obligation on telecom providers—though Genachowski makes sure to stress this won’t be an obstacle to letting the copyright cops sniff through your packets for potentially “unauthorized” music, or otherwise interfere with “reasonable” network management practices.
And what exactly does that mean?
Well, they’ll do their best to flesh out the definition of “reasonable,” but in general they’ll “evaluate alleged violations…on a case-by-case basis.” Insofar as any more rigid rule would probably be obsolete before the ink dried, I guess that’s somewhat reassuring, but it absolutely reeks of the sort of ad hoc “I know it when I see it” standard that leaves telecoms wondering whether some innovative practice will bring down the Wrath of Comms only after resources have been sunk into rolling it out. Apropos of which, this is the line from the talk that really jumped out at me:
This is not about protecting the Internet against imaginary dangers. We’re seeing the breaks and cracks emerge, and they threaten to change the Internet’s fundamental architecture of openness. [....] This is about preserving and maintaining something profoundly successful and ensuring that it’s not distorted or undermined. If we wait too long to preserve a free and open Internet, it will be too late.
To which I respond: Whaaaa? What we’ve actually seen are some scattered and mostly misguided attempts by certain ISPs to choke off certain kinds of traffic, thus far largely nipped in the bud by a combination of consumer backlash and FCC brandishing of existing powers. To the extent that packet “discrimination” involves digging into the content of user communications, it may well run up against existing privacy regulations that require explicit, affirmative user consent for such monitoring. In any event, I’m prepared to believe the situation could worsen. But pace Genachowski, it’s really pretty mysterious to me why you couldn’t start talking about the wisdom—and precise character—of some further regulatory response if and when it began to look like a free and open Internet were in serious danger.
Learning from Trade Wars Past
David Rockefeller, the former chairman and CEO of Chase Manhattan Bank, makes a compelling historical case in today’s New York Times for pursing free trade policies. Rockefeller has been around long enough to remember the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill of 1930 and the Great Depression that followed. In an op-ed piece titled, “Present at the Trade Wars,” he writes:
I lived through the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that followed it, and I saw that there was no direct cause and effect relationship. Rather, there were specific governmental actions and equally important failures to act, often driven by political expediency, that brought on the Depression and determined its severity and longevity.
One critical mistake was America’s retreat from international trade. This not only helped to turn the 1929 stock market decline into a depression, it also chipped away at trust between nations, paving the way for World War II.
On the eve of the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh this week, Rockefeller offers a timely warning to President Obama not to repeat the mistakes of the past.
McChrystal’s Assessment
In his review of the war in Afghanistan, states that “failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months)—while Afghan security capacity matures—risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.”
I would hope that Congress and the American people hold McChrystal to his “12 month” prediction, because if President Obama sticks to McChrystal’s ambitious strategy, U.S. forces could remain in Central Asia for decades.
McChrystal argues that the U.S. military must devote more effort to interacting with the local population and elevating the importance of governance. How? Does America defeat the Taliban in order to build an Afghan state, or does America build an Afghan state in order to defeat the Taliban? Winning the support of the population through a substantial investment in civilian reconstruction cannot take place without some semblance of stability on the ground. The mission’s multi-disciplinary approach (“an integrated civilian-military counterinsurgency campaign”) is understandable, but oftentimes its feasibility is simply assumed.
Unfortunately, the United States has drifted into an amorphous nation building mission with unlimited scope and unlimited duration. Our objective must be narrowed to disrupting al Qaeda. To accomplish that goal, America does not need to transform Afghanistan into a stable, modern, democratic society with a strong central government in Kabul—or forcibly democratize the country, as our current mission would have us do, or as McChrystal states “Elevat[ing] the importance of governance.” These goals cannot be achieved at a reasonable cost in blood and treasure in a reasonable amount of time—let alone the next 12 months.
Obama: ‘Nobody’ Considers Health Care Mandate a Tax Increase
President Obama argued on TV talk shows this weekend that his proposed mandate for everyone to buy health insurance – or face a large financial penalty – is not a tax increase:
In a testy exchange on ABC’s “This Week,” broadcast Sunday, Obama rejected the assertion that forcing people to obtain coverage would violate his campaign pledge against raising taxes on middle-class Americans.
“For us to say you have to take responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase,” Obama said in response to persistent questioning, later adding: “Nobody considers that a tax increase.”
Well, I consider it a tax increase, so I guess that makes me nobody.
The real question is whether this tax increase is a good idea. My answer is no. If others disagree, then fine, let’s have that debate. But denying plain truths suggests that advocates of Obamacare are trying to pass something that Americans would not endorse if it were structured and explained clearly.
Watch:
Prosecutors Should Not Be Allowed to Fabricate Evidence
In 1977, county attorney David Richter and assistant county attorney Joseph Hrvol worked side by side with police to investigate and “solve” the notorious murder of a former police officer in Pottawattamie County, Iowa. The prosecutors fabricated evidence and used it to charge and convict Curtis McGhee and Terry Harrington, sending them to prison for 25 years.
After the convictions were overturned for prosecutorial misconduct, McGhee and Harrington sued the county and prosecutors. The defendants in that civil suit invoked the absolute immunity generally afforded prosecutors to try to escape liability. After the Eighth Circuit ruled against them, the Supreme Court agreed to review the case.
On Friday, Cato joined the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the ACLU on a brief supporting the men unjustly imprisoned. We argue that prosecutors should be responsible for their role in manufacturing a false “case,” just as police officers would be under the same circumstances. As the Court has held, prosecutors enjoy absolute immunity only during the prosecutorial phase of a case, not its investigatory phase. Were prosecutors to receive absolute immunity here, citizens would have no protection from or recourse against prosecutors who frame the innocent by fabricating evidence and then using that evidence to convict them.
To read Cato’s brief in the case of Pottawattamie County v. McGhee, see here.
Pakistan: More Aid, More Waste, More Fraud?
Pakistan long has tottered on the edge of being a failed state: created amidst a bloody partition from India, suffered under ineffective democratic rule and disastrous military rule, destabilized through military suppression of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) by dominant West Pakistan, dismembered in a losing war with India, misgoverned by a corrupt and wastrel government, linked to the most extremist Afghan factions during the Soviet occupation, allied with the later Taliban regime, and now destabilized by the war in Afghanistan. Along the way the regime built nuclear weapons, turned a blind eye to A.Q. Khan’s proliferation market, suppressed democracy, tolerated religious persecution, elected Asif Ali “Mr. Ten Percent” Zardari as president, and wasted billions of dollars in foreign (and especially American) aid.
Still the aid continues to flow. But even the Obama administration has some concerns about ensuring that history does not repeat itself. Reports the New York Times:
As the United States prepares to triple its aid package to Pakistan — to a proposed $1.5 billion over the next year — Obama administration officials are debating how much of the assistance should go directly to a government that has been widely accused of corruption, American and Pakistani officials say. A procession of Obama administration economic experts have visited Islamabad, the capital, in recent weeks to try to ensure both that the money will not be wasted by the government and that it will be more effective in winning the good will of a public increasingly hostile to the United States, according to officials involved with the project.
…The overhaul of American assistance, led by the State Department, comes amid increased urgency about an economic crisis that is intensifying social unrest in Pakistan, and about the willingness of the government there to sustain its fight against a raging insurgency in the northwest. It follows an assessment within the Obama administration that the amount of nonmilitary aid to the country in the past few years was inadequate and favored American contractors rather than Pakistani recipients, according to several of the American officials involved.
Rather than pouring more good money after bad, the U.S. should lift tariff barriers on Pakistani goods. What the Pakistani people need is not more misnamed “foreign aid” funneled through corrupt and inefficient bureaucracies, but jobs. Trade, not aid, will help create real, productive work, rather than political patronage positions.
Health Care – One Way to Reduce Costs
In a debate with Larry McNeely in the L.A. Times, Cato’s Michael Cannon suggested “eliminating barriers to competition by nurse practitioners and other mid-level clinicians.”
McNeely responded, “By ending all state licensing and monitoring of physicians…not only qualified nurses but also any quack with a scalpel and some drugs would be able to set up a shingle, call himself a doctor and start cutting.”
Does McNeely pick his doctors at random? How does he know his cardiologist has any relevant experience or training? Licensing creates the impression that all licensed physicians are adequate. Not true. Ask any medical malpractice insurance underwriter.
A state medical license does not restrict a physician’s practice to any particular specialty. If McNeely wants information about a medical professional, he will have to look elsewhere.
State regulation of medical professionals does not insure quality, but does limit access to care and make health care more expensive. Not all audiologists or advanced practice nurses need a doctorate. Physician assistants and advanced practice nurses have been shown to be fully capable of taking over the majority of primary care, yet many states restrict their scope of practice.
Pat Tillman Saw the Iraq War as Folly
Pat Tillman, who gave up a lucrative NFL career to join the Army after 9/11, was a true patriot: he wanted to defend America, not conduct social engineering overseas. That led him to oppose the Iraq war.
According to a new book, Tillman, who was killed by friendly fire in 2004 and hailed as an all-American hero by the former president, was disillusioned by Mr Bush and his administration’s “illegal and unjust” drive to war.
In Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman, by Jon Krakauer, the author relates the strong views of Tillman – who gave up his NFL football career to serve his country – and his brother Kevin, who joined the same Rangers unit.
The war “struck them as an imperial folly that was doing long-term damage to US interests,” Krakauer claims.
“The brothers lamented how easy it had been for Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld to bully secretary of state Colin Powell, both the houses of Congress, and the majority of the American people into endorsing the invasion of Iraq.”
Tillman was a true citizen soldier. Not only did he leave private life to serve in the military after his nation was attacked, but he believed it was his responsibility to look beyond the self-serving rhetoric of politicians to judge the wisdom of the wars which they initiated. The rest of us should remember his skepticism when confronted with the willingness of politicians of both parties to continue sacrificing American lives in conflicts with little or no relevance to American security.
A Super-Majority of Economists Agree: Trade Barriers Should Go
Sure, economists disagree among themselves about a number of public policy issues, but not about the desirability of free trade. The latest edition of Econ Journal Watch, published by the American Institute for Economic Research in Great Barrington, Mass., reports the results [pdf] from a random survey of members of the American Economic Association.
Based on questionnaires returned by more than 100 members, all with Ph.D.s in economics, the survey’s author, Robert Whaples, reports:
- The economics profession continues to show a consensus in favor of unfettered international trade, as 83 percent agree and only 10 percent disagree that the United States should eliminate remaining tariffs and other barriers.
- Other issues in which the economists reached a strong consensus:
- 82 percent disagreed that the U.S. government should ban genetically modified crops; only 7 percent agreed.
- 78 percent agreed that U.S.-government subsidies for ethanol should be eliminated or reduced, compared to 10 percent who want them increased.
- 72 percent agreed that “A Wal-Mart store typically generates more benefits to society than costs,” versus 15 percent who disagreed.
- 72 percent disagree with the proposition that “Employers in the U.S. should be required to provide health insurance to ALL their employees”; 20 percent agreed.
- 70 percent believe the typical American saves too little; 0 percent believe we save too much.
- 70 percent agreed that “The U.S. should allow payments to organ donors and their families,” while 16 percent disagreed.
To learn more about why the economists are right about free trade, see my new Cato book, Mad about Trade: Why Main Street America Should Embrace Globalization.
Pork Politics
Last night I received a press release from the National Republican Senatorial Committee entitled “Lincoln Votes to Protect Millions in Taxpayer Funds for Little-Used Pennsylvania Airport.” Lincoln would be Arkansas Democrat Senator Blanche Lincoln. According to the NRSC press release:
In a remarkable vote on the Senate floor this afternoon, U.S. Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) made clear that despite rising federal deficits and a record national debt, she still stands firmly on the side of more wasteful Washington spending. Lincoln today helped defeat an amendment, offered by U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), to the annual transportation appropriations bill that would end taxpayer subsidies for the John Murtha Airport, a little used 650-acre facility in Johnstown, Pennsylvania that has received at least $200 million in taxpayer funding. U.S. Congressman John Murtha (D-PA), who the airport was named after and who has been the subject of a number of ethics-related stories in recent months, has personally directed $150 million in federal funds to the facility even though it only has 3 flights daily to one destination: Washington, D.C.
When I went to the NRSC’s website I noticed similar press releases for other Democrat senators who I’m assuming are on the outfit’s election hit-list. Having never received an NRSC press release before, I’m assuming I received this one because I ripped Senator Lincoln in a blog post last week. If that’s the case, I’m impressed with the NRSC’s resourcefulness. Regardless, it made me curious to find out if any Republican senators voted with Lincoln and the other Democrats.
In fact, yes, two Republicans did vote to keep the federal money flowing to Murtha’s airport: George Voinovich of Ohio and Christopher “Kit” Bond of Missouri. Both are members of the third party in Congress: Appropriators. Given that he is the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, it’s not a surprise that Bond voted against an amendment unfriendly to a larded-up transportation appropriations bill. Both are retiring at the end of their terms in 2010, so the NRSC apparently wasn’t too worried about charges of hypocrisy.
With the exception of the aforementioned, all Republican senators voted for the amendment, including appropriators like Murkowski, Collins, Cochran, and Bennett. None of those folks are exactly known as fiscal tightwads. So what gives? Will these senators be headlining tea parties in the near future?
Weekend Links
- Nat Hentoff has a few tough questions for doctors who aided CIA torture.
- Is public option a private insurer killer? Larry McNeely and Michael Cannon debate.
- Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke says the recession is probably over. But was he the man who saved the economy?
- Podcast: Should the government have the power to punish you for speaking your mind? Many Americans think it should…so long as it’s people with whom they don’t agree.
Cheye Calvo Reflects on SWAT Shooting
Cheye Calvo is the DC-area small-town mayor who had his two pet dogs shot and killed by a botched drug raid about a year ago. In an article to be published in this Sunday’s Washington Post, Calvo reflects upon his experience — not just the raid itself, but on the actions of the police department afterward. Excerpt:
I remain captured by the broader implications of the incident. Namely, that my initial take was wrong: It was no accident but rather business as usual that brought the police to — and through — our front door.
In the words of Prince George’s County Sheriff Michael Jackson, whose deputies carried out the assault, “the guys did what they were supposed to do” — acknowledging, almost as an afterthought, that terrorizing innocent citizens in Prince George’s [County] is standard fare. The only difference this time seems to be that the victim was a clean-cut white mayor with community support, resources, and a story to tell the media.
What confounds me is the unmitigated refusal of county leaders to challenge law enforcement and to demand better — as if civil rights are somehow rendered secondary by the war on drugs.
Mr. Calvo has been a super advocate for reform — he has given up countless hours of his spare time to study and speak on this subject so that fewer people will be victimized the same way his family was. He spoke at a Cato Hill Briefing over the summer.
Calvo told his story at Cato last year.
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