Monthly Archives: December 2017

Op-Eds

SESTA/FOSTA: The Real Internet Censorship Threat

1 Comment

Ban Censorship (RGBStock)

In a particularly Orwellian example of the arguments for “Net Neutrality,” the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times preemptively complained that the Federal Communications Commission’s December 14 repeal of the two-year-old rule “sacrifices the free and open Internet on the altar of deregulation.”

In fact, the “free and open Internet” did just fine — more than fine, even — for decades before being brought under a “Title II” regulatory scheme intended for 1930s-era telephones. And, unfortunately, there’s no deregulation involved. Instead of just getting its grubby mitts off the Internet as it should, FCC is handing regulation off to another intrusive bureaucracy, the Federal Trade Commission.

If the Times is truly interested in a “free and open Internet,” perhaps its editorial board should quit worrying about the FCC making it too free and too open and re-focus its attention on real problems. “Net Neutrality” has always been a distraction and a bugbear.

A Google News search returns 5,520 results from the Times on the term “Net Neutrality,” but only four on the US Senate’s proposed “Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act” (SESTA).

SESTA, along with its companion bill in the House of Representatives, the “Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act” (FOSTA, because we must have cute acronyms at any cost), is straight-up Internet censorship, an open and undeniable threat to the “free and open Internet.”

Under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” The sound theory underlying that rule is that many, even most, web sites are open to user-created content and can’t be expected to pre-edit that content.

SESTA/FOSTA attempts to carve out an exception to that perfectly sensible guideline for “participating in a venture” by “knowingly assisting, facilitating, or supporting sex trafficking.”

Conscripting blog platform operators, newspaper comment moderators, and ad brokers as unpaid government censors is both evil in itself and bound to produce the opposite of the result SESTA/FOSTA’s sponsors claim they want.

Existing laws against abduction, sexual assault, forced labor and criminal conspiracy are more than sufficient to enable the prosecution of those who collude with others in such activities. Even setting aside legitimate debate concerning what constitutes “sex trafficking” and whether or not specific commercial activities (e.g. consensual adult sex work) should be illegal, SESTA serves no legitimate purpose in protecting the vulnerable. Their abusers will just move them off of public web sites and into the shadows.

On the other hand, the high susceptibility to interpretation of the words  “knowingly,” “assisting,” “facilitating” and “supporting” leave holes in Internet speech/press protections that are big enough for the federal government to drive an armored car carrying a SWAT team through. And given its past abuses, who doubts that it will do exactly that under this turkey of a bill?

We can have a “free and open Internet” or we can allow SESTA/FOSTA to become law. We can’t do both.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Op-Eds

Here Comes the Next “Defense” Shakedown

4 Comments
USS Ronald Reagan traveling through the Strait...
USS Ronald Reagan traveling through the Straits of Magellan, to San Diego, CA, in a transfer move. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Today with the signing of this defense bill,” US president Donald Trump said as he affixed his signature to the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act on December 12, “we accelerate the process of fully restoring America’s military might.”

Is Trump truly under the mistaken impression that US military might is ailing? Or is he mindlessly aping Ronald Reagan and hoping it brings in the re-election votes? Or perhaps something else entirely?

The NDAA budgets nearly $700 billion for the US military next year. Despite its name, there’s precious little “defense” involved.

While it’s true that the United States is involved in several ongoing wars ($65.7 billion of the NDAA’s appropriations go to the “Overseas Contingency Fund” for continuing those wars), none of them serve any vital, let alone existential, US interest, and none of them are defensive in nature.

The US has no militarily significant adversaries in the western hemisphere. Further afield, it already floats by far the most powerful naval and expeditionary capability on Earth. Of the world’s 41 aircraft carriers, the US operates 20, including 11 flat-top “supercarriers.” The remaining 21 are scattered among the navies of 12 other countries, mostly US allies. America’s two most likely military adversaries, China and Russia, each operate one light STOBAR (“Short Take-Off But Arrested Recovery”) carrier.

Speaking of China and Russia: China’s military budget is less than 1/3 the size of this latest US monstrosity. Russia’s is even smaller, and set to shrink in 2018.

A true US “defense” budget might, if wasteful,  run as high as 1/10th of the NDAA’s numbers.

So if the NDAA isn’t about defense, what’s it about? Mostly corporate welfare.

The bill includes money to buy more 30 more planes than the military asked for  (24 reliable old F/A-18s instead of 14, and 90 of the newer lemon, the F-35, instead of 70). The US Navy asked for one new Littoral Combat Ship. The NDAA budgets for three. Translation: Billions  for aerospace and ship-building companies.

The NDAA also adds more than 16,000 troops to the already bloated US armed forces. Not because more troops are needed for “defense,” but because each new soldier, sailor, airman and Marine must be fed, clothed, housed, and armed — which, in the age of fake privatization, means yet more money for “defense” contractors.

Prior to World War Two, when a war ended US military spending descended toward pre-war levels. Then what Dwight D. Eisenhower referred to as the Military Industrial Complex took over the federal government. Now that government’s primary activity is moving as much money as possible from your pockets to the bank accounts of “defense contractors” on a continuing basis.

This year, the tab comes to about $2,160 for every man, woman and child in the United States. Do you feel like you’re getting your money’s worth?

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Op-Eds

Finally, Evidence of Russian Election Meddling … Oh, Wait

1 Comment
Embassy of Russia in Washington D.C.
Embassy of Russia in Washington D.C. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On December 1, former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to two counts of lying to the FBI about conversations he had with  Sergey I. Kislyak, then Russia’s ambassador to the United States. The charges, and Flynn’s plea, were part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of “Russian meddling” in the 2016 US presidential election.

Finally! Hard evidence! The Trump campaign really did work with the Russians to fix the election and deprive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton of her pre-ordained return to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue!

But there are big problems with that narrative.

Americans cast their votes for president on November 8, 2016. The Electoral College voted on December 19.

The charges relate to discussions between Flynn and Kislyak on December 22 and December 29. If the two were conspiring to fix the presidential election, they must have been using a time machine. Surely we would have heard about that part if there was anything to it, right?

So, if the incoming National Security Advisor and the Russian ambassador weren’t conspiring to fix the election, what were they talking about? According to the charges and plea, two things (two things that Flynn lied about, anyway):

First, on December 22, Flynn apparently asked the Russian government to help delay or kill a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning  Israeli  settlements in occupied Arab territory.

Secondly, on December 29, Flynn apparently asked the Russian government to refrain from retaliating in kind versus sanctions imposed by the Obama administration.

Flynn lobbied Russia  — after the election — on behalf of Israel, and Flynn lobbied Russia — after the election — on behalf of the United States. He pleaded guilty to lying about those two things. He was neither charged with, nor admitted to, colluding with the Russians prior to the election or with an eye toward affecting it.

So no, none of this is evidence of Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. Rather,  it is prosecutorial abuse and extortion. Mueller charged Flynn with “crimes” that shouldn’t be illegal and that are unrelated to the supposed point of the investigation — and probably threatened to also charge his son — in order to “flip” Flynn, get him on Mueller’s side instead of Trump’s side, and thereby possibly make progress toward taking down bigger game.

Nobody owes the FBI the truth. Subjects of investigation have no moral obligation to cooperate in their own prosecution. It’s law enforcement’s job to find evidence, not potential defendants’ job to assist them in doing so. Unless one is under oath in court, no law should compel truthfulness or punish falsehood in talking to the cops.

Did  the Russian government meddle in the 2016 presidential election, above and beyond a few weird and likely completely ineffectual social media campaigns? Your guess is as good as mine. So far, the evidence still hasn’t shown up.

But another government, Israel’s, didn’t even bother to hide its meddling. And it took its first installment of payback in having Michael Flynn lobby the Russians on its behalf. Don’t hold your breath waiting for a Special Counsel to investigate that.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY