What We’re Reading

June 17, 2013

Not-to-Miss Reporting and Opinions on the NSA Leaks

It’s been over a week since the new revelations about NSA surveillance programs started rolling in. Since then, there’s been a non-stop storm of reporting and opinions in the media. Here are a few articles we didn’t want you to miss. We’ll continue to keep you updated with tweets and links to interesting perspectives on this important story.

Snoop Scoops, by Hendrik Hertzberg, The New Yorker

In the closing years of the last century, newspapers and broadcasters reported extensively on a program known as Echelon, under which the N.S.A. and allied intelligence agencies used satellite receivers, underseas-cable taps, and powerful computers to download and search a hefty proportion of the world’s electronic traffic. (“If you made a phone call today or sent an e-mail to a friend,” Steve Kroft began a “60 Minutes” report, in February of 2000, “there’s a good chance what you said or wrote was captured and screened by the country’s largest intelligence agency.”) After 9/11, when such activities expanded exponentially, the press did its best to keep up….This month’s leaks to the Post and the Guardian add rich texture to the picture, but what is genuinely new is that, confronted with unmistakably authentic N.S.A. documents, the government, up to and including the President, has begun to feel compelled to come clean—or, at least, less dirty.

The Making of a Global Security State, by Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch

Much attention has, understandably enough, been lavished on the phone and other metadata about American citizens that the NSA is now sweeping up and about the ways in which such activities may be abrogating the First and Fourth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. Far less attention has been paid to the ways in which the NSA (and other U.S. intelligence outfits) are sweeping up global data in part via the just-revealed Prism and other surveillance programs.
Sometimes, naming practices are revealing in themselves, and the National Security Agency’s key data mining tool, capable in March 2013 of gathering “97 billion pieces of intelligence from computer networks worldwide,” has been named “boundless informant.” If you want a sense of where the U.S. Intelligence Community imagines itself going, you couldn’t ask for a better hint than that word “boundless.” It seems that for our spooks, there are, conceptually speaking, no limits left on this planet.

How the NSA is Just Like Wall Street, by Robert Reich, robertreich.org

It is rare in these harshly partisan times for the political left and right to agree on much of anything. But the reason, I think, both are worried about the encroachments of the NSA on the privacy and civil liberties of Americans, as well as the depredations of “too big to fail or jail” Wall Street banks on our economy, is fundamentally the same: It is this toxic combination of inordinate power and lack of accountability that renders both of them dangerous, threatening our basic values and institutions.

Why ‘I Have Nothing to Hide’ Is the Wrong Way to Think About Surveillance, by Moxie Marlinspike, WIRED

Imagine if there were an alternate dystopian reality where law enforcement was 100% effective, such that any potential law offenders knew they would be immediately identified, apprehended, and jailed. If perfect law enforcement had been a reality in Minnesota, Colorado, and Washington since their founding in the 1850s, it seems quite unlikely that these recent changes would have ever come to pass. How could people have decided that marijuana should be legal, if nobody had ever used it? How could states decide that same sex marriage should be permitted, if nobody had ever seen or participated in a same sex relationship?

Is Edward Snowden a Hero? A Debate with Journalist Chris Hedges and Law Scholar Geoffrey Stone, Democracy Now.

What we’re really having a debate about is whether or not we’re going to have a free press left or not. If there are no Snowdens, if there are no Mannings, if there are no Assanges, there will be no free press.

How Spy Agency Contractors Have Already Abused Their Power, by Lee Fang, The Nation

Could the sprawling surveillance state enable government or its legion of private contractors to abuse their technology and spy upon domestic political targets or judges?
This is not a far off possibility. Two years ago, a batch of stolen e-mails revealed a plot by a set of three defense contractors (Palantir Technologies, Berico Technologies and HBGary Federal) to target activists, reporters, labor unions and political organizations. The plans— one concocted in concert with lawyers for the US Chamber of Commerce to sabotage left-leaning critics, like the Center for American Progress and the SEIU, and a separate proposal to “combat” WikiLeaks and its supporters, including Glenn Greenwald, on behalf of Bank of America— fell apart after reports of their existence were published online. But the episode serves as a reminder that the expanding spy industry could use its government-backed cybertools to harm ordinary Americans and political dissident groups.

How the Spy Story of the Age Leaked Out, by Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian

On Sunday night, Snowden gave the last of what had been almost a week’s worth of interviews. It was his final night in that hotel room: the final night before his old life gave way to a new and uncertain one. He sat on his bed, arms folded, television news on without the sound, and spoke about the debate he had started, homing in on a comment Obama had made on Friday, in response to the leaks.
You can’t have 100% security and then also have 100% privacy and zero inconvenience,” the president said. Society had to make choices, he added.
Snowden challenged this, saying the problem was that the Obama administration had denied society the chance to have that discussion. He disputed that there had to be a trade-off between security and privacy, describing the very idea of a trade-off as a fundamental assault on the US constitution.
In what were to be the last words of the interview, he quoted Benjamin Franklin: “Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.

What We're Reading

March 29, 2013

This American Life Goes to School

by Theresa Riley

Last month, President Obama made a speech in Chicago, a city that has been ravaged by gun violence in the past few years, in which he lamented that “too many of our children are being taken away from us.”

One of the places bearing the brunt of that loss is Harper High School in Chicago’s South Side. Last year, a total of 29 current and recent students of the school were shot. Eight of them died. Last month, NPR’s This American Life did a two-part series on the school to find out “how teens and adults navigate a world of funerals and Homecoming dances.” They spent five months at the school, talking with teachers, students and parents about what it’s like to live amidst persistent gun violence. MORE

What We're Reading

March 28, 2013

The Legacy of Gideon v. Wainwright

by John Light

Anthony Lewis in the documentary Defending Gideon.

Anthony Lewis, The New York Times journalist whose masterwork chronicled the Supreme Court’s landmark Gideon v. Wainwright decision, died earlier this week at the age of 85. The court’s ruling, handed down 50 years ago last week, established a criminal defendant’s right to an attorney, even if that defendant cannot afford one. On our next episode of Moyers & Company, Bill and Bryan Stevenson, the executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, discuss how despite decisions like Gideon, economic and racial inequality continue to plague our justice system — in many cases, running more rampant than ever.

Here are some resources on Anthony Lewis and the legacy of Gideon v. Wainwright.

1. Gideon’s Trumpet

In 1964, Lewis, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, published his book Gideon’s Trumpet. In it, he described Clarence Earl Gideon as a wrongly convicted Florida man convinced that he was entitled to legal representation even though the state of Florida said otherwise. He wrote:

“Gideon was a fifty-one-year-old white man who had been in and out of prisons much of his life. He had served time for four previous felonies, and he bore the physical marks of a destitute life: a wrinkled, prematurely aged face, a voice and hands that trembled, a frail body, white hair. He had never been a professional criminal or man of violence; he just could not seem to settle down to work, and so he had made his way by gambling and occasional thefts. Those who had known him, even the men who had arrested him and those who were now his jailers, considered Gideon a perfectly harmless human being, rather likeable, but one tossed aside by life. Anyone meeting him for the first time would be likely to regard him as the most wretched of men. MORE

What We're Reading

January 22, 2013

Roundup: Roe v. Wade, Inequality and the Recovery, and Big Coal

by BillMoyers.com

Inequality is Holding Back the Recovery: “[T]he hollowing out of the middle class since the 1970s, a phenomenon interrupted only briefly in the 1990s, means that they are unable to invest in their future, by educating themselves and their children and by starting or improving businesses.” [Joseph E. Stiglitz in The New York Times]

Clinic owner Diane Derzis stands outside the Jackson Women's Health Organization Inc., Mississippis only commercial abortion clinic in Jackson, Miss., Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2013. Activists pro-and anti-abortion marked 40 years since a U.S. Supreme Court ruling established a nationwide right to abortion, with protests at the Capitol and at the clinic. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

Chipping Away at Roe v. Wade: “Over the past 40 years, state legislatures across the country have managed to place a slew of impediments, inconveniences and indignities between women and their right to choose.” [Katrina vanden Heuvel in The Washington Post]

Visit the Tiny Town Where Big Coal Will Meet Its Fate: “The Port of Morrow, where coal would be transferred from inland trains onto outbound river barges in the small town of Boardman, is just one of five proposed new coal export terminals now under consideration in Oregon and Washington. If built, the terminals could more than double the amount of coal the US ships overseas, most of it bound for insatiable markets in China, India, South Korea, and a suite of other Asian nations.” [Mother Jones]

Prancing on a Volcano: “Today we know almost everything, but can’t seem to act on the knowledge or even take it seriously. As George Orwell famously observed, ‘To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.’ Geospatial satellites can tell us—literally—where we are at any moment, but they can’t ensure that we move in a sensible direction.” [Vanity Fair]

For Second-Term Presidents, a Shorter Honeymoon: “[I]t used to be that presidents enjoyed a “honeymoon period” at the beginning of their second term, with a large number of Americans who had failed to vote for them nevertheless expressing their best wishes.” [Nate Silver in The New York Times]

What We're Reading

January 18, 2013

Roundup: Energy Challenges for Obama, NRA-Backed Dems and Political War Profiteering

by BillMoyers.com

Political War Profiteers: 20 Consulting Firms Churn 80 Percent of Super PAC Cash: “Of the $620 million that super PACs doled out during the 2012 campaign cycle, records filed with the Federal Election Commission as of Dec. 6 reveal that 80 percent was spent through just 20 consulting firms. As the graphic above illustrates, a tightly interwoven network of Washington insiders reaped the biggest benefits of Citizens United and subsequent decisions that gave rise to a new class of outsider-insiders who have become a new political establishment.” [Sunlight Foundation]

Democratic candidate for North Dakota's U.S. Senate seat Heidi Heitkamp speaks to supporters early Wednesday morning Nov. 7, 2012, in Bismarck, N.D.. As votes continue to be counted, Heitkamp has a slim lead over Republican challenger Rick Berg. Berg has not conceded. (AP Photo/Will Kincaid)

Meet the NRA-Backed Senate Democrats Who Oppose Obama’s Gun Violence Prevention Plan: “[A] group of Senate Democrats, all of them highly rated by the National Rifle Association, are refusing to say if they support the President’s reform package.” [ThinkProgress]

Can These New Federal Rules Rein in Foreclosure-Frenzied Banks?: “Servicers, which collect mortgage payments from borrowers and work out terms of a loan, are supposed to explore all alternatives to foreclosure before reclaiming a home, and to give homeowners a fair and clear evaluation process. But as millions of borrowers fell behind on payments in the wake of the financial meltdown, loan servicers got slammed by tons of added legwork and administration, and many more got perverse incentives to fast-track borrowers into default.” [Mother Jones]

The United States Needs to See the Doctor: “The study enumerates other key, if unsurprising, factors in our shortness of life. ‘Americans are more likely to find their health care inaccessible or unaffordable,’ it concludes. ‘Americans benefit less from safety net programs that can buffer the negative health effects of poverty and other social disadvantages.’” [The Washington Post] MORE

What We're Reading

January 17, 2013

Roundup: PTSD, Obama’s Gun Proposals, ‘Big Money’ in Elections

by BillMoyers.com

Can Obama Speak to History?: “He’s never given himself a phrase or sentence to wield in the crunch, conveying an idea that’s simple and yet profound enough to embed itself in the public’s mind, and that truly defines his political vision.” [The New Yorker]

President Obama, accompanied by Vice President Biden, and children who wrote the president about gun violence following last month's shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., signs executive orders to reduce gun violence on Wednesday. From left are: Biden Hinna Zeejah, 8, and Nadia Zeejah, Hinna’s mother, Taejah Goode, 10, and Kimberly Graves, Taejah’s mother, Julia Stokes, 11, and Dr. Theophil Stokes, Julia’s father, and Grant Fritz, 8, (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Obama’s Far-Reaching Gun-Proposals Face Uncertain Fate in Divided Congress: “Within hours of Obama’s formal policy rollout at the White House, Republicans who had previously said they were open to a discussion about gun violence condemned his agenda as violating the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms.”
[Washington Post] MORE

What We're Reading

January 16, 2013

Roundup: Debt Ceiling, Million-Dollar Judges and the NRA’s Inner Circle

GOP Debt Limit Bluff Exposed: “House and Senate Republicans, as well as influential conservative advocates and media figures, have joined Newt Gingrich, Wall Street Journal editors and others pressing Republicans to give up the ghost.” [Talking Points Memo]

Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., left, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., center, and Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., right, finish a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2013, where they and other lawmakers announced their plan to introduce new legislation to eliminate the federal debt ceiling. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Public Option Resurfaced by House Democrats as Deficit Reduction Measure: “According to a Tuesday statement from Rep. Jan Schakowsky’s (D-Ill.) office, Schakowsky, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), and 43 other House members have introduced the Public Option Deficit Reduction Act, which would “would offer the choice of a publicly-run health insurance plan, an option that would save more than $100 billion over 10 years.” [Huffington Post]

For ‘Party of Business,’ Allegiances are Shifting: “Corporate chiefs in recent months have pleaded publicly with Republicans to raise their taxes for the sake of deficit reduction, and to raise the nation’s debt limit without a fight lest another confrontation like that in 2011 wallop the economy. But the lobbying has been to no avail. This is not their parents’ Republican Party.”
[The New York Times]

Unmasking the NRA’s Inner Circle: “Today’s NRA, widely considered to be disproportionately influential in politics, operates more like a corporation or politburo than a typical nonprofit or lobbying organization. Its 76 board directors and 10 executive officers keep a grip on power through elections in which ordinary grassroots members appear to have little say.” [Mother Jones]

NRA Unleashes Lobbyists: “The NRA kept its dozen in-house lobbyists on lockdown in the first month after the Newtown massacre, but no more. The group is moving back onto Capitol Hill in force, not shying away from its take-no-prisoners message: no new gun laws.” [Politico]

Rigging Democracy — Why the People Won’t Pick the Next President or Congress — Unless We Act Now: “Obama’s victory overshadowed the fact that Republicans maintain control of the House of Representatives and won dramatic victories at the state level that seem almost mathematically miraculous in how they flout majority rule.” [In These Times]

When Public Outperforms Private in Services: “The pursuit of financial rewards, by private companies or even nonprofit organizations, can directly undermine public policy goals.”
[The New York Times] MORE

What We're Reading

May 10, 2012

Today’s Must Reads – May 10, 2012

by Theresa Riley

In this new feature, we’ll share stories from around the Internet that we’re passing around here at Moyers HQ. Share your own “must reads” from today below in the comments section. We’d love to hear what you’d recommend!

Newspapers and magazines carrying pictures of President-elect Francois Hollande are seen in a bookshop in Paris Monday. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)

Bloomberg Businessweek: How Europe’s Austerity Backlash Might Change U.S. Politics
“The U.S. Congress is hardly a bastion of Europhiles — remember all that nonsense about ‘Freedom Fries’? When politicians here do cite the Continent, it tends to be in the form of a derogatory political attack, e.g., Mitt Romney’s frequently invoked line about how President Obama wants to ‘Europeanize’ America. So the idea that U.S. lawmakers might learn something from their foreign counterparts and adjust their views accordingly after the anti-austerity wave sweeping through France and Greece isn’t necessarily an obvious one.”

The New York Review of Books: How to End This Depression by Paul Krugman
“The depression we’re in is essentially gratuitous: we don’t need to be suffering so much pain and destroying so many lives. We could end it both more easily and more quickly than anyone imagines — anyone, that is, except those who have actually studied the economics of depressed economies and the historical evidence on how policies work in such economies.”