December 3, 2013 · 1:01 pm

A Controversial News Sandwich for December 3, 2013

Today’s stories, and my classification of them as either good or bad news, will test the limits of News Sandwich readers’ agreement with my views. Without further ado…

Good News: This story from the Washington Post, in which we learn about the testimony of The Guardian UK editor, Alan Rusbridger, before the Commons Home Affairs Committee, including his revelation of the fact that The Guardian has published only 1% of the documents leaked to them by Edward Snowden.

Unlike many nonleftists, I think, based on everything I know about Edward Snowden’s actions, what he did was right. Our government has been engaging in bulk collection of metadata (as well as at least some data) without any probable cause or particularized suspicion. It’s been doing so because of the so-called “third-party doctrine,” which allows, in effect, the government to create a “haystack” of metadata without warrant, and without running afoul of the Fourth Amendment. I have argued on my show that I think this is wrong and that the third-party doctrine needs to be overturned or superseded by statute. (I also have an article, forthcoming, on this topic in The St. John’s Law Review.)

I believe what Snowden has done has helped to call attention to the problem, and that it was justified because, as Ambassador John Bolton said when I interviewed him on the Tammy Bruce show, “all three branches of government” have signed off on what the NSA has been doing. In other words, Snowden had no realistic alternative except to go to the public in hopes of educating us about our government’s wrongdoing. So far as I know, neither he nor The Guardian have acted recklessly in a way that would put our or Britain’s military or intelligence personnel at risk. They have revealed only what is necessary to draw attention to government wrongdoing. (For more on the defense of Snowden’s actions, listen to Leonard Peikoff on Snowden, as well as the follow-up podcast I recorded with him about the NSA and the third-party doctrine.)

So, from my point of view, it’s good to hear that there is a lot more information available, thanks to Snowden, which the press can use to help educate the public and hold government accountable. It was also good to hear that The Guardian is being responsible, not reckless, with the information entrusted to it by Snowden. I was also glad to hear that they destroyed their hard drives, after sending copies of the leaked documents overseas, rather than allowing them to be confiscated by the government. Finally, two bits of great news in the story: first, that the principle of freedom of speech and the press can at least be invoked to defend oneself against an overbearing government, even today; second, that United States media organizations (including the New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press) are backing up The Guardian: They signed a joint letter to the parliamentary panel stating, in part, that “to the rest of the world, it appears that press freedom itself is under attack in Britain.”

It’s too bad that freedom of commerce isn’t respected at least as much as freedom of the press…

Bad News (HT to reader Michael Shapiro, who sent me this story): This story from tuaw.com, in which we learn about the abusive behavior already being exhibited by Apple’s court-appointed antitrust monitor, Michael Bromwich. I think antitrust laws are immoral, so I think it’s bad enough that Apple was ever sued for violating them. What’s worse (but not surprising, unfortunately), is the way Apple is being treated by Bromwich. Apparently Bromwich, who lacks adequate antitrust experience, has hired other experienced attorneys to “assist” him, and so is charging Apple a whopping $1,100 an hour so that he and they can “earn a profit” from their efforts in helping to keep a government gun steadily pointing in Apple’s direction. In addition, Apple says that Bromwich has requested meetings with “Apple executives and board members that have nothing to do with Apple’s e-book antitrust compliance. For example, Bromwich, for whatever reason, wanted to sit down and interview Apple designer Jony Ive and Apple board member Al Gore.” Hey, I’d love to be paid hundreds an hour to sit down and meet with Jony Ive! (You would, in fact, have to pay me hundreds an hour to sit down for a meeting with Al Gore. Ewww.)

As Tuaw reports, Bromwich, in his response, essentially reminded Apple that he doesn’t work for them, that he is, in fact, a government-appointed thug wielding power over them. He also stated, ominously, “It is very early in a long-term relationship.”

If only Apple could have been appointed a monitor like the “Wet Nurse” from Atlas Shrugged!

And now for something completely different:

Good News (HT to cartoonist Bosch Fawstin, who sent me this story:

Perhaps the best news I’ve read today is that two “blue” states, Massachusetts and New York, are contemplating at least delaying their implementation of the Common Core educational standards. Breitbart reports that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is now suggesting that implementation might be delayed there, apparently caving into pressure put on him from concerned parents and others challenging the imposition of these nationwide standards. Massachusetts seems to be delaying implementation for more practical reasons, like the impracticality of meeting the 2014-15 standardized testing timeline or, more importantly, a desire to not screw up a good thing: their students have been, on average, outperforming the rest of the country on math for some time now. According to the article, Massachusetts and New York are now joining fifteen other states who are reconsidering their involvement with the Common Core. Let’s hope this is only the beginning of Americans’ rejection of our Federal Government’s latest power grab, the power grab with the potential to have the most destructive long-term consequences. (For more on Common Core and why I think it’s wrong, listen to “Common Core: Uncommon Danger,” my show in which I discuss the Common Core with professor C. Bradley Thompson.)

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December 2, 2013 · 10:02 am

Pigs Fly: A Good News Story At Top Of Drudge!

There are two notable things about today’s first good news story: First, I didn’t have to go digging for it. It was at the top of Drudge Report yesterday through this morning.* Second, the story is a continuation of one that I wrote about in this News Sandwich from last week, about the potential uses, both military and nonmilitary, of drone technology.

Amazon has announced, and released a demonstration video showing, its plans to use drone technology to deliver packages. The service, which Amazon plans to call “Prime Air,” will deliver packages to customers within 30 minutes of ordering. CEO Jeff Bezos says the drones will be able to carry packages up to 5 lbs. in weight–about 86% of the orders Amazon delivers. He says, however, the service won’t be offered to customers for another 4-5 years, with the one “roadblock” specifically cited in the USA Today video being lack of permission from the FAA. Maybe the reason Bezos did the 60 Minutes appearance is to create enthusiasm for the service (it worked!), and to gently nudge the FAA to get off its butt and write the “necessary” regulations? I gather that Bezos is a liberal, and so he would think it’s fine that our government, in its infinite wisdom, will now allow drone technology to be used only by government agencies and “hobbyists”–i.e., no one is allowed to make money from its use. It’s sad, but I am reminded of Equality 7-2521 in Ayn Rand’s Anthem, who brings his electric light before the World Council of Scholars, in hopes they will see how great it is and forgive his “transgressions.” Let’s hope the outcome in Amazon’s case is different.

Since we’re on the topic of technology and government, it’s time to check in on the Obama Administration’s progress in getting Healthcare.gov up and running. CNN reporters tested the website yesterday and found it still crashed. ZDNet concurs, saying the website is still glitchy. My favorite take on the update, however, comes from VodkaPundit, who summarizes it nicely: “My insurance options remain a riddle, wrapped in a subsidy, smothered in regulations.” It wasn’t so much that he ran into glitches, but he found it took forever to find the information he was looking for, and actually impossible to get complete information about his insurance options without first entering sensitive personal information, which he refused to do. I don’t blame him!

One thing I found disturbing (but not surprising) in reading VodkaPundit’s report is the number of times he encountered messages in ALL CAPS telling him he should check into whether he was eligible for subsidies. This confirms my suspicions that Obama’s real goal is not to let people know about their insurance options, but rather to funnel as many people as possible into government-subsidized or completely government-funded programs. As I discussed on my podcast a few weeks ago, the reason Obama had so little remorse after lying to us about being able to keep our plans, is that he’s already increased the Medicaid rolls by hundreds of thousands. If Republican governors continue to cave–which I assume is likely with Chris Christie as the head of the Republican Governors Association–Obama will achieve his goal of getting at least 5 million more people onto Medicaid over the next year, via the expansion provisions in Obamacare. Who will have the moral fibre necessary to repeal Obamacare in its entirety–including kicking hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, off of Medicaid? Obama and the Democrats are betting that there is not a single person in Washington willing to do that, and that there won’t be for a very long time.

The only hope right now is that the continued reports of glitches, crashes and security breaches will keep people away from Healthcare.gov, or from any government web site trying to suck them into socialized medicine. VodkaPundit mentioned an IBD poll in which the majority of Americans said that people should be “very concerned” about the security of the Healthcare.gov site. I gather the recent update is not doing much to alleviate that concern. But I also hope that most Americans will see the site as I do: not as a site designed to tell you about your insurance coverage options, but rather as a site designed to get you dependent on government handouts.

In a way, then, the glitches, crashes and security breaches are not really bad news, but good news, because they will hopefully keep Americans away from the site. Moreover, there is another way in which I am able to show this ostensibly bad news story to be a good news story. A couple months ago I discussed this story about the Utah Data Center (where the NSA does, or plans to do, a lot of its snooping) literally going up in flames. Seems the electrical engineers couldn’t do their job properly. I was happy to see the NSA’s plans to collect all of our metadata foiled, but I also thought the design failure was a good demonstration of the principle of the unity of the virtues. Much of what the NSA does, and all of what Healthcare.gov does, is not a proper function of government. Our government is acting unjustly towards us by, in the case of the NSA, collecting our metadata in the absence of probable cause and particularized suspicion and, in the case of Healthcare.gov, spending millions of dollars, stolen from Americans, to set up a website designed to help socialize the healthcare industry. Because our government is acting unjustly in these cases, the unity of the virtues principle would dictate that it is also not capable of acting in accordance with the virtues of rationality and productivity. Fires and website crashes and glitches. Our government is reaping what it has sown.

*It’s now been displaced by some yucky story about Iran and mideast oil. Haven’t had the stomach to look yet.

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November 29, 2013 · 8:44 pm

A Healthful, Post-Turkey-Day News Sandwich

Given the overindulgence that usually accompanies Thanksgiving, I thought I’d do a health-related news post for Black Friday.

First, a bit of hope in the war against “superbugs”–the antibiotic-resistant bacteria that exist because government has made creating new classes of antibiotics unprofitable. (Read more in this story that I discussed in the first News Sandwich.)

Scientists in Australia have discovered, via studying the bactericidal properties of the wings of two different species of insect, a germ-killing surface: black silicon. It feels smooth to the human touch, but at the nano level is covered in tiny spikes that skewer bacteria, killing them at an amazing rate. Reports France24.com (HT Jack Lovell via the News Sandwich FB page),

Smooth to the human touch, the surfaces [dragonfly wings and black silicon] destroyed two categories of bacteria, called Gram-negative and Gram-positive, as well as spores, the protective shell that coats certain types of dormant germs.

The three targeted bugs comprised P. aeruginosa, the notorious Staphylococcus aureus and the ultra-tough spore of Bacillus subtilis, a wide-ranging soil germ that is a cousin of anthrax.

The killing rate was 450,000 bacterial cells per square centimetre per minute over the first three hours of exposure.

This is 810 times the minimum dose needed to infect a person with S. aureus, and a whopping 77,400 times that of P. aeruginosa.

While black silicon is expensive to manufacture (it’s currently used in solar panels), the scientists are optimistic about being able manufacture either it or a substitute more cheaply in the future. The France24 article lists, as possible applications for this bactericidal surface, “a hospital room, door handle or kitchen countertop,” but there are numerous more possibilities, including computer keyboards, refrigerators, as well as nursing homes, schools and daycares, all notorious for being incubators for bacteria.

Government should get out of the way of the pharmaceutical companies, so that they can profitably create a new class of antibiotics that we can have in reserve. Nonetheless, killing the bacteria before they ever have the chance to infect human beings seems like the optimal first line of defense.

Any company that manufactures this “bactericidal” surface will have to be careful not to market the product in such a way that it runs afoul of the FDA. Earlier this week the FDA ordered the genetic screening service 23andMe to stop marketing its service to customers. (You can read the letter in full here.) The FDA says it’s concerned about the accuracy of the screening and about the consequences of either a false positive or false negative report. Quoting from the agency’s letter:

For instance, if the BRCA-related risk assessment for breast or ovarian cancer reports a false positive, it could lead a patient to undergo prophylactic surgery, chemoprevention, intensive screening, or other morbidity-inducing actions, while a false negative could result in a failure to recognize an actual risk that may exist.

First, if you were told by 23andMe that you were at increased risk for breast or ovarian cancer, would you just go get surgery without getting additional screening done first? Moreover, who would perform the surgery for you, without first doing the additional screening? Conversely, if you were told that you were at decreased risk for these diseases, would you skip the routine screenings for them? I wouldn’t.

The explanation that makes the most sense to me (besides the FDA simply wanting to control everything having anything remotely to do with food or drugs) is that the federal government wants to prevent our access to information that might make us want further medical testing. In the era of Obamacare, any medical testing deemed “unnecessary” by an appointed panel of “experts” (read: friends of Obama or other top Democrats) should not be performed. The government wants to show that Obamacare will decrease the total amount spent, nationwide, on medical care, even if it kills us in the process. And 23andMe keeps mucking up their plans.

What’s even more depressing than the FDA’s letter, to me anyway, is that the CEO of 23andMe appears to be rolling over already. In a letter sent to customers, she refers to the FDA as “an important partner.” How in the world is a government agency which is threatening you with “actions includ[ing], but…not limited to, seizure, injunction, and civil money penalties,” when there has been no proof of fraud, considered an “important partner”?

You may have seen a video circulating on the Internet saying that doctors in the UK had injected the HIV virus into a 6-year-old girl dying of cancer, and that this had saved her life. While that’s not exactly true, I learned via this article that a few trials have been done in which a cancer patient’s T-cells have been removed, then modified by exposure to a virus–in the girl’s case, likely a virus similar to HIV–and then injected back into the patient. In some of these cases, the result has been complete remission. Scientists don’t yet know why this type of therapy has cured some patients while, in others, the cancer quickly returns after a brief remission. Still, this research is very exciting as it may one day provide a less invasive, less damaging and more effective alternative for those who are at risk of dying from cancer, whether they learn about it well in advance via a screening service like 23andMe, or later after already contracting the disease.

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