Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.
Chinese Proverb
NOTE TO READERS: For the rest of the week, it is likely my daily emails will be briefer than usual and/or prescheduled. I expect to resume normal posting by the weekend
Emailgate and Sunday Talk Soup
I knew it from the first time Barry Obama opened up his mouth on the Hillary Clinton government emails via her private email server kerfuffle: we've heard this before, very predictable (paraphrased): "I heard about it the same way you did, through news reports." Why? Because the minute you concede it, the next question is when did you know and why didn't you do something about it? Of course, the Administration did admit today that Obama had emailed Clinton--it was impossible to believe that over 4 years where Ms. Clinton travelled extensively around the world, that the Blackberry-loving President hadn't emailed her. It's possible, but unlikely, that Obama didn't understand the significance of an email domain 'clintonmail.com' vs. say 'obama.senate.gov'
Before going further, let me explain part of my personal interest in this story. For over 20 years, I've made a living as a database administrator. DBA's have an obsession with backups. In 1999, I was corporate DBA for the American marketing/service subsidiary for a Japanese computer chip testing manufacturer (with prominent clients like Micron, Intel, and IBM). I also administrated the company's ERP system (integrated applications, everything from invoices to financial statements). One accounting manager (who didn't like me because I had replaced her friend, who had left the company because he had not been named to fill the vacant IT manager's position) was in charge of payroll, part of which involved processing with a prominent third-party vendor. This processing occurred outside of our ERP system. I was shocked to discover it was basically a standalone PC under her desk. She was paranoid that I wanted access to the system to review what company employees were making. (Guess how I found out what the company paid for my relocation? Ms. Confidentiality herself talking to other employees.) My sole interest was wanting to ensure that the PC was being backed up because it represented a risk to operations (say, a hard drive failure); I wasn't asking to do this or control it; we had a networking/desktop group.
As an IT consultant, my issue with Hillary Clinton's private email service, beyond other things (e.g., I used to mock Lois Lerner's 18-minute gap in her emails, a reference to a critical gap in the Nixon Watergate tapes), was that it potentially posed an intelligence vulnerability without critical oversight and protection by government security/tech experts. Ms. Clinton wasn't just an ordinary government official but receiving/sending highest-level privileged communications. Pretending that she didn't know the risks doesn't wash: she specifically attacked email issues under the Bush Administration, Sarah Palin's external email account was hacked during the 2008 campaign. Even if Ms. Clinton is not technically knowledgeable about email security issues, any and all government personnel are required to receive training, particularly if you have a security certification
I haven't even reviewed all the Sunday morning shows, but I had enough just listening to Fox News Sunday. (Chris Wallace conducted, as usual, the best interviews in the business.) The issue dealt with interviewees Lanny Davis (a longtime Clinton loyalist) and Neera Tanden. Basically, I don't even want to acknowledge evasive, defensive, unresponsive talking points like 'Colin Powell [Bush's Secretary of State] did it'; 'the use of private email servers/accounts were not restricted until Obama's second term when Clinton was no longer in the administration', 'Clinton complied with the spirit and letter of the law', etc. These sorts of sham defenses are totally disingenuous.
The use of government infrastructure, including Internet services, for personal purposes is discouraged; my colleagues and I were not allowed to bring cellphones into a secure facility. You are explicitly warned that there is no expectation of privacy. They powered on their cellphones, e.g., when they left the facility on a lunch break. There are some minor exceptions for brief personal messages, e.g., timesheets, meal breaks, scheduling issues, family emergencies, illnesses, etc. But generally speaking, you were encouraged to leave the building and use your own cellphone. And it was not out of the question to have multiple email accounts, with one being dedicated to secure messaging. Email accounts are often rigorously backed up, e.g., every 2 hours. Government emails often explicitly identified on different levels of classication, and every government employee is trained in their proper use. It is forbidden to leave secure documents in the open in a secure facility; quite typically there are paper shredders for disposing relevant items. Violations of security policies can and do result in terminations.
There is no rational excuse for using a private email account for government work, period. The idea that there are different controls, procedures for handling privileged information is untenable. If Ms. Clinton did not want personal emails stored on a government system, fine; use clintonmail.com on your own time, on your personal cellphone, etc. But you use government infrastructure for official purposes; I can remember state and local facilities not even allowing VPN access; I remember in 2002 having to drive into Chicago at 11PM to do a 5-minute task in person. But saying, for instance, I want to check whether Bill stuck to his diet during lunch does not mean having classified emails to an unsecure server/location. We don't know, for instance, whether Hillary left a printout of a secure document out in the open, whether she arbitrarily deleted the paper trail to key documents (say, Benghazi; we have no way to knowing the completeness over what she does turn over. We don't know if there were efforts to hack into the Clinton email server and gain unauthorized access to privileged information. This Administration took a vow to increase tranparency, and Ms. Clinton understood what that meant. But the idea that Clinton could sidestep a paper trail by leaving her the gatekeeper of official correspondence by asking, are there any holes in government rules and regulations for me to bypass recordkeeping? It's clear by the very timing of setting up the email server--around her confirmation hearing--this was a deliberate act.
Saying Powell did it? I don't know, but even if he had, shame on him and two wrongs don't make a right; as to whether laws were incomplete, the fact is we have a rule of law and nobody is above the law. Clinton would have the highest level of sensitive government information--if anything, her communications should have been subject to a higher level of scrutiny and recordkeeping. That government rules and regulations did not foresee Ms. Clinton's use of a private email server? Ask me if I would be surprised by a drafting error in government regulations. Compliance with the intent of federal recordkeeping laws? Give me a break !
Freedom v. FCC Control of the Internet
HT Don Boudreaux of Cafe Hayek. I agree with Don that this video is great. Almost inevitably on forums in discussing this issue, I get the usual attacks that I am a shill for cable providers, am getting money from the Koch brothers, that providers could aribrarily abuse their "monopoly powers" to maximize "pay to play" revenue. There are plenty of counterexamples; for instance, broadband Comcast owns the NBC family of national broadcast and cable companies; it has always licensed third-party content, including ABC/ESPN, and it has continued to license its acquired content for obvious reasons (e.g., its geographic reach as an ISP is not national, and it can extend viewers, critical for advertising revenues). (Similarly, supermarkets offer more than their own private brands; customers often look to purchase nationally-advertised brands.)
The real point is competition. I am very well-aware that competition makes a difference, and that's the main point. During my most recent move, I had to wait a week and get off work early to accommodate the cable guy; similarly, when I've had to go to a GM dealership for service, I can't get it done during more convenient evening or weekend hours. But my local Wal-Mart is open 24 hours a day, and I can order almost anything online at any time and have it delivered to my door. As Google Fiber expands its reach of municipalities, many of the incumbent providers find a way to upgrade their upload/download speeds, often at no extra charge. We also have to look at innovation; at one time, we had the Pony Express, telegraphs, long-distance calling, overnight delivery, dial-up/DSL, email/instant messaging, broadband, VOIP (e.g., digital phone service), wireless calling/Internet, etc.
The idea that providers can restrict content arbitrarily is short-sighted and little more than conspiracy nonsense. There are often technological ways to circumvent restrictions. I'll give a simple example: one day I was trying to play a Céline Dion French track on Youtube, and I got a message that the video was not authorized for play in the US. But if I was so inclined, there are Internet services which could spoof that my PC was in Canada, and I am sure there are ways to purchase the diva's recordings/videos not released in the US. In the music industry, there have long been "bootleg" copies of concert recordings. The fact is that you still have supply/demand factors, and the content provider will often find that it can maximize revenues by cutting price and/or extending its customer reach. And competition works: windfall profits attract competitors. I fully expect wireless capacity for data transfer to upsize dramatically. What is really needed is for government to get out of the way of competition and/or not to guarantee/enforce exclusive delivery by itself or favored players.
Anyone with modicum of business understanding knows there are risks in mergers like Comcast's. There is the well-known disaster of Pepsi's fast food acquisitions. Coke and Pepsi were locked in a fierce battle for market share in the 1970's. Fast food chains often played the soft drink giants against each other. Pepsi decided to acquire notable pizza, chicken and Mexican food chains. Well, of course, they now had 3 captive chains that would serve Pepsi products. But the bigger move on the chess board was that it gave Coke sales reps a new arrow in their arsenal to fast food rivals of the 3 chains: do you really want to give your competitors the profits to compete against you? I can't speak for Comcast's strategy here; it could be that it's worried about commoditization of the cable or ISP business and sees content as a higher-margin business, spinning off its maturing broadband business. (Who knows? Maybe Google could acquire it as a way of ramping up its Fiber service.)
The only way you can judge the contributions of an acquisition is through the pricing mechanism of the market; if you unduly restrict content or price your services too high, you provide a business opportunity to an actual or prospective competitor. The only way a private-sector company can guarantee revenue is through some crony relationship with government.
Choose Life: The Gifts of Autistic Children
Choose Life: Adoption and the Parent-Child Reunion
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Jerry Holbert via Townhall |
Carly Simon, "Haven't Got Time For the Pain"
