The Next Hurrah

Why is our director of national intelligence letting terrorists roam free?

by emptypockets

Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, writes in an op-ed in this morning's New York Times that FISA, which requires court review of certain kinds of government wiretaps, "slowed -- and sometimes prevented -- our ability to collect timely foreign intelligence." He urges Congress to renew the Protect America Act, a temporary measure passed this year that bypasses FISA, and is due to expire in February.

Having personally transcended outrage, mockery, and scorn, I am going to go ahead and take McConnell at his word.

He writes that FISA has "not kept pace with changes in technology" (FISA was created in response to the illegal government activities of the Nixon administration) and that, under FISA, "our experts were diverted from tracking foreign intelligence threats to writing lengthy justifications to collect information from a person in a foreign country". Bottom line? "The intelligence community should spend its time protecting our nation, not providing privacy protections to foreign terrorists".

Which raises the question -- if they know who the terrorists are, why not go get them? Why is McConnell spending his time fighting political battles in Washington, DC, which even if won, will only let him listen in on phone calls? Why does he want to divert our experts to listening to tapes when they could be out catching bad guys?

I can imagine one reason: monitoring known terrorists may lead to the capture of larger groups of terrorists. But, to me, that stands too great a risk of losing track of them, as occurred with bin Laden. Shouldn't McConnell and the US government capture these terrorists while they can? Why are they playing soft with them?

The other possibility, of course, is that McConnell doesn't actually know yet who the terrorists are, and wants to be able to eavesdrop on lots of private conversations of innocent civilians, with the hopes that that will turn up a handful of terrorists. But that's not what he's saying, and I'm prepared to take him at his word: he knows where they are, he knows who they are. He'd just rather listen in than stop them.

Barbers

by emptypockets

I recall after the September 11th attacks, probably on the 12th or 13th, going for a haircut. I was living in San Francisco at the time and, being originally from the northeast, I remember feeling disconnected, like a great shuffling underground was just out of reach. I was far from family, and California friends didn't feel the way I did. At the barber's, though, something clicked. It was crowded on a midweek afternoon, the TV was turned to CNN, and everyone was quiet and serious. Where coworkers had been chatty, the barber's was meditative.

I revisited those thoughts the other day, at a barber's here in New York. It was a far more normal midweek afternoon, and I was the only customer there until an older guy entered and took the chair beside me. The barber made conversation with him: "How was your Thanksgiving?" "Hm? Oh, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving... hm... not bad..." He was at his sister-in-law's. She's a good cook. "But I'm not having Christmas this year."

The barber let that rattle around the room for a while, and finally gave a nonconfrontational "Okay." Another long pause. "My wife passed away, so that's why." There was the sensation of the little ties that bind human strangers growing tighter. "When did that happen?" "Oh, a long time ago, long time ago..." A bit of a loosening. "June." Tight again.

"Damn, I miss her."

My first thoughts were for the old man and the poignancy of someone lonely but proud, reaching out for human contact but not able to appear to be reaching. My second thoughts were for the other families having a first Christmas without a loved one, or afraid that they will. I thought first of one family I know whose son will be sent soon on his first trip to Iraq, and then, in the abstract, of other families split by the war, and, finally, of families like the old man's, the elderly and infirm. And so, in this little stretch between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I'll stop a bit right now as I go through my usual stressful holiday routines to give thanks that those routines haven't changed, that everyone who is supposed to be near me still is, and I don't have to contemplate a first Christmas "without."

And I think of why others must. I wonder, between that haircut and this one, how many families have been changed by two wars, so many deaths, new economic insecurity, poorer health care, less health research. Personally, I don't have much outrage left. I once derived some comfort from politics and blog posts filled with mockery and scorn, but I feel like I've passed through that and it no longer helps, if it ever really did. What hope and comfort I find now derives from those small vestiges of community, found in odd corners like the barber's, though perhaps increasingly less often.

Go Learn Something, pt. 3

by emptypockets

Each Tuesday or Wednesday, I try to post a link to one of the many amazing resources for learning that I've found online. Our collection so far includes the free cell biology lectures by top researchers at iBioSeminars and the 25,000 free e-Books from Munseys.com. Commenters have suggested the medical resources The Doctor's Guide (via Margot) and Patient Care (via chch16), the archeology site The Archeology Channel (via Elliott), and the philosophy videos compiled at a brood comb blog (via creepydude).

Having touched on biology and literature, this week I want to look into a little history through one of my favorite sites, The American Memory collection at the Library of Congress. It's an enormous trove of scanned documents, photos, maps, old advertising, and audio and video recordings from the mid-1800s to the present.

In fact, it's so big that it's difficult to know where to begin. (It's also organized in an unfortunate way that can be difficult to browse. But that's more than made up for by the sheer volume of material available.) Here's one place to begin: the Sound Recording directory. Click into an individual collection (Folk Music, Dust Bowl, for example) and then browse the photos and mp3s of the people and their music. Since I think Woody Guthrie said just about everything that ever needs to be said, that's where I began. But for purposes here, why don't I start a little closer to home: New York City.

Little George in the big city

by emptypockets

Next Tuesday, President Bush will swing into town to address the United Nations. I'm thinking of going over to join the protests outside. I have a few questions.

First, what should my sign say?

Second, who is the major organizer and how well-organized are they likely to be? The groups I've found so far are Stop Bush Sept 25 and The World Can't Wait. Any experience with either of these groups?

And finally -- and most importantly -- do these protests still do anything? Surely, I'm not hoping to affect Bush's decisions. I've never attended a protest before, partly because I only recently felt any need to engage politics, and partly because I've mostly lived in places where most everyone else thought about like I did -- Democratic strongholds -- so I didn't feel a strong need to try to sway the opinions of my neighbors, either. Yet somehow this year things feel different. It feels more important. Maybe it's because Democrats have some power, so progress is possible -- yet we're not seeing much progress. Maybe it makes me feel like speaking out is more important now than it felt to me in the past.

In an age where we have more democracy of opinions -- where anyone with an internet connection can express their opinion more easily, to a wider audience, than ever before -- is standing in the street still relevant?

Go Learn Something, pt. 2

by emptypockets

Each Tuesday or Wednesday I'll try to post a link to an interesting learning resource. Treat this as an open thread for on-line learning, education news, or to bring us news about your your own field.

Last week I linked to iBioSeminars, free Quicktime-format lectures by the leading lights in cell biology. I also want to draw attention to a couple links submitted by commenters, The Doctor's Guide, a medical news site submitted by Margot, and The Archaeology Channel, a site full of audio and video documentaries about ongoing archeological work, submitted by Elliott. I'll get back to multimedia soon, but this week I want to take a look at the world of free online texts.

My favorite source, blackmask.com, was shut down a year or two ago amidst some copyright dispute. It has been reborn as Munseys.com, and currently has upwads of 25,000 titles available, all full text, free, in a number of formats including HTML, PDF, and popular eBook reader formats.

For example, check out their Political Science shelf -- everything from Hobbes to the 9/11 Commission Report. Most of their titles are copyright-expired, meaning older pieces (not a problem for those among us who see survival over time as a powerful measure of quality, and also believe all the best science fiction was written before the moon landing).

Previvorship

by emptypockets

The New York Times ran a good "personal history" piece on a woman who knows she inherited from her mother a copy of the tumor suppressor gene BRCA1 that predisposes her to breast and ovarian cancers at a young age (probably by the time she turns 40). It describes her struggle with the decision merely to monitor herself carefully or to commit to the best cure available against breast cancer: double mastectomy. It's an informed choice her generation will be the first to face.

Joan Lindner, 63, is a cancer survivor. Her daughter, by contrast, is one of a growing number of young women who call themselves previvors because they have learned early that they are genetically prone to breast cancer, and have the chance to act before it strikes. [...]

Parents who have fought cancer typically have no experience with the choices that confront their children, and guilt over being the biological source of the problem can color their advice. Siblings and cousins who carry the risk gene evangelize their own approach to managing it, while those who dodged its inheritance seem unqualified to judge.

The story is a sign of our changing relationship with our genetic inheritance -- not only the substance of the story, but the very fact that an entire family's genetic pedigree and relevant medical data, with their photos, was published as a front-page story in a major newspaper. Maybe it's the exhibitionism of the reality TV age dovetailing with the post-genome era: only one member of the pedigree declined to have his name and photo published. (Why didn't the NYT respect his wish for privacy and just leave him off the tree?) Not only do we know more than ever about our genetic makeup, we are sharing it.

Importantly, our ability to read (and publish) our genes is outpacing our philosophy of when to do so. Ultimately, the answer is simple: it's up to the individual. But those individuals will want to make an informed choice, and (as I've written many times) in a setting where about 3/4 of us believe in angels but only 1/4 believe in evolution, the infrastructure is not in place for people to be savvy consumers of genetic information. Add into the mix the self-interest of counseling companies, pharmaceutical companies, and insurance companies and you get a recipe for confusion and frustration.

How will we overcome it? There may emerge trustworthy companies to help you interpret whether new medical studies apply to you: for example, 23andMe was started recently by the wife of one of Google's founders (and with a substantial investment from Google itself) for just these ends. (Hm, and they're hiring...) But, I'm afraid people will always crave certainty and a quick fix, and that's not what most legitimate research will offer -- so, unfortunately, it's not time to sell short snake oil futures just yet.

And who gets to read your DNA? Your employer? Your insurance company? The government? New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been trying to expand DNA databasing to anyone convicted of a misdemeanor, and some states apparently collect DNA from anyone arrested (whether or not they are convicted). Will your DNA become a bit of personal information like your social security number -- putatively private, but in reality requested every time you fill out a form, apply for credit, visit your dentist?

Below these pragmatic concerns there exists a deeper question about humanity and free will. How "proactively" do we want to try to control our future, and to what degree should we realize that we may be able to lightly weight the dice, but in the end we can only really control our own attitudes toward what may come? Arlo Guthrie decided not to be tested for the copy of the gene that led to his father, Woody, dying of Huntington's disease, for which there is still no treatment. He recently passed the age at which his father died, and is still going strong without any sign of illness -- he said, "I spent the day talking to my dad about it, as it were [...] I said, 'All right, there's progress. And if my kids live a day older than I get to be, we're moving in the right direction, anyway.' "

Hey, who took my Chardonnay?

by emptypockets

Senator Mitch McConnell this week explained why, despite Americans' desire to get out of Iraq, opposition to the "surge" would fail:

As the summer dragged on here in Washington, leftist groups continued to insist on an arbitrary withdrawal date. And when they failed to get their wish in Congress, they followed Republicans home over the August recess, pouring money into misleading political ads and busing in protesters. [...] And while the defeatists were pouring out of their buses with their coffee and their doughnuts last month, thousands of tough, determined American soldiers and Marines were spilling out into Iraqi cities and villages finding a way to win this fight.

There's a lot wrong with his statement. For the main part, the statistics he cites as reason to hope that the surge will stabilize Iraq are contradicted by numbers from the Defense Intelligence Agency and have been debunked elsewhere. And the fact that, in the meantime, our children's blood is "spilling out into Iraqi cities and villages" is exactly the point. But I want to focus on a different part of his statement.

Coffee and donuts?

Whatever happened to Iraq war opponents being a "tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freakshow"?

It seems like, even in their spittle-flecked hate speech, leading Republicans can't help but acknowledge that getting out of Iraq is not some far-left hippie dream but is what most Americans -- the regular-Joe, coffee-and-donuts crowd -- want most.

---

UPDATE: It was Pat Buchanan who took my Chardonnay!

Always in fridge: Fat-free half-and-half, lemonade, ice water and a chilled bottle of chardonnay.

Go learn something

by emptypockets

You can learn a lot just by surfing. The American Society for Cell Biology (which I seem to be plugging a lot lately) has published a terrific set of lectures by some of the leading lights in the field. The full collection is at iBioSeminars, and they're all free. Most are at a level suitable for advanced undergrads, but (as with any field) some speakers are clear enough that even someone with almost no background could follow easily. Martin Raff is one of my favorite communicators: here he is talking about how an organ -- or organism -- knows how big to grow: Quicktime moved below the fold so it doesn't keep loading with the home page...

Like you needed another reason to impeach Bush

by emptypockets

It's just galling that you and I will be paying Bush a six-figure annual income for life, for the heckuva job he's done.

Mr. Bush will receive an annual pension of $186,000, travel funds, mailing privileges, Secret Service protection, office space, staff, stationery and transition expenses.

(By the way, that "office space" allowance? Pretty much up to his discretion. If he wants to rent Jenna's old bedroom from himself for $5 million per year, I don't think there would be much but dignity to stop him. Which is to say, nothing would stop him.)

If only there were some way to revoke all these "retirement" perks...

Under the 1958 Former President’s Act, a president would forfeit his pension if he were impeached

Consider it a few million dollars' reward for doing what's right.

How to lose our national edge in science

by emptypockets

Just sit still while others move ahead. From the current American Society for Cell Biology newsletter:

Cell biology in China is growing, and if the Chinese Society for Cell Biology (CSCB) can be considered "Exhibit A," the proof is strong indeed: CSCB now has nearly 3,000 members working at more than 200 universities and 40 institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences...

Government funding for research has risen dramatically in the last decade, as the Chinese economy has developed rapidly. From 1995 to 2004, Chinese science research funding increased from 0.6% to 1.23% of the gross domestic product. In 2006 the percentage rose to 1.4% (300 billion RMB Yuan, which is 22% higher than in 2005).

Given the pace of growth of the Chinese economy, that increase in the R&D-to-GDP ratio is amazing. And China is not alone. An NSF report last month says China, Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea are all growing faster than the US:

From 1991 to 1995, R&D in Asia grew at a much faster annual rate (7.9%) than in the EU (3.4%) and in the United States (3.3%). After 1995, growth accelerated in Asia to an annual average of 8.7%, exceeding that of the EU (5.4%) and the 6.0% U.S. average.

China's annual rate of R&D growth from 1995 to 2003 (20%) exceeded that of all these other R&D performers, followed by Singapore's at 15%. Growth in Taiwan averaged 10% and in South Korea 7%

The Asian stars are also increasing their publication rate faster than the US. And they have been growing their pool of post-graduate-educated workers faster than the US. There are well over 3 million Chinese workers involved in science and technology research.

The rise of Asian research is fantastic for global science, and will give these growing countries a strong engine for continued economic growth. Unfortunately for us, it also means the US high-tech trade balance has turned negative. The good news is that we have a huge advantage in the American scientific infrastructure that's been built over the second half of the last century. If we spend money here instead of on foreign adventures, we will continue to lead. If not, not.