I’ve been tough on Spitzer, but we can’t forget that the reason he got in trouble was because of the new NSA domestic surveillance apparatus that was so brilliantly depicted in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. Here’s the Lede.
Five years ago, Congress killed an experimental Pentagon anti-terrorism program meant to vacuum up electronic data about people in the U.S. to search for suspicious patterns. Opponents called it too broad an intrusion on Americans’ privacy, even after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
But the data-sifting effort didn’t disappear. The National Security Agency, once confined to foreign surveillance, has been building essentially the same system.
Spitzer was what the data-mining experts at the NSA call a PEP–a politically exposed person. Banks now monitor PEP’s money wiring activities figuring they are classic targets of blackmail or bribery. Spitzer got caught in the data mining screen. I know people will probably say that even Mukasey had to sign off on an investigation as explosive as this. Spitzer was a self-detructive idiot, but at the end of the day, we have to realize that nobody has any privacy anymore.
41 responses so far ↓
David // March 11, 2008 at 6:25 pm
My undertsanding is he was tranferring large sums of money between accounts. I work at a bank and we are required to file a suspicious activity report (SAR) everytime there is a transaction of $10,000 or more. No politics needed to get on the Feds radar just move some cash.
hughvic // March 11, 2008 at 7:17 pm
I wont rally to the PEPs, as much as I appreciate learning their acronym. It’s already clear that Spitzer initiated multiple criminal conspiracies, and in so doing fell right into the hands of whoever operated the Internet-enabled prostitution ring(s), and something tells me that the operator was closer to a Maryland Made Man than to the Mayflower Madam. That kind of blackmail has changed the course of modern American history, and it’s got to be an even greater threat to the public health & safety, and the national security interest, than were e.g. JFK’s wayward black book, the Lawford beach house tapes, and whatever twisted stuff the mob must have had on Clyde + J. Edgar to get the latter to deny for decades that there was any such thing as organized crime in this country.
I’d say the NSF is on the front line of our defense, and I haven’t noticed any of my God-given Constitutional rights gone missing of late; on the contrary, they’re mine to enjoy, and I do so thoroughly and regularly. Good work, NSA!
Jon Taplin // March 11, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Hugh-The classics of American Blackmail you mentioned have indeed changed history.
As for me, I’m not so sure I feel so easy about being spied on. Your assumption that this is not going to effect your life in the next ten years is , I think naive.
swoplv // March 12, 2008 at 12:08 am
John, couldn’t agree with you more. As Franklin said, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Morgan Warstler // March 12, 2008 at 4:05 am
Let me say also, Good work, NSA!
Jon, your cable box knows what you watch, your hotel bill knows what you watch. Google knows what you think. These are free choices, just like living here.
I am not a privacy junkie. I am a freedom junkie. Privacy and freedom aren’t the same thing. Being free to do stuff, comes with owning up to fact that you do it. Capitalism is the winning orthodoxy, it is spreading the world over. In a capitalist, corporate, information economy, in a digital economy - it is just as imperative, that we remove the chains of social laws (what you do for fun or lifestyle or religion), as we remove the chains of taxes.
All too often it is the perception of privacy is what causes the problem. As one small example: if every husband or wife were to be exposed for using hookers, I’m a firm believer, they would still use hookers, in fact hookers would suddenly be legal in every state in the union, and most all marriages were it occurred, would accept it. Lying to protect others feelings, is no more moral, than listening in on someones conversation. And listening to someones conversation to make sure they aren’t being bribed becomes only important when government is powerful.
I am a firm believer that if everyone got to do what they wanted without fear, they’d be so happy, so filled with joy, they’d not care what everyone else was doing.
That will not happen in a society filled with laws. We hold on to privacy as a life-jacket as the legal water rises. Our job Jon, is to get rid of the water.
jonathan peterson // March 12, 2008 at 5:14 am
While it’s possible that Spizer’s activities were spotted by the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping data mining system, it’s much more likely that bank installed suspicious activities data mining software or even human procedures mandated by the post 9/11 Bank Secrecy Act is what did him in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_secrecy_act
That added the SAR to the existing Currency transaction reports (CTR) for cash transaction > $10,000. SARS are more subjective, based on the actions and the risk scoring of the individual. As a politician on the PEP list, Spizer’s risk score would have likely been comparable to a Saudi businessman, which is to say, he would have been very tightly monitored.
NPR had a good piece this morning from a software company that sells BSA compliance software systems going over it in detail.
hughvic // March 12, 2008 at 5:29 am
It would be totally naive of me, Jon, to be sure. Except that I congenitally try to guard our rights—and my own rather vigilantly—and do so within a tragic worldview that compels me to honor office and the officers who act in exercise of their commission. If a state schoolteacher or an NSA investigator or the President of the United States dishonors her office, as presidents Nixon and Clinton did, then I’ll be found in the van, crowbar in hand. Right now I’m keen to use it to unseat Spitzer.
Alex Bowles // March 12, 2008 at 6:41 am
Mr. Warstler, I believe the real concern is not that privacy is disappearing. The concern is that it’s disappearing for SOME people, while the actions of others are becoming more opaque than ever. For example, Google knows an awful lot about you. But what do you know about Google? Same goes for the NSA, only more-so, because unlike Google, their activities can escape judicial review and prosecution altogether (see ‘warrantless wiretapping’ and ‘telcom immunity’ for details)
You must see that the reservation is not, as you state, an unwillingness to ‘own up to what you do’. It’s the unwillingness to live with organizations that are legally unaccountable for anything they may choose to do to you.
If you can cite a single example where political, social and economic freedom have ever co-existed with a police state (i.e. one in which the police are accountable only to themselves) it would be welcome news to the growing numbers of thoughtful, reasonable and well educated people who are watching the current situation with growing alarm.
Privacy, as it existed in the 20th Century, may be a relic of the past. Human nature, on the other hand, is remarkably consistent. Dignity and self-determination have always been threatened by those who seek power for self-serving ends, and are willing to abuse others to increase and defend that power. Jesus knew this, Shakespeare knew this, the Founding Fathers knew this in their bones. So did the Nuremberg judges, the members of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the Congressional members who drummed McCarthy out of their ranks, and those who were on the verge of impeaching Nixon. People prosecuted by Spitzer for crimes he was committing himself are getting a taste of it right now.
In short, if technological advances have stripped us of protections that used to come naturally, then it is incumbent upon those who enjoyed those protections to institute new safeguards that keep the corruptible aspects of power exactly where they belong - subject to public scrutiny and / or judicial review.
Catching Mr. Spitzer was good. Doing it with systems that skirt any legal scrutiny was not so good. Exposing the entire population to these systems is disastrous. And acting as a cheerleader for systems like this is just plain reprehensible.
Consider: the list of people who share your outlook is populated by the apologists for every tyranny that ever managed to survive its embryonic stages and emerge as a fully-formed threat to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I assure you, Mr. Warstler, this is not the company you want to keep. And the people they support are not people who will ‘be so happy with themselves that they don’t care about you’.
Honestly, sir, wake up.
Morgan Warstler // March 12, 2008 at 7:27 am
Police state? You think we live in a police state?
Well I guess in a slippery slope kind of way sure. BUT, if we live in a police state, than surely, democrats are socialists by the same kind of logic. And I’m much more concerned about fighting socialism, than worrying about jack-booted thugs.
I think hugh nicely summed up the proper response to when and where government fails. IN FACT, Spitzer proves quite nicely, that our police doggie has no absolute master. The police tend to follow the law. I’d LOVE to have a thread on this topic, I’d suggest this article as the basis. From Mamet…
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0811,374064,374064,1.html/full
You can’t assert we live in a police state and ask me for proof that they are good. BUT let’s follow my little dialogue please?
Alex, if hookers were legal, how would Spitzer be in this situation?
Please just answer this question, then we can get to some more.
pond // March 12, 2008 at 8:20 am
Scott Horton over at Harper’s thinks there is a good reason to consider the Spitzer affair as part of the Bush Justice Department general policy of trying to put Democratic leaders in jail:
http://harpers.org/archive/2008/03/hbc-90002589
As for privacy, it’s true there isn’t any. But it seems that what the Bush administration does must at all costs remain private. As the Fox News commentators are fond of saying, ‘If you aren’t doing anything wrong, why should you try to keep anything secret?’
Alex // March 12, 2008 at 9:57 am
Morgan, the statement that “I”ve got nothing to hide, so why worry about privacy” (this is, effectively, your premise) is a ludicrous argument.
http://sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/why-got-nothing-to-hide-to-is-ludicrous.html
As a conservative myself, I’m astonished that the Republican party has allowed such a wholesale degradation of our fundamental rights, under the guide of fighting crime and terrorism. We’re really in some serious shit here as a country. I grew up in a socialist country, and I’ll tell you — what we’re seeing from the Republicans is far closer to the crap I saw in a socialist country than you argue. Socialism equates to an overarching government that constantly intrudes in your life. If you want to argue for the destruction of the fourth amendment because anything else is socialist, you’ve got some surprises coming to you.
Jon - How sure are you that the NSA program was used to nab Spitzer? I am very interested in this angle myself.
STS // March 12, 2008 at 11:04 am
Alex Bowles:
“… the real concern is not that privacy is disappearing. The concern is that it’s disappearing for SOME people, while the actions of others are becoming more opaque than ever.”
Well said! If everybody in the world was in a position to immediately hear about a public servant’s misdeeds, that lack of privacy might (hypothetically) be acceptable. But when it is available only to the NSA or US Attorneys or some other well-placed individuals who then get to DECIDE selectively WHOM to prosecute and whom to absolve, that amounts to a form of judicial tyranny.
By Morgan’s logic, secret ballots should be eliminated. And I suppose he would regard it as merely “unfortunate” that this would create an opportunity for harassment of anyone who votes “incorrectly.”
Morgan Warstler // March 12, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Secret ballots aren’t that great, but I’m OK with them. But if you wanted to let everyone who chose to - vote publicly online - great. Users gain freedom to vote at home, maybe even put in their vote and be able to change it over time, up until a deadline, but your vote has to be public - so it is easy to count and verify. Sounds like a positive, low cost, option.
Look, IF data is available, it needs to be available to everybody. If my phone calls have to be exposed, and so will everyone else’s fine. Tapping of phones wont happen often when most everything is legal - why dont you get that?
I’m not arguing “nothing to hide.” I am not a fan of police states.
I BELIEVE in encryption. I believe in encryption cracking technology. I believe if you want to go sit in your house and do whatever the hell you want, you should be allowed. AND I believe if someone wants to invent and sell technology that lets people see into your house, and ogle you from the street, they should be able to. And if someone wants to make and sell paint that stops them from seeing through. Great.
That doesn’t mean someone can walk into your house. Thats what cops are for… and if you shoot someone on your property, thats fine. It is yours to protect.
The point is, all things, all motives, must stem from wants. And a bunch of regulations saying what can and cannot exist, get in the way of the earnest expression of wants. I want liberty/capitalism, and if it can buy privacy great, and if not, too bad. I won’t sacrifice the market for some other silly stupid thing - like privacy.
Zhirem // March 12, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Goodness, gracious me. Mr. Warstler, I find you entertaining. Maddening, to be certain, but entertaining nonetheless.
I would like to take a page from your book, and pose to you a choice. I leave it up to you to decide whether or not it is a false choice:
Do you believe in:
A.) The merging of state and or corporate power?
or
B.) The tolerating of the growth (and subsequent consolidation) of private power to the point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself?
Inquiring minds want to know.
- Zhirem
STS // March 12, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Morgan,
You are blowing great billowing clouds of smoke. Where to begin? (I shouldn’t even begin.) But here’s one simple observation: capitalism depends on property rights. If property rights are to be enforced only by gun-toting homeowners, then why do you even mention the word “cops”? Even if you hire magical free-market private “cops” on what basis do they justify entering others’ property? This is “the war of all against all.”
One can’t predicate daily policy decisions on abstract arguments that human reality should be something altogether different than it is today. Doing so can make for entertaining philosophical discussion, but I shudder at most of your pretended “conclusions” from all that “smoke.”
hughvic // March 12, 2008 at 1:58 pm
My understanding, which may be askew, is that even as young anti-war protesters have taken to throwing pipe bombs at recruiting offices, so have diverse faculty at Jon’s university been indulging in an ivory tower version of the same movement nostalgia: a search for that elusive El Dorado, an economic Third Way—meaning a peck on the cheek of Sister Capitalism en route to a hot date with Marxism dressed in the neologistic fashions of academic fadism.
The transition to a service economy is old news. Globalization and the liberalization of trade, old news. The Internet? “Old newspapers blowing down Bleecker Street.” The One Economy IS “communications”—in the sense in which that word is used in military science. Goods are still needed and goods are still made and bought and sold, but their markets—and therefore their lines of communication—are worldwide, and the communication of, and about, those goods generates more capital than the pricing of the goods does. Add to that the pride of place held by “Communications” in the orthodox service sectors, and you have a global undifferentiation of markets and obliteration of the distinction between goods and services. In place of these distinctions, Babel.
The largest employer in California is not a player in the entertainment industry, nor in the semiconductor industry, nor in agriculture nor aerospace; it’s Safeway. Safeway envisions a day when groceries will be incidental to its main business: information. Groceries will be come-ons stocked to see who buys them, and how often, and for how much, and why—that is, to fulfill which perceived needs or desires. The real money is in intel. The trade in personal information, legally garnered.
That’s just one example—I’m sure each of you has better ones—of why it looks to me comparatively like Boy Scout behavior for NSA to have convinced NeuStar or AT&T that they’d be doing their patriotic duty to let their switching talk to Uncle Sam’s mainframes to see whether NSA software could detect any red flags such as “Hey Abdullah, send cash for fertilizer and a rental truck”, or “Yeah, and don’t think we ain’t got Spitzer’s balls in a safe, neithah.”
If any of you want to get to the down lo on systems theory and just how it is that we’ve come to find ourselves mere nanobits in microsystems run by others chosen for their serviceability to macrosystems run by others selected for their serviceability to just the damnedest people, then I’m game (as it were). But in the meantime, if you wouldn’t mind, I’ll pay my respects to officers of e.g. the NSA, the FBI and RCMP, the Coast Guard and military services of the U.S. and Great Britain, because I believe that those officers, and not for example the potentates in the U.N. rackets, are the first line of our defense of those who really do seek to shred our Constitution—and know how to use a shredder to eliminate their enemies.
Morgan Warstler // March 12, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Hughvic, Hear, hear! (pounds desk wildly)
Then to the silly private cops thing. Along time ago in at BBSs like The Well, and then stuff like Hotwired Threads, there were multi-year discussions of how to privatize everything.
Generally, I’d like to privatize everything except security, and then pause for a while and get our breath.
The thing that gets lost in discussions like this (and it is only one example of libertarian solutions being easy) that gets made clear by Spitzer and I keep harping on it… MAKE HOOKERS LEGAL.
It is so easy to make hookers legal, and all of a sudden a normal everyday thing that “everybody” does, is no longer something that the mob can use against politicans. And we cut back on sex diseases. And we put new revenue base into the economy.
I swear, everyone who is apt to forgive Spitzer should be required to support legalizing whores.
Those in favor of legalizing whores, are allowed to worry about the NSA in other situations, because Spitzer wouldn’t be a security risk. Those in favor of legalizing whores, are allowed to vote for a politician who uses hookers.
My answer to your concerns of the NSA, will be the same with drugs. Legalize them. Soon there wont be much the NSA needs to realistically watch.
Jon Taplin // March 12, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Hugh-You always enter the room with such civility when our friend Morgan is about to pound his shoe on the table.
Like you, I have tremendous respect for the professionals that work in the Intelligence services. What I don’t trust is the ability of their information being twisted by the career politicians like Doug Feith. Read Hugh Wilford’s new book, The Mighty Wurlitzer; How the CIA Played America. It goes back to the 50’s and tells a fascinating tale.
Morgan–I assume that you are implying that if we legalize drugs the population will be too stoned to cause the authorities any trouble?
hughvic // March 12, 2008 at 3:50 pm
I will read it, Jon. Thank you for the recommendation.
Morgan Warstler // March 12, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Jon, I’m saying the tapping of phones to stop crime, happens less if there is less against the law. If hookers were legal, Spitzer would still be governor.
Like hookers, legalizing drugs would dramatically reduce trouble caused for authorities - it would be legal. Just send the vice squad home.
rhb // March 12, 2008 at 5:34 pm
“The concern is that it’s disappearing for SOME people, while the actions of others are becoming more opaque than ever.”
If you want a book to read try Charles R. Morris’, The Trillion Dollar Meltdown, or speak to the Japanese about transparency and the financial markets, or better yet, Hughvic and Morgan, get some balls and force your President and his cronies to open up their books and emails to the public.
hughvic // March 12, 2008 at 6:50 pm
rhb, I don’t know what prompts your ad hominem quip, but the answer is no, I will not endeavor to open the President’s private correspondence to public review. (And I don’t know what you mean by the President’s “books”.) I’m a constitutionalist, and what you are suggesting is a subversion of Constitutional separation of powers, unless it is done in the prosecutorial context specified in e.g. the Political Reform Act or the Constitutional provisions for removal from office. As to the President’s “cronies”—if cronies there be—and their books and emails:
a) Who gets to work up the Enemies List of presidential cronies? You?
b) By which exercise of “force” of law do we compel such disclosures?
c) How did we get from a government agency’s software scanning satellite transmissions for flagged keywords that give probable cause for court-sanctioned investigation, to reaching into people’s homes and offices to read their private “books” and emails?
From the satellite telecom equivalent of an airport metal detector to Mao’s Great Cultural Revolution in one short blog string? Long March Cure Bush Derangement Syndrome!
Boycott such Beijing Games.
Morgan Warstler // March 12, 2008 at 7:50 pm
hugh, you may have heard, david mamet, recently has switched sides as it were with a VV piece called, “Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal”
If you haven’t yet read this, please do so:
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0811,374064,374064,1.html/full
Money quote:
“The Constitution, written by men with some experience of actual government, assumes that the chief executive will work to be king, the Parliament will scheme to sell off the silverware, and the judiciary will consider itself Olympian and do everything it can to much improve (destroy) the work of the other two branches. So the Constitution pits them against each other, in the attempt not to achieve stasis, but rather to allow for the constant corrections necessary to prevent one branch from getting too much power for too long.”
I’m very sure, there is such a movement afoot in our Mr. Taplin, I’m here to bear witness.
Jon Taplin // March 12, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Morgan- Have you seen any David Mamet plays in the last seven years? He switched sides eon’s ago. Only people who have never seen his work could believe the fiction that is that Village Voice articles. He’s just trying to peddle his book career, knowing no reader has probably seen his stage work.
One of his plays six years was a savage depiction of political correctness on a campus. It was as right wing as David Horowitz.
Jon Taplin // March 12, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Hugh-I think RHB was just referring to the issues I’ve raised on the other string at
http://jtaplin.wordpress.com/2008/03/11/the-fed-is-freaked/. The Bush administration has been totally opaque by hiding war funds all over the budget and not letting people know the real cost of the war.
We don’t care about Bush’s private correspondence. Its all the other secret stuff in the public’s name (the Unitary Executive) that worries us.
hughvic // March 12, 2008 at 8:29 pm
Morgan, boon news on Mamet! I’m keen to read his recantation. He used to be a red diaper type, as witness the doctrinaire speeches in “Glengarry Glen Ross”. He reminded me of The Clash for awhile there: getting rich and famous off of pissing and moaning about what a drag it is that some people have money and some don’t. I mean, if he were truly opposed to appropriation, why then did he have to go and marry Rebecca Pidgeon. Even if he’s slain Darth after all, I still can’t forgive him for being such a consummate American writer with such exquisite taste in women.
Jon, I feel like Miss Emily Latella: “Never mind.” Black budgets are one thing, but hiding the cost of Iraq/Afghanistan is worse than sending LBJ on a milk run to Vietnam and having him return three years later, pockets inside out, with a bagful of Great Society donuts. How long did it take us to dig out of that $1 Trillion tab?
If Bush is violating the public trust in this way, then Congress is asleep at the switch. For starters, they should yank Pelosi out of leadership and replace her with Harmon or Waxman. (They wouldn’t even have to upset the regional balance that way, swapping one CA Dem. Delegation member for another.) Harmon knows defense and Waxman’s a nutcutter. And both of them, unlike Narci Pelosi, can pick battles and count votes almost like a grown-up. Then they ought to clean house at OMB if necessary and go after Bush.
If something like the Political Reform Act (but for operational transparency) or a vastly beefed up FOIA could come out of this mess as those measures came out of Vietnam & Watergate, we’d be better off longrun. In the meantime, I guess we’ll have to wash dishes to work off the Fed’s donuts.
Morgan Warstler // March 12, 2008 at 8:34 pm
“According to late February polling conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 53 percent of Americans — a slim majority — now believe “the U.S. will ultimately succeed in achieving its goals” in Iraq. That figure is up from 42 percent in September 2007.”
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9016.html
I’m pretty familiar with Mamet. I remember the movie, the play was written in 1992. Since then his work had plentry of barbs.
BTW, don’t count a man’s politics by what he produces, count them for what he votes. As an example, consider Larry David, who I’m convinced totally fakes liberalism, so he can tell all the good conservative jokes. Either way, I like his piece.
You shound’t cast aside Horowitz, Mamet, Boot out of hand, they are worthy thinkers - you gain more by giving them their due.
hughvic // March 12, 2008 at 8:37 pm
Also, when W was casting around post-9/11 for ways in which the average civilian could contribute to the war on terror, I think it would have been nice if he’d made them contribute at the pump, with a very fat gasoline tax to help pay for the war and for some smart alternatives toward greater energy independence. Make ‘em feel it. Make it sting. Get their buy-in. Keep apathy from the door. Kick up the dust. Teach them that national economic security IS national security, and that wars hurt.
rhb // March 12, 2008 at 10:45 pm
That might have worked if he were the type of leader who led by example.
STS // March 12, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Morgan,
Thanks for the Mamet link. The word ‘jejune’ appears in the piece for a reason. You are both right to celebrate the virtues of the market, but a little uncomprehendingly reckless about the constitutional and legal framework that protects it from anarchy — and the natural successor to anarchy which is tyranny. My best sources for that insight (apart from my own experience) are traditionally understood to be “conservatives.”
JK // March 13, 2008 at 3:32 am
If anyone needs an example of where this program will end, look at the NY Times article on the woman who was involved with Spitzer. Someone in law enforcement committed a crime by leaking her name and other details. The Times has a link to her myspace website.
When the government has this data, does anyone in their right mind think it will be safe? It will be sold or given away. If you ahve a problem with one of your neighbors who knows someone in law enforcement, things you text, or say on the phone, could get communicated to anyone as a result of that. We’be become Saddam’s Iraq, hopefully not on as large a scale.
Conservative used to mean standing up for freedom. Now it means “I agree with big government because they know best.”
tacovan // March 13, 2008 at 5:46 am
Very interesting……..Privatize everything? An entire society centered around the economic self interest of the individual?
If everything is private and “for profit” what happens to those who cannot afford luxuries such as “disaster relief” ,”health care”, “security”?
tacovan // March 13, 2008 at 5:46 am
……..and hookers.
zestypete // March 13, 2008 at 6:28 am
Morgan, if hookers were legal, no doubt Spitzer wouldn’t be in this situation, but then again, they wouldn’t be called hookers anymore, following an inevitable rebranding: Sexual Facilitators perhaps? Or Professional Pleasure Operatives? I doubt the union would retain the whole “whore” or “hooker” nomenclature. Too many negative connotations…
Jon Taplin // March 13, 2008 at 7:01 am
JK-And the Times also confirmed my original contention that Spitzer was flagged as a PEP.
Here’s the quote:
In addition, banks must exercise an extra level of due diligence for a “politically exposed person.” While the law defines such people as “current or former foreign political figures, their immediate family and their close associates,” several banking officials at major institutions said that as a matter of practice, they extend extra scrutiny to American political figures.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/nyregion/13legal.html
rhb // March 13, 2008 at 7:43 am
I wonder is there anyway we can turn this situation into a freedom of information technique for the citizens?
Morgan Warstler // March 13, 2008 at 8:01 am
Insurance tacovan, insurance.
STS, Anyone who talks about the constitutional framework, assumes all all but free market. Don’t be silly. Go read it.
Jon Taplin // March 13, 2008 at 8:36 am
Morgan- I have an answer to your Pew Poll citation in my new post.
http://jtaplin.wordpress.com/2008/03/13/iraq-five-years-later/
STS // March 13, 2008 at 8:45 am
Morgan,
Go read what? I read Mamet’s piece. I’m sorry I didn’t find it quite as insightful as you did.
Jon Taplin // March 13, 2008 at 4:24 pm
rhb-What a fabulous idea! We wouldn’t be waiting for Billary to turn over their tax returns, we’d just log into the PEP’s database.
BTW- We need you and Hugh over on the comments on
http://jtaplin.wordpress.com/2008/03/13/iraq-five-years-later/
JK // March 14, 2008 at 6:22 am
Spitzer’s name was released but these names have not been:
http://rinf.com/alt-news/politics/washingtons-suppressed-prostitution-case/2680/
Leave a Comment