Pocket Gofer 5

POCKET GOFER 5

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ON THE COMING OPEN SOCIETY

• CONTROL OF INFORMATION
• WHY CONTROL OF INFORMATION IS NO LONGER PRACTICAL
• ADVANTAGES OF THE NEW OPEN SOCIETY
• DISADVANTAGES OF THE OPEN SOCIETY
• HOW WE CAN PREPARE FOR AND ENJOY THE OPEN SOCIETY
• CONCLUSION

Think of a society with no secrets.  Some of us can remember the old rural days, when several people would listen in on a telephone party line while one party was talking.

The talker might complain, but often it did little good.  Multiply that millions of times, and maybe we can get some idea of what lies in store for us just around the corner.

We are heading toward a society where the only secrets will be in parts of personal finance, the voting booth, and the bedroom.  Everything else we do and say, don’t do and don’t say, and how we do and say it will be open for general consumption.

Can we exist in such a society?  Can we enjoy it?  This pocket gofer will demonstrate why the open society is inevitable and why, if we prepare for it, we will be able to enjoy it.

CONTROL OF INFORMATION

Almost all governments, especially dictatorships, depend on control of information flows to rule over their people.  Soviet Russia’s Joseph Stalin knew about this necessity, so he gave orders to ensure that only an absolute minimum of Communist party apparatchiks had telephones (and no party lines).

The whole strategy was to treat the public like mushrooms.  Keep them in the dark and feed them disinformation (more commonly known by another name).

In a democracy theory directs that government officials are civil servants.  That’s the theory.  However, in practice withholding information can concentrate political power in the hands of a few, thus gradually transforming them from servants into masters.

The theoretical masters, the taxpayers, have very little insight as to where their money is going and for which purposes it is being used (or misused).  The information that we need to verify and clear away the fog is impractical for us to obtain.

This barrier is not due to government neglect.  Rather, it is put in place by design.  Therefore the democratic process cannot function, but the rhetoric put out by power-seeking public officials distracts citizens so they don’t realize this truth.

In one year elder President Bush requested $30 billion from the Congress for “covert actions.”  Of course, we know where that money is really coming from, but our president apparently saw no need to account for any of it to us or even to our representatives in the Congress.  Furthermore, he classified a million pages of documents “secret.”

President Clinton issued an executive order that all secret documents at least 25 years old will be declassified.  The CIA had 166 million pages of secrets at least 25 years old, the defense department 998 million.  But the agencies still did not cooperate.

Presidents Reagan and elder Bush utilized secrecy in the interest of national security to authorize activities that skirted the bounds of law, and we still don’t know how much of our money they spent on these schemes.  What we do know is we will soon air a vast quantity of dirty laundry.

The writer of an article about the Iran-Contra scheme stated that on January 5, 1993 former secretary of defense Caspar Weinburger will be tried on five counts of perjury and obstruction of justice.

That trial never took place.  Shortly before that day (and after the 1992 election) elder President Bush pardoned him and about five others who were involved in the scandal.

By now it is common knowledge that Mr. Bush was involved.  He had apparently violated the law when he was vice-president.  He and other high officials had depended on secrecy to do what they wanted to do in spite of the congress having passed legislation forbidding it.

They presumed they were above the law.  President Reagan must have also known, and may have ordered it.

Therefore, in pardoning Weinburger and the other accused crooks Bush probably succeeded in covering his own arse and Ron’s also.  Right after he did this deed (which was legal) he appeared before journalists and said, — get this, that he was doing the “honorable” thing under the circumstances.

Guts ball, friends.  Is this Washingtonspeak for honesty in government?

President Bush hated leaks.  Bush Jr. insisted on even tighter secrecy.

Friends, whenever a government collects tons of info on its citizens and shares with them very little truthful info on what it is doing those citizens’ freedoms are in mortal danger.  Personal power-seeking is a part of human nature.

We wonder what would have happened if we had an open society.  Iran-Contra would probably not have happened, as there would have been too much risk of detection.

We recall the eight-year dirty war between Iran and Iraq.  The Reagan and elder Bush administrations secretly helped to build up Iraq’s firepower by shifting functions normally done by the department of defense into agricultural support programs.

With this assistance piling up, Saddam Hussein naturally assumed America was an ally.  Ambassador April Glaspie confirmed this during a July 1990 meeting only a couple of weeks before he moved his army into Kuwait.

It must have come as a bit of a shock when this same America moved hundreds of thousands of soldiers into Saudi Arabia next door and threatened deadly force against him.  It shouldn’t have.

But Saddam as a dictator understood little about elections.  Therefore he probably couldn’t appreciate Mr. Bush’s intensely felt need for a boost in his popularity ratings.

Some American-made weapons exported to Iraq were fired back at our soldiers.  (We could not find where the news media mentioned this.)  We conclude that there is something to the old saying that what goes around comes around.

The British newsmagazine Economist published an 8/1997 article called “Telling it Like it, up to a Point, Was.”  “—- there really were Soviet spies, and there really were secrets to keep, not least nuclear ones.

“But the instinct for suppression went much too far.  The most famous example came in 1971, when Richard Nixon took the New York Times and the Washington Post to court to stop them from printing the so-called Pentagon Papers, ——.”

Supreme court justice Potter Stewart rendered an opinion regarding this case, including: “The only effective restraint upon executive policy and power … may lie in an enlightened citizenry — in an informed and critical public opinion.

“For this reason, it is perhaps here that a press that is alert, aware and free most vitally serves the purpose of the First Amendment.  For without an informed and free press there cannot be an enlightened people.”

Anthony Lewis in his book Freedom for the Thought That We Hate provided a most valuable addendum.  In so doing he shredded the pussycat news media.  (More on this later.)

“To Justice Stewart’s adjectives — informed, free, alert, aware — must be added courageous.  By those standards, the American press failed sadly when it met its next great test after Vietnam: the government’s policy and power after the terrorist attacks — September 11, 2001.”  

 THE PRESS SAGA   

Mark R. Lewin’s book:  Unfreedom of the Press

“Boston Gazette 1768 – “THERE is nothing so fretting and vexatious, nothing so TERRIBLE to tyrants, their tools and abettors as a FREE PRESS.  The reason is obvious, namely, ————- bulwark of the people’s liberties.”   For this reason it is ever watched by those who are forming plans for the destruction of people’s liberties, with an envious and malignant eye ……”  Were that lesson learned, there would be no Pocket Gofer 5.

Before 1960 newspapers and radio stations were mostly owned by wealthy families or foundations.  They believed in prompt and accurate reporting based on truth.  Reporters with high school educations entered bars, civic organization meetings and elsewhere — anywhere and anytime their noses for news led them.  Their credo was: “Get it first, but get it right.”  As time passed the era of the free press in America faded as lobbyists in Washington bought laws and regulations that tended to smother it, but some morality persisted.

There were other factors entering the scene.  One was education: people with college degrees in journalism shied away from entering bars and grubbing for news among the common folk.  They thought of their jobs as part of a profession.  Interviewing prominent people such as political leaders, entertainers and sports stars got them noticed and promoted.  (Barbara Walters springs to mind.)

Another factor was a gradual change in ownership, toward business executives managing news media vehicles.  They too had college degrees, mostly in business.  Therefore they focused on the bottom line, and they learned that investigative reporting is expensive.  This preoccupation gradually caused them to stray from truth.  Managers learned that sex, violence, war and tragedy sell.

A third factor was television, which was welcomed by media managers because a tilt towards showmanship helped each to prevail against the competition.  Neilson’s data helped each manager to see how well he/she was doing.  Shareholders also took note.  News readers of teleprompters were called anchors so that TV viewers did not suspect they were being read to like they were (presumably) doing for their small children.  Young and pretty readers, some with push-up bras, helped to keep viewers locked onto one particular channel.

Anchors were promoted so effectively that some were lionized by their followers in a manner similar to top athletes and other stars.  Each was sent on brief junkets overseas, to convince naïve viewers that he/she was an investigative reporter chasing truth.

A fourth factor had politicians latching onto TV and other social media as  substitutes for meeting in person with constituents.  Each could “talk with” thousands and even millions of voters, so he/she hired assistants trained in theater arts to help burnish their telegenic image.

Furthermore, public officials wanted to distract reporters from actively seeking real news.  Therefore charisma and personality politics gradually displaced truth in reporting.  This shift saved a lot of travel to faraway places or paying stringers.

This also meant not just ease in getting re-elected for career politicians, but also provided open season for changing their thinking and behavior from public service to self-service.  Because critics and organizations without big money found their voices muzzled, these politicians could go on doing their thing while hiding valuable information from those who are paying them: taxpayers.  Back in 1790 Thomas Paine foresaw this sad situation.  He described today’s deceived taxpayers as “—– the excess of slavery.”

As political power became ever more centralized in Washington and special interest lobbyists’ money reduced competition so that big businesses that hired them got wealthier, the need for secrecy got more intense.  Taxpayers must not know they are being deceived and ripped (see PG19), so career politicians threw up barriers to free speech.  A few thinking activists could see what was really going on, but their attempts to inform the public were blocked

The Constitution’s First Amendment got lost in the shuffle.  Given a public voice, citizens might have asked how a democracy can function on behalf of citizens when they don’t know what activities they are paying for so they could vote intelligently.  Rigged elections and an apathetic citizenry helped to ensure secrecy.  This is why career politicians love empty elections.

All this tends to lead managers away from the “Get it first, but get it right” credo of the old days.  It also means that the news media are a drag on the economy instead of helping concerned citizens to force their public “servants” to be public-spirited.  James Madison put great emphasis on a free press as absolutely essential for any democracy to persist over the long term.

And now?  News &Observer 8/2017.  “Gallup reports only one-third of Americans have a ‘great deal; or ‘fair amount’ of trust in the news media and a Harvard-Harris poll found 65% of voters say there is a significant amount of ‘fake news’ in the mainstream press.”  Now it is easier to understand why Publius II so often follows news from The Economist.  He uses the American edition of a British newspaper because there is no American vehicle that pulls so few punches when criticizing our country’s government.

Lewin – “——– the democratic party press narrative that the Trump party campaign colluded with the Russian government during the 2016 presidential election was a complete fabrication that consumed 2.5 years of broadcast, print and internet ‘reporting,’ 24 hours a day and involved an untold number of media-inspired and media-promoted conspiracies, plots, allegations, inferences, suppositions and conclusions.”  Understandably, no published guess at how much all this cost the taxpayer.  See PG14.

“Trump’s attacks on the press are what he calls the ‘mainstream media.’  Six of the seven American media outlets in our study — CBS, CNN, ABC, The NY Times, the Wall St. Journal and the Washington Post — are among those he’s attacked by name.  All six portrayed Trump’s first 100 days in highly unfavorable terms.”

“’The news media is (sic) the enemy of the American People,’ is a sentiment endorsed by of 48% of republicans surveyed this month by IPSOS polling firm.”

Lewin’s EPILOGUE   

“——– Bill Kovac and Tom Rosenstiel and their book The Elements of Journalism, —————–.  ———-.  ——– five ‘intellectual principles of a science of reporting:’

• Never add anything that was not there.
• Never deceive the audience
• Be as transparent as possible about your methods and motives.
• Rely on your own original reporting
• Exercise humility.

“However, ——- proved impossible for most newsrooms and journalists.  ——– unwilling to put aside their personal ——–.”

The need for secrecy still prevails today.  The Economist 6/27/20.  “The white house takes aim at American soft power.

“—- were among the few sources of uncensored news behind the Iron Curtain: Voice of America (VOA),Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).  ————–.  —- has again become a crucial source for independent reporting.

‘’Now the independence of RFE/RL itself is in question.  On June 4th the senate confirmed Michael Pack as the head of the US Agency for Global Media, the parent organization of RFE/RL and VOA (Voice of America).  ———–.  On June 15^th the director of VOA resigned.  Two days later Mr. Pack fired the heads of RFE/RL and four other organizations in his purview: Radio Free Asia, the Middle East Broadcasting network, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting ——.

“An independent news outlet is taken over by allies of an oligarch of pollical party.

“At risk is the credibility these agencies have built over a century of independence.  Their reporters are worried.  ‘We are so stunned by the news that no one knows what to expect,’ says a staffer at an RFE/RL  subsidiary in Eastern  Europe.  Mr. Pack’s new appointees should respect their agencies’ editorial freedom.  Otherwise audiences will think them just as untrustworthy as those controlled by their own oligarchs and politicians.”

“This book is intended to, among other things, jump-start a long overdue and hopefully productive dialogue among the American citizenry on how best to deal with the complicated and complex issue of the media’s collapsing role as a bulwark of liberty, the civil society and republicanism.” 

BUSINESS AS USUAL?

In late 2000 George W Bush slithered into office, apparently after a count of hanging chads.  This was hardly a mandate to serve.  But, not to worry.  A few months later 9/11 caused a mandate to dump into his lap.  The Patriot Act of 2001 gave the government unprecedented access to citizens’ phones, computers and other parts of their lives without warrants.  The Fourth Amendment succumbed  to the all-encompassing need to fight terrorism.  (The right —– secure in their persons, houses, papers, —— unreasonable searches and seizures ——-.)

Friends, this smacks of top-down dictatorship, reminiscent of the Gestapo, the KGB, the Stasi and others.  Small wonder nearly all was kept secret; officials knew citizens would raise hell, and well they should.  It got so bad that attempts by concerned citizens to understand why those 19 men did this deed were denied a voice.  They might “—– harm soldiers in the field.”  There was no attempt to exercise due process of law; President Bush simply declared a “war on terror.”

In March 2007 the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan government agency, started denying information about pork barrel spending plans inserted into bills being debated.  Senator Tom Coburn of OK: “I’m convinced the appropriations committees are flexing their muscles with CRS.”

Coburn was a member of a vanishing species: the honest senator.  “When I asked a CRS official if the new policy stemmed from complaints by appropriations committee members, she refused to answer the question, ——–.”

Also called earmarks, pork is corruption; see Pocket Gofer 7.  The CRS staff of 700 researchers costs taxpayers $100 million a year, but it will not always provide requested information.

Millions of us live in constant fear of terrible threats from abroad, so when considering the above statement they are sure to go ballistic.  We believe that total transparency would send a message abroad that our government intends no harm to any other country, its government officials, or any citizen or group.

In such an open society active and alert citizens would quickly learn of any aggressive plans in their government.  They would find the rascals responsible, and pitch them out. 

Foreigners would know this and relax.  With no secrets, even still jittery ones could examine the inner workings of our government.  Jefferson said the government should maintain its fiscal integrity: “—— like a merchant’s books, so that any curious citizen may examine them at leisure.”

Back to 2004 for what we thought was a good sign.  Web news on 9/1/2004 reported that the defense department had produced a video called “The People’s Right to Know.”

It was intended to teach employees how to answer citizens’ questions.  But when those citizens wanted to see it the pentagon censored some of the footage.

Let’s see.  Did we get that one right?  The “Peoples’ Right to Know” was censored?

A recently formed political group called openthegovernment.org judged that secrecy is increasing in all three branches of government.  In 2004 national government officials classified 15.6 million new documents.

In September 2005 a reporter with Cox News Service looked at an openthegovernment.org report.  It indicated that for every dollar spent declassifying documents $148 was spent last year in creating and storing new secrets.

Excessive secrecy has no place in the information age and after the cold war.  It hides expansion of bureaucracy, it filches taxpayer money, it undermines democracy, and it stokes the rumor mill.

Knowing this, what happened after 9/11 should not boggle the mind.  But it does.  Shane in a 7/2005 article talks of “——- classifying documents at the rate of 125 a minute ——-.

Thomas Kean was chairman of the Sept 11 Commission.  He said the real reason for failure to prevent the attacks lies in the barriers to sharing information between government agencies.  Here we see Big Government’s fetish for controlling info coming back to bite it (and us — nearly 2,800 lives lost).

We understand that President GW Bush set up a Public Interest Classification Board to guard against excessive secrecy.  If we buy this one he is sure to offer us a stupendous once-in-a-lifetime deal on a bridge ………..

Control of info renders discussion, criticism, and debate among citizens impractical, and so constructive changes in government cannot be made.  This is just fine for the elites in government, as they are not interested in change (see Pocket Gofer 19.)

Democracy means open government.  It must mean this, as government by the people cannot function in the absence of information that we citizens can use to guide the behavior of our elected public servants.

Downie and Kaiser in their 2002 book The News About the News: “From the Great Depression – thru WWII ——- reporters seemed to reflect establishment views more often than they exposed the failings and foibles of the powerful.”

Nothing like a war to concentrate personal power in national government.  And the news media are distracted from their primary function: criticism of the behavior of public officials.

This has gone on since there were nations and news media (roughly 500 years).  This does not mean it must continue.

Dan Rather apparently suffered a twinge of conscience: “—— for too long we have answered to the worst, not the best, within ourselves and within our audience.  We are less because of this.  Our audience is less, and so is our country.”

THE C.I.A. (Central Intelligence Agency): We believe this organization, just like any other being supported by our tax dollars, should be accountable to us.  The volume of post-9/11 publicity has us convinced we are not alone in this.

How accountable has it been?  During the Cold War it was the job of the CIA to learn as much as possible about what was then the Soviet Union.  Reports often came in for use by the president and the Congress, whose job it was to figure out how much money should be allocated to the defense department.

If the CIA was doing its job it certainly would have known far in advance that the Soviet economy was falling apart.  Any economy as big as this one takes generations to build up and deteriorate.

Any independent study of Russian history would reveal that the country had never enjoyed a strong, industrialized economy, even before World War II.  During the war what little industry it had was destroyed while the country lost 20 million young men.  (We lost around half a million.)  Afterward the country was an economic basket case.

Joseph Stalin was hypersensitive to this reality, and so he sought to avoid leaks that would reveal just how bad things were.  He didn’t trust western countries.

They might attack if they learned that his country was so weak.  Therefore he clamped a tight control over information and arranged to circulate disinformation.

Enter the CIA.  Logically, these sneaky characters wanted to keep their jobs and expand the bureaucracy.

To do these the logical action was to exaggerate the perceived threat to America from abroad.  The CIA did this by providing disinformation to the president and Congress.

Wasn’t it fortunate that Marshall Stalin was also interested in flimflamming our government and us?  This made the CIA’s job all the easier.

Did the two get together and plan this one?  Ridiculous!  But then ..?  Here is one issue where the veil of secrecy will probably never be lifted.  We may get in trouble for even bringing it up.

Time went by.  Stalin died.  The Soviet economy deteriorated.  As it did so the disinformation became more and more unreal.

CIA operatives dutifully (?) passed it on, and continued drawing their paychecks.  We taxpayers kept shelling out.

Due to the shroud of secrecy that everyone agreed had to be a part of the whole scheme, they knew they could get away with it.  Such a deal they gave us!

Based in part on this disinformation, the US spent something over $1 trillion on defense that officials didn’t need to spend.  Friends, those were our bucks.

And then all of a sudden: surprise, SURPRISE!!  The Cold War was over, and officials by the thousands were running around trying to figure what to do with all those horrible weapons of mass death and destruction that our defense contractors kept turning out.

It’s hard to imagine how we are going to repair the damage to our economy with them.  They are not designed to repair anything.  And we can’t hug our kids with nuclear arms.  See Pocket Gofer 18.

Columnist Richard Reeves in November 1995: “I have asked both the president and vice president and their national security adviser whether they get anything from the CIA that is not in the New York Times.  The answers, —– came down to this: No, but every once in a while the CIA is a day or two ahead.

“For this we have paid billions upon billions of dollars over the years.  In all, that has been a pretty lousy deal, even forgetting the routine lying, deliberate deception, and incompetence of the CIA.  And it was a bad deal before it was revealed that the boys in the agency were routinely passing along intelligence generated by sources known to be in the pay or control of the Soviet Union — without telling the president!”

Maybe we had better rethink the possibility of a conspiracy with Stalin, or with any of those who followed him at the top.

Here’s a new one.  A couple of old CIA instruction manuals for training soldiers of Latin American dictators were made public.

They contain detailed guidelines for torturing people.  Now we see in part why Chinese government officials ignore ours when they complain about China’s lack of concern for human rights.

The instruction manuals were kept secret for years, but the military was unable to keep a lid on the torture at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.  Both the manuals and the legal memos that provided the background for orders to torture are illegal under international law.  They were signed by top US officials.

It all comes down to control of information placed in the hands of our leaders, in whom we have placed our trust.  Back in 1966 concerned citizens forced our government to pass a law called the Freedom of Information Act.  This was intended to help us learn what our government was up to.

Good idea; how has it worked out?  Well, in passing the law the Congress exempted its own members from its impact.  Later it exempted other agencies, including the CIA.

Lawsuits have been brought under the Act, with only limited success.  Most of us cannot afford to bring such suits anyway.  More “window dressing?”

A recent rule requires citizens who want to see old presidential papers must clear it with both the president in charge at the time and the current one.  A columnist concluded that the purpose of this rule was to just say no.  The law seems to be working out as usual, to favor the elites in government.

Maybe, just maybe the news media are beginning to catch the whiff of disgust that we citizens feel about all this unnecessary secrecy.  This may be an example of the open society barging into the culture.

And maybe not.  Helm (October 2001 column) reported that lessons in control of info learned during Gulf War I carried forward into today’s action in Afghanistan.  This figures; the news media let the military get away with treating citizens like mushrooms then, so why not now?

“Military officials are carefully parceling out edited video clips.”  Also, “The Pentagon says this is a different war without a traditional battlefield and with —– risks in allowing reporters to join special operations troops.”

This is hawgwash.  Officials said much the same thing in 1991 as they orchestrated media coverage.  If we are paying for any activity we deserve some truth concerning how it is going.

Defense secretary Rumsfeld “—- went out of his way to praise the media’s role in a free society, ——.  Then he made it clear that he wanted to control what information the media could have.”  Friends, the man spoke with forked tongue.

President George W. Bush “—- asked television networks not to air unedited videotapes of statements by Osama bin Laden ——, saying the tapes could contain coded messages to his followers.”  This is ridiculous.

The pentagon has forbidden newsmen from making photographs of coffins and soldiers who are arriving back here in pieces.  We don’t know if this huge bureaucracy also censors the millions of emails sent back home by soldiers in Iraq describing what is really happening in the war.  We do know we have seen little mention of these in the media.

Knowing the capabilities of the many national security agencies like the CIA as we do after the 9/11 failure, does anyone believe that bin Laden would bother to use code to contact his followers?

But Helm was not finished.  “—- the administration has also waded into the editorial content of American news outlets and talk shows.”  And “—– state department tried unsuccessfully to prevent Voice of America, —– from broadcasting an interview with Mullah Muhammed Omar, the top Taliban leader.  Department officials —— said the interview would allow him to criticize the US.”

Hold it.  The government is preventing us citizens from hearing someone criticize it?  This is what dictators do.

Soviet Russians who criticized their regime were declared insane and salted away.  We will see in Pocket Gofer 20 why constructive criticism is vital to democracy, no matter who provides it.

Suskind’s book The Price of Loyalty is about Paul O’Neill, whom President Bush hired in 2001 to serve as Secretary of the Treasury.  O’Neill lasted but two years, before he was fired for speaking truth and arguing for fresh ideas in policy making.

“It was the fresh, unaffiliated idea that enlivened him.  Across four decades of search and study in and near government, he was sure he’d spotted a staid, stoic truth ——- on matters of policy there are answers — right answers — that eventually assert their primacy over political posturing.”

Friends, the kicker sneaks in when we consider that the total politicization of national government by career politicians, lobbyists, hacks, and lawyers has fenced out every new idea that might rock the boat.  These elitists like things exactly as they are, so they see any new idea as a threat.  They also fear truth.

Here is an example.  “Bush had O’Neill’s memo.  Paul figured they’d talk about that — and then ——–.

“There were a dozen questions that O’Neill had expected Bush to ask.  He was ready with the answers.

“Bush didn’t ask anything.  He looked at O’Neill, not changing his expression, ——.”

Suskind quoted from a USA Today feature story: “To some in the nation’s capital, the new treasury secretary’s candor is delightfully refreshing.  To others, including some White House officials, it is unnerving, even politically and economically dangerous.”

O’Neill himself speaks: “I just find it astounding that people find it unusual that I tell the truth, ———.”

Later: “If you want to be seen as open and honest, you’ve got to do the hard work of bringing combatants together, ———–.  What do the data say?  That last part is not something you can control.”  Jefferson urged free and open debate in order to get at the truth, because democracy cannot operate in its absence.

Several defense department web sites contain invisible microbugs that collect information on anyone who downloads these sites.  A presidential order was supposed to stop this practice.  Maybe the order is just window dressing? 

RULES: As our government gradually increases its control of information, the country slowly moves toward Rule of Man rather than Rule of Law.  This trend is contrary to what our Constitution specifies.

There have been and are many countries in the world burdened with Rule of Man (at the whim of the top dog).  Hitler’s Germany comes to mind.

But there is a problem with that.  Alexander Hamilton referred to human nature when he said “Man is ambitious, vindictive and rapacious.”  This means he craves power and revenge, and he is greedy. 

This is why everyone needs to be accountable to someone.  Friends, we are going to grind on this one until it smacks us a hard one right on the chops.  In a democracy accountability is absolutely essential.

Therefore our government officials need to be accountable to us (who else?).  See Pocket Gofer 7.  We pick up the tab whenever each draws his/her pay.  It is we who pay for most things that they dream up, however goofy, and whether or not we get any benefits from them.

Rule of Man has a dismal track record: Genghis Kahn, Attila the Hun, Ivan the Terrible, Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin, Ceaucescu, Idi Amin, Charles Taylor, and on and on.  These men were accountable to no one, they did exactly as they pleased, and never mind all the misery that they caused.

China’s famous leader Mao Zedong once said “Let a hundred flowers bloom.  Let a hundred schools of thought contend.”  Sounds like democracy to us.

The Chinese quickly learned that he didn’t mean it.  He demanded control of information just like other dictators.  China has had Rule of Man for at least 4,000 years.

CONTROL IS BECOMING DIFFICULT: A recent top party secretary, Hu Jintao, found it much more difficult to control information.  Chinese citizens persist in smuggling satellite dishes and sending text messages around the countryside in spite of decrees forbidding this kind of behavior.

Wei Jingsheng was a thorn in the Chinese government’s side since 1978.  He spent much of the time since then in prison.  World pressure forced the government to release him for a while.

Then he was back in the slammer again.  Today after a medical release he lives in America while still promoting the open society in China.

Mr. Wei is just one man, but he harassed the government of a billion people.  He made Ralph Nader’s 1965-68 harassment of General Motors Corporation look like the work of an amateur.

How can he do this?  When a person has truth on his side and possesses the courage to speak out even when he knows he will be harassed, he will recruit many allies.  Therefore rule based on lies and deception will eventually wimp out (unless a police state is installed before this can happen).  Edward Snowden had courage, but he managed to find a sanctuary — Russia — where the American government could not get to him.

With an open society any government has little choice but to work with dissident people instead of harassing, imprisoning, torturing or killing them.  But it will probably take the Chinese long years ahead to fully understand and appreciate this truth.  Like many many other governments around the world, this one will be in deep doo-doo if it refuses to accept the open society.

These include Brazil.  In a poor area of a big city in March 1997 thugs badly beat several citizens.  The thugs were uniformed policemen.

Then police set up roadblocks to beat and extort money from motorists.  They casually shot one of them dead.  Two of his friends went to the police station and identified the police responsible.

As usual, after a cursory investigation no action was taken.  A citizen was quoted: “You don’t go out on the street carrying any amount of money.  There’s too many cops around.”

How did we find out about these instances?  The answer lies in hidden video cameras.  Shortly after TV Globo showed film clips on the evening news, heads rolled, including those of senior officers.

In a police state the police are enemies of the people.  This must be a miserable life.

Later President Lula da Silva acted to improve policing.  He has also helped to improve Brazil’s economy.

Published scandals have caused governments in Panama and Peru to try to silence news media.  A new television licensing law in Colombia may be used to silence critics of the president.

The last one gives us pause.  Our central government issues licenses for radio and television broadcasting. 

Be that as it may, there is progress in Latin America.  Only a short while ago journalists and editors who gave the government any guff were simply wasted.

In other places too: in 1988 Burmese soldiers shot into a huge and peaceful demonstration, killing thousands.  The students’ chosen leader, Htun Aung Gyaw,  fought the regime on the Internet.

“We have a chat room where we meet to discuss strategy.”  Information travels via the Net to the border, where resistance workers smuggle it across.

This man was beaten unconscious three times, and sentenced to life in prison.  He was released under a general amnesty five years later.  His web site is www.csburma.org. 

He broadcasts to Burma (now called Myanmar) weekly over Radio Free Asia.  Financier George Soros organized the Open Society Institute; it has a web site at www.freeburma.org.

Operators of web sites on the Internet collect and sell information by the megaton, and this seems not about to stop anytime soon.  The challenge has become separating truth from baloney.  We will see that the collective wisdom of groups of citizens will be needed for this vital task when operating a democracy.  See PG13.

The Economist (1/2010) published a special report titled “A World of Connections.”  “——— Facebook ——- over 350m users ——-.  ———.  —– just the beginning of an exciting new era of global interconnectedness that will spread ideas and innovations around the world faster than ever before.

“At HuffPo Social News, a site run by the Huffington Post, —– blog. Facebook users can see what their friends have been reading and exchange stories and comments with them (emphasis added; we like to see news of people reading).

“—- sees Twitter ——–.  ——- as an ‘information company’ whose users are keen to find out answers to what is happening in the world.  The billions of tweets —– could certainly be the basis for a vast, searchable archive.”  President Trump is surely a twitterbug, altho some folks wonder about his tirades.

“—— social networks –.  In order to offer a better service, many have created extensive sets of privacy controls that allow users to toggle between different levels of protection to shield their online data.”  Now if only they could identify and grab hackers …..

We conclude that control of information enables the cover-up of a multitude of sins.  Even in a democracy officials find it inconvenient if not downright difficult to answer for everything they do.  If they withhold information they can squeak by and maybe not get caught in shenanigans like Watergate, Iran-Contra, Iraq, the BCCI (Bank of Commerce and Credit International), the savings and loan mess, etc.

SECRET MISCHIEF AMONG US: In the heat of the 1988 presidential election campaign savings-and-loan banks were crashing by the hundreds, but we heard not a word about this scandal.  There was a very sound reason for this.  Billions of depositors’ bucks had been ripped off by bank managers who had played fast and loose with their money (yep; us again).

They had done this because government regulators had assured them that if they lost any money the taxpayer would make it good.  Government officials had in effect turned the S&L business into a vast gambling casino.

Without the closest control of information during the campaign this scandal would have blown wide open.  Careers and bodies would have been strewn everywhere.  So everyone got together and hatched a plot of secrecy similar the Mafia’s code of “omerta.”

What we found amazing was that the news media cooperated fully.  At that time we still believed that news media reported what was news.  We think the immediate prospect of wads of foldarooney being pried out of our pockets and purses is newsworthy.

The result was we learned far more about flag burning and Willie Horton than we needed to know, and nothing about all that money which we would later be forced to pony up.  This is an expensive way to learn about the life of a mushroom.

Some folks got ticked and started what they called a “financial democracy campaign.”  There was lots of angry mail, a few demonstrations and press conferences.

The press generally ignored all this.  They apparently believed that the only ones qualified to solve the problem were the politicians who created the problem in the first place.  MAMA MIA!!  Einstein said never trust those who created the problem to solve it.

Long ago someone said “We put the petty criminal in prison, but the really big thieves we elevate to high public office.”

Generally speaking, the news media are pussycats.  It is becoming quite evident that today they crawl up onto the laps of the high and mighty, lap warm milk, and purr.  See Pocket Gofer 19.

These days money doesn’t talk.  It shouts.  Whatever happened to the traditional role of the news media: to expose misdeeds of the high and mighty so that they never become high and mighty?

If we don’t get the information we need we must elect scoundrels into public office, and re-elect them over and over again.  This creates an old guard who are immune to criticism and new ideas.  Seasoned career politicians grow arrogant, figuring that we can’t touch them.

In May 2013 the Raleigh News & Observer: “Leaks crackdown raises concerns over free speech.”  About time.  “——- news that the justice department had secretly seized telephone records of reporters at the Associate Press.  A week later ——- department had investigated a Fox news reporter as a potential criminal for doing his job.

“—— tensions between reporters and administration officials had been brewing for months.  Obama’s aides —— little information to the media, often choosing instead to deliver their own news thru government-sponsored websites, blogs and Twitter accounts.”  This dodge strains our credibility.  But then, President Trump also dislikes the media, claiming they publish fake news.

OUT OF THE LOOP: The government eventually becomes frozen in place.  Today we call it gridlock.

Everyone in Washington just loves it.  It’s great work, so long as enough money can be found to get re-elected next time around.

The only ones who are unhappy are taxpayers.  We can’t seem to shake the silly idea that we should be getting something for our money.

But, aren’t there more of us?  Isn’t majority rule a part of democracy?

Even if we happen to luck out and our political parties arrange to put some good people in charge, we’re not home free.  Because great men and women make great mistakes.  This includes Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson, even Ben Franklin.

If our top officials’ ideas and policies were open to criticism they would make fewer mistakes, and those made would be less harmful.  Furthermore, we would share the blame, as we provided the guidance.

But they are not open.  This is why election campaigns are largely restricted to mud slinging.  See the essay on campaigns,

They don’t want our opinions.  Besides, if a candidate takes a position on any relevant issue he/she risks losing votes.

We keep thinking that in a democracy he who pays the piper calls the tune.  Shouldn’t it be so?  What is wrong here?

The Congress and president have in effect deserted us.  But that is only part of the story.

THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY (NSA)

In ca. 1960 Pogo said “We have met the enemy and he is us.”  In 1992 presidential candidate Ross Perot said “If you want to know who is to blame, look in the mirror.”

That smarts.  We don’t want to hear this, but Pogo said it anyhow.  So did Perot.  A politician would never say it, but these two were not politicians.

Today’s revolution in software technology enables the NSA to compile huge quantities of data and, until Edward Snowden, no one questioned these deep probes.  The NSA became in charge of digital assets of every American and millions of foreigners.  Now this organization can track the activities of people almost anywhere in the world without actually watching them or listening to their conversations.  And without warrants.

The NSA sometimes attempts to justify such spying by saying it is for our own good.  This could be either good or bad.  Knowing what little there is to know about the congress’s supposedly good intentions, we vote for bad as did Snowden.  The difference is that he, being inside the organization, knew it was bad and then had the courage to expose huge heaps of skullduggery.

Top officials in foreign countries have been spied upon; we know of Germany’s Angela Merkel and Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff.  This is no way to make friends.

News & Observer 3/2014: The supreme court decided NY Times v. Sullivan in 1964.  The ruling protects our right to discuss the quality of leadership in our public officials, even if what we say harms their reputation.  The ruling does not offer total protection.  But the case underscored the full meaning of the First Amendment.

Good try.  Our recent ancestors did not object when in 1976 the high court’s Buckley v. Valeo took away the Sullivan rights except for the elite class (our emphasis) with money enough to make their voices heard thruout the land.  Friends, this ruling began the era where dollars outvote citizens, and the big kicker is that we are still victims of this theft of our rights.

In 2014 Glenn Greenwald wrote a book: No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the American Surveillance State (Holt and Company).  “This book is dedicated to all those who have sought to shine a light on the US government’s secret mass surveillance systems, particularly the courageous whistle-blowers who have risked their liberty to do so.  And history shows that the mere existence of a mass surveillance apparatus, regardless of how it is used, is in itself sufficient to stifle dissent.”  Democracy needs dissent for the new ideas that keep it thriving.  EXC book!

Edward J Epstein wrote: How America Lost its Secrets: Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft.  “Mr. Snowden’s fans —–: he simply lifted the lid on a rogue agency, risking his liberty on behalf of privacy everywhere.”  He proved beyond doubt that the NSA egregiously violated the Constitution, the very document that Mr. Trump and many others thruout recent history pledged to ‘protect and defend’ —-.

News and Observer 6/2017: “CIA director Mike Pompao told MSNBC ——-.  ‘I think there is a phenomenon, the worship of Edward Snowden, and those who steal American secrets for the purpose of self-aggrandizement or money of for whatever their motivation may be, does seem to be on the increase.’”  He is right on the last part; see next section.  But Mike, any information generated by the government of a democracy belongs to those who paid for it: citizens.  Ergo, such cannot be stolen.  How can we govern effectively if we don’t know in detail what government is doing with our money?

Chelsea Manning (N&O 6/2014): “When I chose to disclose classified information in 2010, I did so out of a love for my  country and a sense of duty to others.  I’m now serving a sentence of 35 years in prison for these unauthorized disclosures.  I understand that my actions violated the law.” 

We wonder if this is just one law, in which case how did congress pass it without our knowledge?  More likely, it was a series of policy decisions such as those we are dealing with in this pocket gofer.  That said, we argue that she is being held due to some force that goes straight-on against the First Amendment. 

Seven years later, Mr. Snowden lives in Moscow where the NSA freaks cannot get to him..  We hope our thinking may someday enable him to return to his native land as the hero that he is.  We add here that on October 5^th 2016 another NSA contractor was arrested in August for stealing classified information.

Gary Reed (10/2014 webcast) “America’s pathologically untruthful government, as revealed by Edward Snowden and other courageous truthtellers, has decided to appoint itself guardian of ‘the truth.’ In doing this remember that government asks permission from no one and answers only to the criminal ruling class that runs it.” 

This all but perfectly matches the Soviet Russian newspaper called Pravda, which means truth in Russian.  Were Russians then as smart as we were and are?  Every Russian knew there was no truth in that government-published rag.

In addition to BIG GOVERNMENT meddling in our private affairs, it could be a retailer monitoring buying patterns, an employer checking up on us, or hackers and malware.

Popular columnist David Brooks (1/2015) “The (French) journalists at Charlie Hebdo are rightly being celebrated as martyrs on behalf of freedom of expression, but let’s face it: If they had tried to publish their satirical newspaper on any American university campus over the last two decades it wouldn’t have lasted 30 seconds.  Student and faculty groups would have accused them of hate speech.

The Economist 2/2016: “A statement at the heart of the debate over academic freedom.  Since then the debate over permissible speech on college campuses has only become more contentious.  —–.  Administrators are tying themselves in knots in an effort to balance a commitment to free expression with a desire not to offend.” 

Friends, this is ridiculous.  Anyone exercising his/her right to free speech will offend someone.  Obviously, raging it about is wrong; this contributes to polarization of our entire society.  A cue to begin discussion and debate is correct.

The Economist published “The Biggest Loophole of All.  Having launched and led the battle against offshore tax evasion, America is not part of the problem.  And yet something odd is happening: —-.  America seems not to feel bound by the global rules being crafted as a result of its own war on tax-dodging.  It is also failing to tackle the anonymous shell companies often used to hide money.” 

Jefferson 1809: “It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits, than is done by abandoned prostitution to falsehood.”  Mainstream news media live in thrall to the government in Washington, DC.  That is a melancholy truth.  By today we could argue worse than melancholy.

We’re hot.  What can we do; how should we organize to make the necessary sweeping change in our government?  One available strategy has every one of us keeping a pocket gofer in our pocket, mobile phone or purse, and pulling it out for discussion at the slightest provocation.  

WHY CONTROL OF INFORMATION IS NO LONGER PRACTICAL

Here is a comment on the velocity of money and information.  Most of us know that money seems to fly out of the house with blinding speed these days.  We can buy a product in a store, hand over a debit card for payment and the money in our account at a local bank is instantly reduced by the amount of purchase (plus something for the governor).  And today this is becoming even quicker and easier.

Not all of us know that at the present time many billions of dollars and other countries’ money zip across international borders every day.  This is done electronically in split seconds.

Information does the same thing.  Nothing new here: the telephone was invented 100+ years ago.  What is new are cellular phones, fax, portable notebook-size computers, data, graphics, video transmission, PDA, two-way beepers, 3-4G, PDAs, iPhones, other social media, etc.

What is also new is the incredible quantity.  A company called Li and Fung saw 100 gigabytes of information flow thru its network each day.  That was 18 months ago.  Today?  Multiply that number by ten.

The Transparency Policy Project at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government believes that transparency is not enough.  There must be some force outside government to maintain it, lest regulation smother it and thus stifle innovation.  May the force be with us.

There are phone lines, of course, but also fiber-optic cable, airwaves bouncing messages off satellites.  With all this going on at once, no government can control flows of information (altho the Chinese seem not to have got the message yet).

Just a couple of generations ago mass media were restricted to newspapers, news magazines, radio, and movies (movietone news).  Instead of — and often in place of —big media companies, today an individual can reach a mass audience.

A video cell phone can convey pictures to almost any place in the world.  Dial up, and the message is relayed by satellites flying 5,000 miles up.  They can receive calls, transmit faxes, and tap into a data base almost anywhere.

Satellites are not yet able to identify individuals, but Google’s Street View challenges prevailing views of privacy.  Police have heat sensors that can “see” into private homes.

Every citizen’s name is on several lists that are traded repeatedly by data brokers.  A 35-year veteran of the junk mail business says “There is almost nothing they can’t find out about you.”  Private eyes can trace backgrounds of individuals within minutes when only a few years ago this took days and weeks.

Whenever we glance at a Web page, call someone or use a credit card we leave a data trail.  The East German Stasi (police) compiled files on all its citizens that filled 15 miles of shelf space.  Today the same amount of data can be stored in a large room.

Wikileaks is a web site that specializes in spreading information provided by whistleblowers.  A Cayman Islands bank connected to secret Swiss accounts tried to shut it down.  This action sparked the very scrutiny that it was trying to avoid.

Dishneau (News & Observer 8/2010): “An Army private charged with leaking classified material ——Wikileaks ——.  ——- leaks including more than 76,900 secret Afghanistan war records posted —– past week.

“——- detail a grim reality of the war: —– death of Afghan civilians by error or callousness, bomb and shooting attacks by insurgents, the unreliability of Afghan forces, the corruption of political leaders and much more.”

A Swede named Julian Assange operated the website.  He was immediately accused of rape and child molestation.

He said “We were warned to expect dirty tricks.  Now we have the first one.”  We quickly smelled pentagon involvement here.

The Economist (9/2010) sent a strong message by titling its article “The Wiki Way.”  “After Kenya’s disputed election in 2007 Ory Okolloh, a local lawyer and blogger kept hearing accounts of atrocities.

State media were not interested.  Private newspapers lacked the manpower to investigate properly.

“So Ms. Okolloh set up a website that allowed anyone with a mobile phone or an internet connection to report outbreaks of violence.  She posted eyewitness accounts online and even created maps that showed where the killings and beatings —–.”

“Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams coined the term ‘wikinomics’ in their 2006 tome of that name.  Their central insight was that collaboration is getting rapidly cheaper and easier.

The web gives amateurs access to world-class communications tools and worldwide markets.  It makes it easy for large groups of people who have never met to work together.  And it super-charges innovation: crowds of people can develop new ideas faster than isolated geniuses and disseminate them even faster. 

“—— have now written a follow-up ——.  ———: Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World.’  But the book is well worth reading —-.

“In their new book they look at how it is shaking up some of the core institutions of modern society: the media, universities, government and so on.  It is a Schumpeterian story of creative destruction (famous economist of the 1940s).

“Steve Ressler, another American, created a group of web enthusiasts called Young Government Leaders and a website called GovLoop.

It is widely known among generals that truth is the first casualty of war.  When top warriors cannot control the news we who are paying for a war may think the death of war is becoming imminent.  See the essay on “Futility of War.”

In Nov 2010 (military) intelligence officials pleaded with WikiLeaks and newspapers: please do not publish secret files.  We find it interesting to see top dogs begging for a bone.

Global Voices Online campaigns for free speech.  Hundreds of bloggers at its annual summit meeting in Budapest in July 2009 exchanged tips on how to outwit government censors.

Someone suggested that citizens force government to put its spending of our dollars online.  We think politicians would rig the data so we could not get at the truth.  But sharp bloggers would soon develop keen noses for truth.

The Economist 2/2009 reported on an Open Budget Index, which evaluates the “——— clarity, scope and availability of documents on public spending.  ——– based on a survey of 85 countries, only five of which score more than 80 points.

“The average —— was just 39, indicating a low level of transparency — tending to encourage the wasteful and corrupt use of public money.”  Friends, we are not alone.

Some police departments have small, remote-controlled drone aircraft equipped with video cameras and night vision.  They are so quiet that they can’t be heard.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) microchips are implanted in old people so their care-givers can keep track of their movements.  They also admit people to high-security areas.  The flip side has BIG BROTHER (NSA) tracking everybody.

Think of the implications for dictators and anyone else who tries to pull off something dastardly.  Who is going to get away with anything anymore?

Accompanying the communications explosion is another one, called miniaturization (in both size and price).  This means that all these incredible gadgets keep getting smaller, and will soon be affordable for the average bloke like us.

The Economist (8/2002): “Eventually, this kind of technology will almost certainly be miniaturized to the point where it can be sewn into belts, shoes or clothing.  It should also become cheaper —–.

“This could mean that people would be able to use lots of these devices, tracking many aspects of their environment.  Hide and seek will never be the same again.”  Soon tracking chips can be implanted in the body.

The KGB in the Soviet Union used to plant tiny “bugs,” which could pick up conversations in the most unlikely places unnoticed even by bug detectors.  Soon we will be able to do the same thing.

As they get smaller and smaller, we will be toting them around and no one will be aware of it.  Think of the fun those party line freaks will be having soon.

The Hitachi chip is about 1/40″ square and it is thin enough to be embedded in a sheet of paper.  One chip will reduce its purchaser’s wealth by 16 cents.  Secretly stick one in a shirt paid for with a credit card, look up info about him on the Web, and follow the cat who wears it anywhere in the world.

Now there is the “cookie,” an electronic code which records information about people who visit Web sites.  It tells managers who you are and what are your interests.

Privacy folks raised hell several years ago when they learned of cookies, but now they are accepted as standard practice.  We cannot use the Web and avoid them.  (Some sites include an opt-out feature.)

The information collected is sold, linked, and stolen by hundreds of outfits, some of them bad guys.  Offline, the use of credit, store, and debit cards leaves trails of electronic data.

Turn on a mobile phone and an operator knows the location of the phone, even if no call is placed.  Video surveillance in public places is growing.

There are cameras that fit on the bridge of a pair of glasses, or inside a watch.  Other cameras make sharp photos from a quarter-mile away.

Still other cameras use low-level radiation to “see” through clothing, walls, and cars.  Tiny bugs can send audio or video for miles, and they last for years.

A device possibly secretly installed on a car records where it went, at what time and how long it stayed there.  There is something like twice the number of licensed private eyes than there were five years ago.

A private eye today can access a mass of information on someone with very little effort (Economist 12/18/99).  Previously he had to search perhaps hundreds of phone books nationwide; now this takes seconds.  He can access vast databases held by credit card firms, banks, and retailers.

“Pretexting” is a gimmick used by a private eye to fake such companies into revealing info.  Successful with one company, he uses the additional info obtained to pry more out of the next one.

Sellers of personal data refer to themselves as the “reference industry.”  For the right price, some of these companies will sell on the Internet to virtually anyone.

In 2004 an AOL employee was accused of stealing 92 million e-mail addresses.  He apparently sold them to a middleman, who did who knows what with them.  Today there is no practical way to stop an employee who turns against his/her company.

Several years ago Veterans Administration files on some 26 million people disappeared.  We understand that some have been recovered.

An Economist correspondent accepted an offer from a firm to “—- set up a special page on its web site to demonstrate that they could retrieve personal data from my home computer.  When I visited the special page, Buchanan International’s computer installed on my computer a special program, without alerting me to the fact.  The installation easily bypassed the anti-virus software on my computer which I thought was protecting me from this sort of thing.”

The writer mentioned the rapid spread of closed-circuit TV cameras in public places.  Using new facial-recognition technology, known criminals (or anyone else) can be tracked.

In May 2000 the Economist published an article called “Private Eyes in the Sky.”  “Before long it will be impossible to stop anybody from obtaining an image of any part of the world, no matter how sensitive, ——–.”  One of the implications is that “Members of the public will be able to see for themselves what is going on, rather than relying on what their governments tell them.”

On the other hand, poking into others’ business could get dull.  We know of a Polish lady who was talking on the phone with a friend during the communist occupation of Poland.  A KGB man who was bored stiff cut in with “Can’t you say something exciting?”

During the 1980s the Japanese had a system where scientists and engineers from several companies shared technology, jointly developing new ideas with it.  After this they split up, and each company furiously competed to bring applications to market faster than could its rivals.  This is good preparation for the open society.

During that time Presidents Reagan and elder Bush clamped a tight lid of secrecy on our scientists’ military and other technological breakthroughs.  And then our government officials ran around Washington bitching about Japanese manufacturing companies who were beating the pants off us.

Reagan, Bush, Clinton and their lieutenants used to complain about news leaks (and also young Bush).  With all the new technology, leaking will soon be advanced to such a high art that it will no longer be leaking.

If the people want to know, someone will find a way to inform them.  Any government, any company, any individual, who wants to control information flows will be whipped before he/she begins.  But the kicker here is convincing citizens to want to know.

By using the Internet anyone can enter the publishing business, and for almost no money (Economist 3/24/01).  “A website costs much less than a printing press to set up, ——–.

“An Internet newspaper dispenses with newsprint and physical distribution, the two largest costs for any newspaper.  ——- anyone can be a magazine or book publisher, an investigative reporter or even a television station.

“And the Net’s reach is far greater (anyone in the world might download a site).  They have no valuable and immovable presses to seize, no newsprint to ration, no distributors to lean on —–.”

And now there are blogs, web sites where anyone can read, log a comment on the site, and begin a discussion.  This means a subtle shift in providers of news from traditional news media to the audience itself.

The internet is rapidly becoming a strong booster for economic growth.  Some country government officials are unhappy that America largely controls this engine.

In the future control of information is bound to get still more difficult.  The Economist concluded: “Much of the info may be rubbish, but no wonder the world’s despots are worried.”  To repeat: parts of personal finance, the voting booth and the bedroom.

MORE EXAMPLES: During the 1980s in Poland “samizdat” (underground) publications numbered about 400, and circulation of some of them got near 30,000.  The Solidarity group of trade unions also broke into government radio and TV programs with messages such as “SOLIDARITY!” and “RESIST!”

Some years ago in Thailand there was no news coverage on government TV of a big demonstration against the government, in which a number of demonstrators were killed or injured.  Within days videos were available on the black market.

Then Thai citizens could see news about their own country that others around the world had already seen.  There was a demand for information, and someone filled it.

Necessity is indeed the mother of invention.  In the rebellious Middle East citizens are building directional antennas with local materials.  They are transmitting data under the noses of repressive government officials.

We have the benefit of a free press in this country.  But is it really free?  Today people attending demonstrations are filming abuse by authorities with their iPhones.  They, bloggers and others may retrieve a lost free press.  Body cams on police may help.

We could benefit from this.  On 6/13/09 Iran’s people hit the streets after a clearly rigged presidential election.  Neither CNN or any other broadcast or cable news show covered this massive and violent demonstration.

But news hounds knew where to go: twitter and YouTube showed reports and pictures from Iran’s streets.  Twitter posted a furious criticism of the news organizations.

In 5/2009 Guatemala’s Rodrigo Rosenberg, an activist lawyer, knew he was a marked man.  He recorded an 18-minute video four days before he was killed.  “If you are watching this message it is because I have been murdered by President Alvaro Colom, ——.”

The Economist 12/2014: “— growing sophistication of NGOs (non-government organizations) in this sphere, such as Transparency Int’l (TI) and Global Witness.  ‘Twenty years ago our work seemed an impossible dream.  Now it’s coming true,’ says Ben Elers of TI. 

This organization has exposed corruption in governments of many countries, and there will be more. For example, CICIG is a UN-backed team that responded to an invitation by top officials in Guatemala, a nation that for decades has been wracked by corruption.  It has combined with the courts to expose corruption among even the highest officials.

N&O 6/2015: “A giant hack of millions of government personnel files is being treated as the work of foreign spies who could use the information to fake their way into more secure computers and plunder American secrets.  The breach was an embarrassing showing for the American government’s vaunted computer defense system —–.”

At this point we think a bit of humor is appropriate (The Economist 8/2015): “The theft of data from a website ——- wake-up call.  The slogan of Ashley Madison, a website that arranges extramarital liaisons, is ‘Life is short.  Have an affair.’  ——– hackers called Impact Team stole the site’s user database and transaction history going back to 2007, and this week they released it online: more than 30m users’ names, addresses and personal detaiIs, ———–.”

In 2017 Apple Corporation refused to comply with a court order to help the FBI unlock an iPhone.  The company says ——– fundamentally compromises the privacy of its users; the feds say —— jeopardizes the safety of Americans —.”

Big companies run paid advertising in most news media.  This means editors probably won’t print or air anything that knocks those companies.

Also the big companies, the media, and the government are all a part of the same system.  See Pocket Gofer 19.  They regularly give each other strokes.

But if a company is misbehaving people ought to know about it besides shareholders.  Therefore environmentalists have developed communication links that work around the standard news media.

For this purpose they use data and graphics transmissions and fax machines.  They have also established a couple of periodicals that they themselves publish.

There are other examples.  If there is a need for information, someone will use a combination of the many options available today to find a way to fill it.  Neither big company nor big government will be able to stop him/her.

Apparently not even BIG US GOVERNMENT.  In June 2004 two Arab TV networks aired an apology on behalf of all American citizens for the horrendous abuse of Muslim prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq.

Actors in the ad included a Catholic nun, a Protestant minister, a rabbi and an imam.  The ad was approved and paid for by thousands of American citizens.

Several companies have put up low earth orbiting satellites.  Soon anyone anywhere in the world will be able to whip a cellular phone out of his/her pocket and call anyone else anywhere in the world, and on the cheap.

We think this one is still unfinished; it is BIG (The Economist 4/2016): Title of the piece is “The Lesson of the Panama Papers.”

“——- of Mossack Fonseca, a law firm in Panama that specializes in setting up offshore companies, ——–.  The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) published the first stories based on a trove of leaked data on Mossack Fonseca’s clients.  ——- unveil the offshore holdings of 140 politicians and officials, including 12 current and former presidents, monarchs and prime ministers.  Browsing thru the data that the ICIJ has so far (our emphasis) disclosed, it is striking how rich the cronies and relatives of some politicians have become.”  At least some of this 2.6 terabytes of data (again) connect to the American taxpayer.

An Economist Special Report: “in 1992 a KGB archivist called Vasili Metrokhin walked into the British embassy in Riga (Latvia).  Stashed in the bottom of his bag, beneath some sausages, were copies of Soviet Intelligence files that he had smuggled out of Russia.”  Edward Snowden reversed?

Where will it all end?  We don’t know, so we are well advised to gear up for the coming of the open society and stay tuned in.

In our opinion honesty has always been the best policy.  Soon it will be the only policy.  What happens in Vegas will no longer stay in Vegas.

David Brin in his book The Transparent Society: “A photographically ‘armed’ society could turn out to be more polite.”  An implication for future governments may be found in Jefferson’s observation: “The art of government consists in the art of being honest.”

The Economist 4/2018 titled “Truth Hurts.  Yet the capacity of fake news to influence the outcome of political votes seems to have grown, and is provoking a backlash.”  We wonder if a history of media hype and tabloid press that either ignore seeking truth or stretching it has whetted people’s appetite for truth, in which case there may be an opening just ahead.

ADVANTAGES OF THE NEW OPEN SOCIETY

Right after entering the oval office Obama signed an open-government directive.  This probably caused hundreds of top brass in the pentagon to gag.  We very recently wrote that cyber-warfare is the “battlefield” of the future.  Today we see Russia and China setting the pace of development, while America lags behind. 

Why this lag?  Does not America operate on the cutting edge of science?  The answer can be found in the pentagon’s vast worldwide reach.  We have for decades looked forward to retirement of the pentagon’s top warriors; the time has finally come.  See PGs 11 and 18.

No one can run a war, much less two or three, in an open society.  As soon as they learn the details citizens would shut all wars down.  See Pocket Gofers 11 and 18.

If we don’t know if someone is watching or listening, we will behave differently than if we know we can get away with it.  We know that even honest people are subject to temptations.  It has been said that every man/woman has his price (except us of course).

With more information available we could get closer to the truth in any situation through open dialog and debate.  Our ideas could become stronger through constructive criticism, and we could identify and trash baloney.

This means better and more timely decisions, and better lives for those who participate in them and who then live with guidelines that they helped to create.  Pocket Gofer 20 elaborates.

It also means that a public official could tap into the collective wisdom of the people more effectively.  We have always believed that people are smarter than our politicians think we are.  Because we have allowed them in the past to get away with much, they are convinced this pleasant state of affairs will continue.

By staying in touch with citizens’ collective wisdom the open society would allow democracy to work.  We are not mushrooms.

We can foresee the end of the NIHS, or “not-invented-here syndrome.”  The old guard in a static government gets entrenched to the point where they are not open to constructive criticism.

In the open society they must be open.  We would not have it otherwise.  If our elected leaders choose to ignore our thinking they would be toast.  See PG4.

The debate on free flow of information would be settled by engineers, not politicians.  Communications bandwidth capacity and computer power are increasing with explosive speed.

But this is happening on the outer edges of society, not in Washington and state governments.  Note the implication for the open society.  If political info and action move outward, how would government officials control info flows from the center?

Not that they have not tried.  For decades officials have wasted huge amounts of our money due to technological incompetence.  They persist in trying to manage the high tech sector, due to their desperate need to control flows of information.

Decentralization cannot be avoided.  So much for huge and centralized personal power, dictatorships, kingdoms, and aristocracies.

FRUSTRATED BAD GUYS: We might foresee the end of development of horrible and expensive weapons of mass death and destruction (WMDD).  We might then see the total elimination of those that exist, and have caused such widespread misery in places such as Chechnya, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Palestine, and Iraq.  There would be no exceptions anywhere; see Pocket Gofer 18.

How could this wonderful thing be made to happen?  Well, if we all agree that this is a desirable goal and some tin pot dictator tries to build some WMDD anyway, how would he keep it a secret in a world with no secrets?

Let’s say the bad guy sends a crew into some very remote area to do this dastardly deed, where there are hardly any people.  All it takes is one lonely peasant or Bedouin shepherd to notice some equipment being brought into the area at some point.  He punches some numbers into his mobile phone, and the word is out.

If government agents clear the area of people someone will wonder why and get curious.  This will create a need for information, and ….

It does no good to shoot the photographer and confiscate his/her camera.  The photo is already 10,000 miles away in a computer in some newsroom.

Potential local criminals would think twice before they tried to do something bad.  Just one law-abiding and concerned citizen would be all that is necessary, and in the open society just about all of us will be law-abiding and concerned.

Bad guys/gals will know this and be restrained.  Career criminals will become as scarce as career politicians.  (Is there a difference? see Pocket Gofer 3.)

We have finally arrived at a point in history where the pen is truly mightier than the sword.  Or even missiles tipped with nukes.  We can air any deviations from democracy, and even any suspected wanderings for follow-up investigations.

Can we imagine politicians who are uniformly honest?  Aw c’mon.  Even if just for laughs, give it a try.  Nothing is unthinkable.

The costs of acquiring and using information keep decreasing with amazing speed.  Even those of us who are relatively poor can have very nearly equal opportunities as the rest of us.  This is also an important part of democracy.

PUBLIC “SERVANTS:” Politicians love money, as huge buckets of this stuff are essential for getting re-elected and continuing to enjoy the lifestyles of the rich and famous.  It must be great rubbing shoulders with the high and mighty.

Some of us wonder how they can go on enjoying that life on our dime.  As mentioned above, if they can control information flows they gradually become our masters.

Where do they get all that money?  In a real sense, it’s ours.

Companies and other special interest groups hire lobbyists, who fill re-election campaign war chests with bucks in exchange for favorable laws and regulations.  The money-hungry politician cooperates, of course, and this enables companies to avoid competition and therefore to set higher prices for their products.  See PG8.

As consumers we pay those higher prices.  Millions of us are shareholders (own stocks), and lobbyists therefore use our money to lobby politicians.

Our money thus finances election campaigns for the clowns who dare to claim to represent our interests.  And it enables us to pay those higher prices.  Are we having fun yet?

NASTY BREAKS, FRIENDS.  But that is the reality.

They reckon there are lots of us out there.  Each one of us doesn’t have to take a particularly hard hit, so why shouldn’t everyone be happy with the arrangement?

Because the arrangement is corrupt.  We don’t appreciate corruption in our public servants (Pocket Gofer 7).

Another advantage of the open society lies in a brand new respect for taxpayers’ money (Pocket Gofer 14).  Today it is all too frequently squandered.

Why not?  No one is looking.  BIG GOVERNMENT breeds waste, because it is so complex and ranges so far and wide that it is impractical to keep an eye on everything.

Small government would help tremendously, but that is another story (Pocket Gofer 15).  The government is not competent to watch over the economy and accountability is absolutely essential, so who will do the job?  Here is an imaginary example given in the private sector.

A THOUGHT: Let’s say we have been in the commercial building construction business for a long time.  We know the business well, and so we know that with competition it is not easy to make good, steady money in it.  We are tired of it, so we quit in order to have a go at something else.

We organize a company to provide information about companies in the industry to anyone who needs it and will pay the price.  Our customers would include company shareholders, employees, customers, suppliers, property developers, real estate people, and people thinking of entering the construction business.

Based on the above illustrations, we would have many ways of compiling marketable information.  We would have competitors, so in order to stay in business and do well we must offer better information at a competitive price, and offer accompanying services that are superior.  But, that’s show bizz.

The presence of competition would motivate us to do a better job than could any bureaucracy.  With no guarantee of business, success rewards the one who out-hustles the next company.

Now, we would still have friends in the business.  Therefore we might be tempted to accept a little “grease,” a gratuity in exchange for light treatment of a certain company.  True, we might be so tempted, until we start wondering if we can get away with it.

Our competitors would be hypersensitive to this sly stuff.  They would leak it, that fast.

In the public sector we taxpayers could hire watchdog companies to keep government agencies under the microscope.  We would be willing to pay for this (competitively offered) service, because the money that we would save from minimizing government waste and fraud would more than return our fees for the service.

Whomever we hire would be just as resourceful in digging up dirt as was our construction information company.  If he/she is not, we take our business elsewhere.

If we citizens create a demand for this type of information the standard news media would be forced to stop being lap dogs and step to our drumbeat for a change.  This would generate more competition.

MORE ON LEAKS: We have observed with interest Washington’s preoccupation with leaks, so we read Isaacson’s book about Henry Kissinger.  When he was secretary of state under Nixon that cat was utterly obsessed with leaks about secret negotiations.

This eventually got to the point where he bugged the office phones of his own staff.  But that too was leaked.

In July 2000 John Young, a NY City architect, posted secret information produced by the CIA for Japanese intelligence officials on a website created for people opposed to government secrecy.

FBI agents called him to say that the Japanese Ministry of Justice wanted the info removed.  Mr. Young told them he felt no need to apologize for what he had done, and he refused to remove the offending info.  Ten years later it looks very much like Young has handed the ball to WikiLeaks, and it is running with it.

Economist 12/2010: “One of the jobs of journalism is to make a grubby nuisance of itself by ferreting out the establishment’s half-truths and embarrassments.  And one of the jobs of the courts is to police the press by protecting whistle-blowers ——-.”

There is truth here.  How can citizens govern themselves, as in democracy, if they don’t know what their govt is doing?  Parents and their teenagers spring to mind.

“But the experts also miss a larger point: they themselves are part of the elite inner circle that Wikileaks wants to break open so that every man can judge for himself.”

Another piece regarding Julian Assange, creator of WikiLeaks:”That the digital Jacobins of WikiLeaks have a cult following should not save them from condemnation or prosecution.”  Here we catch the Economist with its pants down.

First, the use of “cult” has strong religious overtones that do not apply to investigative journalism.  Second, the newspaper did not ask why a “cult” following has developed.

As we mentioned above, whenever there is a need for information someone will fill it.  The latest incarnation of that someone is WikiLeaks, as Assange has said.  Friends, this is precisely the investigative reporting we could only dream of and predict when we wrote the original version of this pocket gofer.

The fight is between those who enjoy doing things citizens do not like with their money and those who would inform the public about these shenanigans.  We think the whistleblowers will win the day.  (We learned that Ontario, Canada offers finance workers millions to blow the whistle on fraud.)

When exposing the dishonest and corrupt inner workings of an authoritarian government protestors who walk the streets with placards will simply be tolerated.  Afterward officials will intone that they permitted it as part of the democratic process.  And they would be right.

The kicker here enters when the protestors realize that nothing will be done and that they have wasted their time, effort and money.  Top-down rulers squelch dissent because it threatens their power base.

Therefore protestors must go underground.  The regime will call them cowardly and worse, whereas in truth these people are heroes for assuming the risk of severe punishment if they are found out.

The simple knowledge that whatever public officials do will become public property acts as a strong deterrent from serious thoughts of skullduggery.  Without the open society we citizens are indirectly asking to get ripped.

Oppressive regimes seldom if ever tolerate dissent.  They fear it.  Critics are stifled by various means, unpleasant to murderous.

The view from the top says things are fine, so leave the peasants alone.  The view from the bottom is invariably different.

In a true democracy there are only a poorly defined top and bottom.  Everyone has equal rights, opportunities and responsibilities before society and before the law.

As with government, as with individual citizens.  In a closed society outlets for creativity are generally restricted to business, the arts, and hobbies.

In an open society we enjoy a continuing freshness of thought and a continuing flow of new information and ideas.  In this way we can continuously renew our government, keeping it vibrant and responsive as society’s needs change.

DISADVANTAGES OF THE OPEN SOCIETY

The idea of the open society sounds good.  This by itself is lucky when we consider that we cannot stop it from coming into being.  However, as with any good idea there is a flip side.

THE FLIP SIDE: What about Big Brother?  Today it seems as if intrusive government is everywhere, just like the KGB was in the Soviet Union.  The open society might enable a replay of that grim situation.

Since 9/11 governments everywhere (not just the US) have rushed to expand their powers of surveillance over their citizens.  Public officials always jump on every opportunity to get away with doing this.

They simply tell us they are acting to protect us from those barbarians who would devour our children.  And, suckers that we are, we buy this baloney.

We recall reading George Orwell’s book 1984, in which he described a two-way “telescreen” in every room and “thought police” overseeing a highly oppressive society.  Developed in 1949, Orwell’s vision had Big Brother controlling all flows of information.

The all-powerful and unseen Big Brother repeated three contradictory slogans so often and for so long, that eventually unthinking “proles” (citizens) believed them:  “War is peace; freedom is slavery; ignorance is strength.”

The Economist 1/2018: “Imagine a world in which you are manipulated by intelligent advertisements from dusk until dawn.  Your phone and TV screens flash constantly with commercials that know your desires before you imagine them.”  Smacks of Orwell’s book.  “Driverless cars bombard you with personalized ads once their doors lock and if you try to escape by putting on a virtual headset, all you see are synthetic billboards.  Your digital assistant chirps away nonstop, systematically distorting the information it gives you in order to direct you towards products that advertisers have paid it to promote.” 

This seems a bit extreme.  Some adjustment is needed in the simple interest of avoiding insanity.  We naturally and persistently advocate bottom-up government.  If citizens govern themselves they will not allow such dominance by marketeers. 

The European Unions’ General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) argues that consumers should be in charge of their personal data.  The law lets users gain access to and correct their data, and the right to transfer their data to another organization  And it provides for big fines if firms break the law.  See PG4.

Government warriors want war, as it pays far more than does peace.  They also restrict our freedom in order to protect theirs.  Finally, they keep us dumbed down because educated citizens think, and new ideas are a threat (See Pocket Gofer 10).

In December 2002 Molly Ivins caught President Bush saying we must fight a war “for the sake of peace.”  Her comment: “That’s not vaguely Orwellian, it’s a direct steal.”

Big brother can and does penetrate a citizen’s computer hard drive, and this violation of the Fourth Amendment goes unnoticed.  He can grab credit card numbers and email passwords, and record web sites visited.

The Economist 2/10/96: “Americans —.  — have lost control over who knows what about them. ———.  —- in the struggle against crime, terrorism, deadbeat parents, illegal immigrants, and even traffic jams, the government keeps an ever-closer eye on more and more of its citizens.”

Thermal imagers can “look” inside a house for marijuana plants growing under a heat lamp.  But does this capability when used to enter a home violate the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution (“the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, —— against unreasonable searches and seizures —–)?

Police departments use imagers to find bank robbers, rescue stranded boaters, and locate flood victims.  But a Duke University professor showed that such devices could be used to follow someone on a 24-hour basis.

New face-scanning technology can be linked to closed circuit television in public places.  Data collected can be matched with mug shots of criminals.  The government using this technology says the purpose is to stop people from getting seriously hurt or killed.

This is very persuasive.  It is aimed at distracting us from the flip side: monitoring someone who is not a criminal but whose only sin is criticizing the government.

A Harris poll during March 2000 found that 57 percent of online users wanted regulation of how personal information is collected and used.  Friends, this sounds like a good thing until we think about it.

Guaranteed: any government regulation of the Internet will restrict everyone’s use of this wonderful facility except government officials.  This could mean BIG GOVERNMENT will get still bigger and meaner.

Officials’ paranoid suspicions lead them to believe there are always rebellions brewing.  Like the KGB, the Stasi (East Germany), the Gestapo, and many other such agencies, they want details about these movements as early as possible.

Friends, the US of A is marching in step, as Molly Ivins went on.  “The most hair-raising news du jour is about Total Information Awareness, a giant government computer spy system being set up to spy on Americans and run by none other than John Poindexter of Iran-contra fame.  Total info awareness will provide intelligence agencies and law enforcement with instant access to information from e-mail, telephone records, credit cards, banking transactions and travel records, all without a search warrant.  ———-.”

Word quickly got out about this abuse and citizen protests forced congress to block the money.  A rare victory?  No.  The seven components of the law survived as secret projects.  As far as we know no American news medium has outed this deception.

An expert in mining data says the amount of detail suggests “—— a level you would not even imagine.”  This includes snooping on private use of the Internet, developing profiles by analyzing relationships between web sites visited.

Molly concluded: “The just-passed Homeland Security bill undermines the Privacy Act of 1974, which was intended to limit what government agencies can do with personal information.”  All this sprang from 9/11, and it beautifully illustrates the natural tendency of governments to seize upon any excuse to increase its power over the citizens.

Economist 2/2003: “——– each benefit —– will seem worth the surrender of a bit more personal information, or a marginal increase in monitoring.  Yet the cumulative effect ——— will be the relentless destruction of privacy.”

Friends, this phenomenon operates just like taxes: one little increase here we can handle, and maybe another there.  But the ratcheting upward never stops, and in the end we are reduced to less than slavery.  (Thomas Paine warned his readers about this in his 1790 book The Rights of Man.)

When Katrina hit the Gulf Coast the new department of homeland security was a huge bureaucracy into perhaps its fifth attempt to reorganize.  “And what a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.”

Whew!  Who said this?  It was Petronius Arbiter, a first-century Roman.

Big Brother Bush used 9/11 to get all of us hunkered down and scared stiff.  And if history is any guide, this is not the end of it.

DOUBLE FLIP: But we think the phenomenon can and will cut both ways: citizens keeping a much closer eye on their government at various levels, forcing them to clean up their acts.  Furthermore, if we can install a democracy we would have citizens dictating the terms of surveillance to their government and not the reverse.  In the absence of a democracy Big Brother could be the absolute boss.

We thought of an example of a two-way cut that is so wild that we probably ought to keep it under wraps.  But, we are advocating an open society here, in which nothing is unthinkable, so here we go.

The American congress authorized a “Radio Free Asia” station that is patterned after its “Radio Free Europe.”  It has been broadcasting criticisms of the Chinese government to its citizens.  Needless to say, government officials are thoroughly bent out of shape as their dirty laundry is hung out there for all to see.

We might suggest that they set up a radio transmitter that beams into the USA.  Of course there are also many other resources in our relatively open society that criticize the US government and would be available to broadcasting personnel.  (Pocket Gofer 20 only scratches the surface.)

How could the US government object?  It is already doing exactly the same thing.  It might jam the station just as did the Soviets during the cold war.  But we would wonder why we are being denied access to information, just as did citizens in the old USSR.

There would be a need for information and someone would find a way to fill it.  He/she might smuggle China’s radio messages into this country via e-mail or any one of several techniques.

We imagine that such a reversed process would be perceived by our government in terms similar to what the Chinese government is thinking.  But this would be cool here, as confronting politicians with conflicting ideas is a part of the very essence of democracy.

In China the communist party blocks more foreign social media, censors dissent and punishes those who speak out.  About 2 million people police the internet and bombard users with propaganda.  Yet criticism still randomly pops up.

Owned by Qatar’s royal family, the TV news channel al-Jazeera has developed a version of the news in English.  People in America suspected that they weren’t getting balanced coverage of the Iraq war from the US news media, and Qatar saw an unfilled need.

The family hired Sir David Frost, a BBC veteran, as anchor.  The station’s format is western.  Apparently Arabs are far from ignorant when it comes to flogging a product.

And there is Andrew Mwenda who publishes The Independent, a weekly newspaper in Uganda (Africa).  His offices are frequently raided.

In one instance an officer pulled a pistol and threatened him.  Mwenda: “Go ahead, shoot me.  Pull the trigger.  ———-.  You come armed with your tanks, and we’ll come armed with our tongues, and we’ll defeat you clean and square!”

And finally: “They can kill me, but they can’t kill my ideas.”  Rare courage or folly?  We think it is a judgment call and each individual citizen will decide when the time comes.

ON PIRACY: Even today artists and performers complain loudly about bootleg videos, fake reproductions of works of art, disguised plagiarism of the written word, illegal downloading, and unauthorized reprints.  Computers now take pieces of art, pictures, and music, and mix and match until the originals are all but obliterated.

It looks like the notion of paying a royalty whenever a piece of original art is reproduced for profit is no longer viable in many instances.  Piracy is very difficult to prevent.

However, if some shyster sets up a facility for copying, say, CDs in his/her basement, sooner or later someone will find out about it.  In the open society there are no secrets.

Another alternative has an artist inviting competitive bids from companies who are organized to purchase total rights to an original creation.  As with any business deal, there is risk for both parties.

For example, Margaret Mitchell would probably have received little more than a pittance for rights to her later-proved-great novel called Gone With The Wind.  This is because she had no previous reputation as an author.  So who could have foreseen its popularity, the famous film produced, and all the spin-off products?

Her idea is still churning out money 85 years later (and how about Elvis’s legacy?).  However, for each blockbuster a company would probably lose or make only a little on around 10-15 other contracts.

Also, the company must fight the pirates and not the artist.  It would have the resources to do so.

A couple of years after publication of the book a classic movie was made.  If Mitchell had then written another book she would have had publishers competing for the rights, offering her tall money.

Lack of privacy will probably bug some of us.  If a health insurance company learns about a person’s buying habits along with his/her medical records, his premium would be higher if these data indicated an unhealthy lifestyle.

ON HEALTH: In January 2000 an expert showed that 21 health care websites were sharing collected information so advertisers could target medicines to persons with particular medical conditions.  This is okay by itself.

But the kicker comes forth when some of these companies enter another business: selling info on to users who utilize it for other purposes.  In the interest of bringing in a little extra money without any effort, managers abandon their professional responsibility.  And who knows whether these buyers will do the same thing?

Another potential problem is the character who has it in for someone and attempts to salt his personal records with false and bad data.  This danger would again create a need for information.  We will catch this grouch, just as we do people who hack into network systems and create viruses, worms and malware.

What about our psychological health?  Wm. Safire in a June 2000 column: “What with cell phones and palm pilots and satellite-controlled pagers and messagers, the world is too much with us.  In our lust to be in constant hand-held communication, we fritter away our long-held value of personal freedom.”

Safire implied that we are allowing the world to dictate our lifestyle, instead of taking time to reflect on who we are, where we are, and where we should be going.  He argued that we are obsessed with being “in demand around the clock, ——.”  We will learn later that this is a bureaucratic mentality (Pocket Gofer 15).

In Europe the television industry is highly regulated.  Government officials have noticed America-made entertainment invading their turf, and they are ticked off.  They want to reserve at least 50 percent of TV time for European-made stuff.

Well, their plan was leaked by someone.  We figure this was prophetic.

These officials’ efforts were doomed before they started.  American-made programs will “leak” around any barriers, provided there is a need.

Of course, a reversal of cultural information flows is quite possible.  But for this to happen European producers of recorded entertainment must roll up their sleeves, dig in, and respond effectively to some tough competition.

It’s easier to complain to government.  Many of our companies do this regularly; see Pocket Gofer 8.

Iran has a similar problem.  Folks far prefer Star TV to the fluff that is available locally on government channels.  But satellite dishes are growing smaller and cheaper.

Several years ago the Majlis (parliament) banned video players.  This law was repealed after the speaker of the Majlis admitted that he himself owned a machine.

We feel sorry for places like Iran and Saudi Arabia.  Their societies are among the most tightly closed in the world.  They will have the most difficulty in adapting to an unavoidable change.

DEMOCRACY: Officials in repressive governments are already paranoid.  They are asking, what about a revolution organized in cyberspace?

Compared against this threat, cyberporn is small beer.  The hype that we get is concentrated here, but the real fear lies elsewhere and we will not hear about this one.

Most governments don’t know what is happening among their citizens.  This is because they are separated from them and prefer it that way.  They also don’t know what they are doing while governing poorly, and they exist in mortal fear that word about this sorry situation will get out.

They cannot control cyberspace, and so this is where their fear is concentrated.  This is where the desperate search is on.

The obvious solution is democracy.  In an open society with government of the people and by the people there is no need to secretly circulate revolutionary information.

Put the new ideas right out there in the open, for free and open debate.  If a new regime should win the day it is logical to conclude that the collective wisdom of the people has decided to make a major change in the way we are governed.  This is democracy.

So gofer, er, go for it.  If it will probably improve our lives significantly let’s propose another radical plan soon.

Enough of these and political change eventually becomes smooth, predictable, and even actively sought.  This ultimate result would do us out of business, but we wouldn’t mind.

The Age of Reason would have finally arrived, and with it the end of armed and bloody revolutions.  For some years European citizens are saying they have had it with war (Pocket Gofer 18).

HOW WE CAN PREPARE FOR AND ENJOY THE OPEN SOCIETY

Prepare for it we must.  Enjoyment is up to each of us.  However, a logical argument would conclude that only a pedigreed grouch would insist on no enjoyment.

It seems like the best way to prepare for the coming open society is to clean up our act.  That is, we should shape up our personal lives, lest someone haul our skeletons out of the closet for all to see.

There should be no serious problem with this, as we believe people are basically good (Pocket Gofer 2).  Some of us are more prone to temptation than are others, and therefore need a stronger incentive to become morally upright.

We believe life would be better when we can trust nearly all others.  This is what the open society promises.  We get excited when we picture several million lawyers putting their considerable talents and energies to work doing something productive.

When there are no secrets nearly all of us would become honest citizens.  With governments, businesses, and individuals open to constructive criticism of their ideas we would be able to build our lives around better decisions and policies.  We would be able to make our concerns known to others, who would listen to us.

If we can separate ideas from personalities, criticism would not be perceived by political leaders as cheap shots.  Rather, it would be gratefully received as an opportunity to improve what they are doing.  See Pocket Gofer 13.

We could do more to enjoy the open society.  We would do this by becoming active citizens and using the new microtechnology to help ourselves and others in the community.  This applies especially to our political leaders, who need ideas from us to do a good job.

These roles could be reversed if we should be hit with a desire to serve our community in a leadership role.  This would put us on the other side of the fence.

Or, would it?  In a democracy there really isn’t any fence.

Politicians have seldom showed any faith in the collective wisdom of the people.  That is why they have traditionally figured they could fool all of the troops all of the time.

We disagree.  We believe that if the collective wisdom of the people could be organized thru discussion and debate it would be an extremely powerful force for good.  We also believe people are a lot smarter than politicians think we are, and that we would surprise even ourselves when our task is accomplished.

Finally, we believe the job can be done.  If we did not we would be wasting our time in writing this and other pocket gofers.

Some school kids were recently forced to carry transparent backpacks.  We are thinking of a transparent government.

CONCLUSION

A dictator collects private information on his citizens, as he knows they can do nothing about it.  Even in a presumed democracy a war or a contrived war-like situation puts privacy advocates at a disadvantage.

This gofer exposes a conspiracy to withhold vital information from citizens.  It also describes and promotes a vision.  However, we cannot be sure if the idea of an open society will even sell itself to enough of us so that we can put it into practice (enjoy the inevitable).

We offer it here as food for thought.  We hope it will generate thoughtful discussion, debate, and criticism.

MUSHROOMS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!! We have nothing to lose but the chains of darkness.

Benjamin Franklin: “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

When changing pants or purse, don’t forget this pocket gofer.

………… PUBLIUS II

TITLES OF OTHER POCKET GOFERS THAT WE CAN DIG INTO, DISCUSS, CRITICIZE AND ACT ON:

PG 1 – ON HEALTH AND FITNESS IN THE USA

PG 2 – ON VOLUNTEERISM

PG 3 – ON THE CAREER POLITICIAN IN A DEMOCRACY

PG 4 – ON THE BOTTOM-UP APPROACH TO GETTING THINGS DONE

PG 6 – ON MAKING A CONTRIBUTION

PG 7 – ON CORRUPTION AND ACCOUNTABILITY

PG 8 – ON GOVERNMENT REGULATION OF BUSINESS AND THE PHANTOM

PG 9 – IT’S ALL IN THE FAMILY

PG 10 – ON EDUCATION IN THE U.S.A.

PG 11 – ON THE U.S. AS A WORLD CITIZEN

PG 12 – ON THE U.N. AND POTENTIAL CONFLICTS

PG 13 – ON PERSONAL POWER AND IDEAS

PG 14 – ON RESPECT FOR TAXPAYERS’ MONEY

PG 15 – ON BIG, SMALL, AND GOOD GOVERNMENT

PG 16 – ON DEMOCRACY AND OUR CENTRAL GOVERNMENT

PG 17 – ON LEADERSHIP IN A DEMOCRACY

PG 18 – ON WAR, WEAPONS, AND PEACE

PG 19 – ON THE GRAND DECEPTION

PG 20 – ON LIFE IN A DEMOCRATIC COMMUNITY

PG 21 – PRELIMINARY DRAFT OF A CONSTITUTION