This week the American People learned the Obama Administration has spent the last few months debating whether to order a drone strike on an American citizen believed to be a terrorist. Where the police have the legal authority to use lethal force against any individual representing an imminent threat to the lives of law enforcement officers and civilians while agents of the military clearly have the legal authority to use appropriate lethal force in order to fight a military threat. Unfortunately, terrorism is confusing, because it is neither just a policing issue nor just a military issue. The threat of terrorism is both timeless and borderless like any crime, yet terrorism also takes on the tactical characteristics of war.
Because assassination is illegal, the classification of terrorism matters. If terrorism is treated as a perpetual, borderless war, drones strikes would be justified, yet this type of open-ended war threatens democracy as war often demands a partial restriction of democratic rights and freedoms. Clearly, a perpetual war would be the end of many democratic rights and freedoms. If terrorism is treated as a crime, there must be an imminent threat before lethal force can be used while these so-called “targeted killings” without an imminent threat are just assassinations by another name. Regrettably, both the George W. Bush and Obama Administrations initially tried to distort the meaning of “imminent threat,” which created a greater threat as the legal standard for a justified killing was being redefined to mean anything the authorities want it to be. In the current situation, all of these factors and more must be considered. Because the decision has been brought to the American People’s attention, we must now face the realities that come with terrorism and the need to preserve our legal protections. Because those planning terrorist attacks are rarely an imminent treat, it is unlikely a drone strike can be authorized legally. That said, the threat is still very real and must be addressed. At best, we can hope to respect the Constitution by offering the target some sort of Due Process in absentia. How to do this is a struggle that the Obama Administration has yet to overcome. With the American People now listening in on the internal debate, and hopefully seeking to balance the need to address terrorism with the need for limitations on government, more comprehensive solutions to this conundrum may start to present themselves. At the very least, the debate is now a public debate as it should be.
Comments
February 10, 2014 was marked by the second delay of the Affordable Care Act’s business mandate. The irony of this latest development is two-fold. First, the growing perception that the Obama Administration is catering to business interests runs counter to the Democratic President’s fervent criticism of lobbyist influence. Second, President Obama originally wanted a public option and agreed to an individual mandate to garner the support of healthcare interests while he is now defending the individual mandate against Republicans, who originally proposed the provision in the 90’s.
Although it is reasonable that seasonable/temporary workers and part-time workers with few hours are no longer included under the business mandate, the outright delay of this provision essentially displaces costs onto workers. While companies of 50 to 99 workers with multimillion-dollar payrolls are pleading poverty, the Obama Administration is now forcing workers, who would have otherwise been covered by their employers had the business mandate been enforced, to find coverage at a higher cost for individual plans, thanks to the individual mandate. Meanwhile, 25 states have yet to expand Medicaid mainly for political reasons, thus the uninsured continue to go uninsured. For the sake of Equal Protection and the need to avoid creating unnecessary costs, as well confusion and uncertainty, the Obama Administration needs to delay the individual mandate as well. Clearly, Republicans will try to take advantage of this concession as they wish to eliminate the business and individual mandate, but their plans to replace Obamacare are far from superior. In fact, the so-called Patient Care Act, which is probably the most comprehensive Republican plan to date, includes taxing most people’s healthcare benefits, which means employees need to set aside additional cash to pay taxes, reduces eligibility for tax credits, undermines Medicaid expansion with tax credits that may or may not cover the cost of a healthcare plan that low income beneficiaries probably cannot afford, and increases tax credits based on age instead of income as it allows insurance providers to charge older Americans five times the amont they charge younger American, thereby using the inflationary pressure of subsidies to increase costs while making healthcare less affordable for younger Americans, who are expected to have smaller incomes than their less healthy older counterparts. Given the CBO estimates Obamacare will incentivize workers to reduce their hours by the equivalent of 2 million plus fulltime workers, it is likely the income eligibility for credits needs to be expanded, not decreased. Meanwhile, the GOP alternative also weakens the elimination of the precondition clause and other provisions that seek to address the issue of junk insurance. It goes to show you that no politician can be trusted to look after your interests. Quite frankly, Obamacare has problems and the only solutions on the table create more problems while doing nothing for those who needed healthcare reform to get them reliable, affordable coverage and the overall system. Under traditional political thinking, the fact that healthcare reform was passed with faults should have worked as an incentive for Republicans to reach out to Democrats, so further reforms could be made reality. Instead, we end up with two polarized parties offering competing visions with technical differences that do nothing to solve the problems in our healthcare system. At this point, a public option delivered by private firms, which would also offer supplemental plans, is looking far more attractive than the complicated, inflation driving, ineffective alternatives we see today. Clearly, reactionary, divisive politics is the reason we are at this juncture, so it is no surprise the issues with Obamacare are not being addressed properly. http://popwatch.ew.com/2014/02/07/russell-brand-philip-seymour-hoffman/
Although addiction does have a physiological-psychological component, which hints at how we might medically treat those whose biology makes them more susceptible to the reinforcing nature of addictive substances, Russell Brand is right when he says we do not know how to treat addicts. First of all, a disease of this nature is difficult to treat, because it is rooted in our basic psychological response to appetitive stimuli. In other words, drugs take advantage of our response to any chemical that make us “feel good,” thus addiction is not a disease that can be cured by fixing something in the body. At best, you might eventually retrain someone to find certain drugs too aversive for consumption while your best hope is often to find ways to deprive addicts of their drugs. That said, Brand was also referencing how our society treats drug addicts. I remember a childhood field trip to a local police station where the holding cells lacked mattresses. We were told by an officer: “if people want to act like animals, we’re going to treat them like animals.” Criminalizing drugs gives authorities the ability to arrest drug users and drug dealers. Unfortunately, our culture often embraces perverse incentives while those in positions of authority too often forget they are given their power to serve, not to discriminate. Instead of addressing the underlying social need to help drug addicts overcome their self-destructive behavior, our authorities too often treat addicts as inferiors in need of authoritative correction, thus they mistreat addicts. Certainly, society cannot tolerate the misconduct of addicts, but we must also remember they are in need of our help. In fact, taking a punitive approach to drug use does nothing to prevent drug abuse; it only marginalizes drug addicts and somewhat lessens the negative impact of drug abuse on our society. Instead of self-righteously condemning our drug addicts and finding ways of throwing them away, we need to find ways of serving them, so they overcome their addiction and our society can reap the benefits of a drug free culture. Instead of preaching personal responsibility and taking a “nothing happens unless you, i.e. someone else, makes it happen” stance, CVS has decided to use its positional power and embrace leadership responsibility by choosing not to sell tobacco products. At a cost of about two billion dollars in annual sales, the leadership at the pharmacy chain of nearly 8,000 US locations is voluntarily forgoing the financial interests of the capitalist enterprise to serve the interests of our society, i.e. the need to reduce tobacco use and reduce tobacco related disease. Certainly, this type of leadership might serve the long-term and broader unknown interests of CVS, e.g. PR, ethics, etc., but those interests may or may not affect the bottom line in the long-term. As such, this unexpected policy shift in the CVS business model serves as an example for everyone in a position of authority or with the power to change how our Great Society functions. The norm tends to be for those most able to make a difference to pass the buck to the government or those who are least able to change things, even when it is their problem to solve. Consequently, CVS should be recognized for stepping up and saying it is inappropriate for a healthcare company to sell cancer.
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx is preparing a proposal that would make safety measures like automatic breaking standard in all new cars sold inside the US. Secretary Foxx wishes to create “…a regime in which the safety advances actually kick in before an accident occurs….” Although the use of the term “regime” is a terrible PR misstep, it does focus our attention on the potential abuse of such a system. As such, there are, at least, three areas Secretary Foxx must address when it comes to ensuring a system, which could reduce the 30, 000 vehicle fatalities seen the US every year by 70 or 80% according Mr. Foxx, does not do more harm than good.
1. The Economics Although we are certain to hear from the auto industry and a variety of other groups on the actual cost of this regulatory burden, it is also important to remember the used car market makes transportation affordable and accessible to huge segments of the American population while making vehicles significantly more environmentally friendly. As such, it is also important to consider the longevity and maintenance costs associated with this technology for the sake of secondary consumers. Meanwhile, the promise of safety by avoidance will likely be used to justify cutting back on other safety measures. Given lighter vehicles are more fuel efficient, this may well translate into weaker vehicles that cannot withstand the impact of a collision when an unavoidable collision does occur or these automatic safety measures fail, which there is always a chance of this occurring. It is important to remember that technology can minimize the occurrence of accidents, not eliminate them. 2. The Privacy Issue Because the Obama Administration wishes to require cars to communicate with each other instead of simply giving all vehicles the ability to assess the hazards of a situation, there will be a massive amount of data generated on the habits and activities of drivers that can be recorded and analyzed. Quite frankly, this data and metadata would be a goldmine for both private and public sources. As we have yet to address the emerging hazards of technologies that record massive amounts of user data, privacy issues are clearly a major concern. Not only would private firms use this data to make money and the Department of Transportation to improve traffic flow, policing entities would also want access to this data for their purposes. Whether private or public entities hold onto this data, or at least have it available for real time analysis, the availability of this information creates a potential for abuse that could be seized upon by corrupted officials or by well-intentioned civil servants following emergencies like 9/11. As such, it would likely be better to empower vehicles to assess for potential hazards and severely limit how they communicate with other vehicles and the transportation grid. 3. Hacking and Terrorism Currently, researchers have shown it is more than possible to hack the tracking systems of seafaring vessels, thereby enabling wrongdoers to control where a ship goes. Given this very real threat and the digitalization of our vehicles, all drivers around the world should be concerned about someone hacking their car. As such, the DOT needs to address the potential hijacking of these automatic driving and stopping technology by ensuring drivers have the ability to the override the system, among other precautions. We should also recall the many fatalities caused by sticky accelerators on Toyotas where computer programmers failed to prioritize stopping above acceleration as well as several other engineering oversights. Whether dealing with a lack of insight into potential programming issues or anything from playful hacking to widespread terrorist threats , it is important to recognize embracing regulations that force new technologies onto all consumers creates problems that must be addressed before they become problems. A failure to do so will turn the 20,000 plus lives saved annually by the technology into hundreds of thousands killed. |
Read old posts
April 2020
|