Friday links! Near-total information awareness edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 0 Comment

The prospect of a corporate-state apparatus that knows exactly what you’re doing at every moment is the stuff of science fiction. Books like 1984 and We imagine a surveillance that has successfully penetrated every aspect of our lives. But what about the surveillance that has unsuccessfully penetrated our lives? We imagine the dangers of everyone else knowing what we’re doing, but we should probably be worried about the scenarios where total information awareness is mistaken. What happens when the security state confuses you with the previous tenant of your apartment? In our culture of surveillance, whither the Charles Monsons and Khalid Steve Mohammeds? Today is Friday, and the danger is not so much that the government will know everything about you as that it will think it does. Won’t you overlap with me?

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Senate continues its transition to world’s largest body of hostages

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government 4 Comments

And all it takes to stop it is one man! Or woman. Not a black guy, though.

Remember back in high school, when we learned about the orderly progress of a bill through the legislative branch and/or how to express our feelings sexually, and I learned the first one? It seemed so simple back then: a bill began its metamorphosis into law when it got a majority of votes in the House and then the Senate, and it emerged a beautiful butterfly for the President to sign or subject to the hungry barn owl of veto. Even then, the Senate could pass it again with a two-thirds majority. That was the old US Senate. In the new Senate, a two-thirds majority is what you need to pass any bill at all. This system is great, since it frees up the senators to pursue A) negotiating various para-legislative compromises to get the aforementioned sixty votes and B) personal projects. Item (B) is what occupies Senator Herb Kohl (D–WI) lately, which is why he’s decided to block confirmation of nominated DEA chief Michele Leonhart. Yes, that’s a “D” next to his name. He learned it from watching you, Dad.

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