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This Is Elizabeth Warren's Moment |
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Thursday, 09 October 2014 13:34 |
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Zelizer writes: "After spending several years championing the cause of the consumer and railing against the power of big banks, the Massachusetts Democrat may be perfectly positioned to react to the revelation of secretly taped conversations within the Federal Reserve."
Elizabeth Warren. (photo: AP)
This Is Elizabeth Warren's Moment
By Julian Zelizer, CNN
09 October 14
 en. Elizabeth Warren has just been handed a giant political opportunity.
After spending several years championing the cause of the consumer and railing against the power of big banks, the Massachusetts Democrat may be perfectly positioned to react to the revelation of secretly taped conversations within the Federal Reserve that have exposed the cozy relationship that exists between the regulators in Washington and the regulated on Wall Street.
The tapes, which were made in 2012, involve examiners for the New York Federal Reserve who are heard being protective and deferential to Goldman Sachs when discussing some financial transactions that the firm had undertaken. Their actions were said to be "legal but shady."
One of the Federal Reserve officials on the tape explains that they should not be too tough with the banks to make sure the lines of communication remain open in the future: "We don't want to discourage Goldman from disclosing these types of things in the future and therefore maybe you know some comment that says don't mistake our inquisitiveness, and our desire to understand more about the marketplace in general, as a criticism of you as a firm necessarily."
The tapes have shocked many listeners because they reveal how weak the rules are and, even worse, how the regulators don't have much interest in being tough with the banks. Years after the horrendous financial collapse of 2008 that led to international economic havoc, Washington is not doing very much to improve the situation. There have been many critics of the Dodd-Frank legislation who have warned that the law fell short, but to actually hear these conversations has a more powerful impact.
As Warren said on an interview with NPR's Morning Edition, when people listen to the tapes "for a moment, [they] get to be the fly on the wall that watches all of it, and there it is to be exposed to everyone: the cozy relationship, the fact that the Fed is more concerned about its relationship with a 'too-big-to-fail' bank than it is with protecting the American public."
Warren, who was instrumental to the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, reacted to the substance of the tape by arguing that "the point of these tapes is that the regulators are backing off long before anyone's in court making a legal argument about whether or not they came right up to the line or they crossed over the line." She has called for oversight hearings as soon as possible.
The weakness of our regulatory system for finance is an issue that deserves attention, and it is a policy problem that attracts the interest of liberals, conservatives and moderates, all of whom have been stung by the economic toll of the financial meltdown.
Anger toward the banking system is one of the few issues that provides a common thread between the disparate parts of our political world. Tea party Republicans hate the intimate connections between banking and politicians as much as do left-wing Democrats.
If Warren handles oversight hearings on this problem in the right way, they could attract huge interest and really define who she is as a national politician, right as the 2016 presidential race heats up. In this case, politics and policy can work hand in hand.
Given the widespread concern about this problem and Warren's skill at handling this issue, these could shape up to be hearings that have the same kind of impact as Sen. William Fulbright's classic interrogation of officials about Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam policies in 1966 or the select committee investigation of Watergate in 1973 when Sen. Sam Ervin revealed all the wrongs that Richard Nixon had committed.
Right now the Democratic playing field for 2016 is more fluid than many think. While former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, assuming she runs, would be a formidable candidate and a clear frontrunner, there is also still room for another candidate to challenge her and potentially to rise to the top of the pack.
While many names have been mentioned, like Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley or former Virginia Sen. James Webb, nobody other than Clinton generates the kind of excitement as does Elizabeth Warren.
Clinton exposed some of her own vulnerabilities during the roll out for her book "Hard Choices," and there still remains big questions as to whether Democrats will want a fresher voice, one who speaks more directly to the populist economic tradition of the party, as their candidate. While today it seems inevitable that she will be the party's nominee in 2016, Hillary Clinton learned in 2008 that "inevitable" doesn't always cut it.
Warren has said that she won't run for the presidency. But these kinds of statements rarely are the best way to predict what a candidate will actually do.
The Fed tapes might prove to be the development that moves her to the front and center of the public eye. Oversight hearings would be a way to expose her to a large national audience and to demonstrate that she is deeply invested in solving the economic problems that have harmed the security of Americans and been at the heart of the laggard economic conditions that define our era.
Warren has been a huge attraction on the campaign trail during the past few months, speaking about these very issues and promising to devote her time to this cause.
Ever since Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy died, Democrats have not been able to find a new liberal lion to champion the progressive economic traditions that been so integral to the party since the New Deal.
President Obama, who many Democrats thought would be that person, has failed to live up to expectations. He surrounded himself with economic advisors who were comfortable with the status quo and whose pragmatism pushed him away from the bolder policies that the Democratic base hoped for.
Now, with the disclosure of these tapes, Warren has a very real chance to prove to Democrats that she is the new voice.
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Another Black Teenager Was Shot Last Night in St. Louis |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=11104"><span class="small">Charles Pierce, Esquire</span></a>
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Thursday, 09 October 2014 13:30 |
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Pierce writes: "Another black teenager was shot last night in St. Louis by another white police officer, and St. Louis is a place now that is full of doubts of which nobody gets the benefit any more."
One man is dead after an officer-involved shooting in south St. Louis. (photo: KSDK)
Another Black Teenager Was Shot Last Night in St. Louis
By Charles Pierce, Esquire
09 October 14
 nother black teenager was shot last night in St. Louis by another white police officer, and St. Louis is a place now that is full of doubts of which nobody gets the benefit any more. The circumstances of the incident are ambiguous at best. The officer was off-duty, but apparently wearing his official uniform, while moonlighting for a private security company contracted to guard the surrounding neighborhood. Police say that the officer got suspicious when he saw three young black males running away, and one of them was wearing his pants in such a way as to suggest he might have a gun. Police say the man with the suspicious pants fired first. Police say the officer then returned fire -- 17 times -- and the man in the suspicious pants was killed. Police say that a 9mm handgun was found at the scene and presumed to belong to the man in the suspicious pants. An angry crowd gathered. Harsh words were exchanged. Police cars were kicked and their windows smashed. The circumstances of this latest incident are ambiguous, but ambiguity died in St. Louis at the same time Michael Brown did.
If you truly want to see what happens when citizens lose trust in their institutions, don't look to fanciful speculation about the CDC and its relationship to an IRS office in Cincinnati, look in the streets of St. Louis, where the slow-playing of the investigation into one police shooting has led to the death on ambiguity in this latest one. (17 shots? Really? And suspicious pants are probable cause? And isn't running away from the St. Louis police these days sensible self-preservation?) The police story may be entirely true this time and, regardless of what you may have heard out of the Bundy Ranch, if you draw down on law enforcement, you are taking your life into your hands. But, because one kid took his life in his hands by surrendering, this simple truth is irrelevant in St. Louis because ambiguity died there with Michael Brown.
This is going to be a weekend of protest in St. Louis over the strangely unresolved case of the killing of Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson. Those protests cannot help but be energized, for good or ill, by the events of last night. There is a continuum of suspicion between the two cases. In one direction, it leads to a distrust of the police and, in the other, it leads to a presumption of guilt towards anyone who is wearing their pants suspiciously and runs away when he sees the uniform. There are garrison mentalities facing off against each other across a wasteland of bad faith and bureaucratic blindness. There is still a lot that is vague and thinly substantiated about last night's shooting. (For example, how widespread is the practice of wearing your official uniforms while working your second job? That seems a bit hinky to me.) There is so much we don't know, and not knowing is where ambiguity resides. But, in St. Louis these days, everybody knows everything and nobody knows anything and ambiguity died with Michael Brown, and all the doubts have no benefit to anyone at all.
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Police Act Furious About Encrypted Phones but Still Love Them. Here's Why |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=32965"><span class="small">Micah Lee, The Intercept</span></a>
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Thursday, 09 October 2014 13:20 |
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Lee writes: "By improving the security of disk encryption, smartphones didn't magically become super-secure anti-government machines."
The Apple iPhone. (photo: unknown)
Police Act Furious About Encrypted Phones but Still Love Them. Here's Why
By Micah Lee, The Intercept
09 October 14
 he news media have been buzzing about Apple and Google’s recent decision to more extensively encrypt data on new iOS and Android devices, and the government’s subsequent freakout.
Critics including U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, FBI Director James Comey, and Washington Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier are claiming that these new security features will help kidnappers, sexual predators, and terrorists, and will endanger countless lives, all because police will have a harder time cracking into phones. Or as the Chicago Police Department’s chief of detectives put it in an interview with The Washington Post, strong encryption means “Apple will become the phone of choice for the pedophile.”
The problem is, these claims are just ridiculous and misleading. By improving the security of disk encryption, smartphones didn’t magically become super-secure anti-government machines. In fact, from the point of view of a detective investigating a crime, barely anything has changed — and suspects should continue to carry smartphones, because they still emit a huge quantity of data accessible by law enforcement.
Encrypting the data stored on your phone, as Apple and Google allow you to do, is pretty much only useful when the person trying to break in — in this case, the police — physically has your phone.
It doesn’t stop cops or spies from collecting your phone’s metadata: who you call and when. It doesn’t prevent them from eavesdropping on your phone calls or reading regular text messages. It doesn’t stop them from tracking your physical location whenever you carry your phone. It doesn’t stop them from reading your email or digging through your Facebook account. And as I’ve noted before, if you use cloud storage services like iCloud, it doesn’t even stop them from looking at photos and you’ve taken, who’s on your contact list, and all sorts of other data.
So what is the actual issue here? Why are law enforcement officials screaming “kidnappers!” and “terrorists!” when all of these methods can still be used to investigate those crimes?
They are losing hold of some of the digital-device access they used to have, and that terrifies them. They’ll say anything to not lose an inch.
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Ebola Panic Is Worse Than the Disease |
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Thursday, 09 October 2014 13:06 |
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Haglage writes: "When the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S. died Wednesday, any sense of calm that remained about the virus in America apparently went with him."
(photo: Tommy Trenchard/Reuters)
Ebola Panic Is Worse Than the Disease
By Abby Haglage, The Daily Beast
09ober 14 Oct
The only epidemic in the U.S. is an outbreak of fear-mongering. Everybody panicking when they get the flu will stretch the emergency system to a breaking point.
 hen the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S. died Wednesday, any sense of calm that remained about the virus in America apparently went with him.
In the early coverage of Thomas Eric Duncan’s diagnosis, it was the discussion of Ebola’s “non-specific,” early symptoms—similar to those of the common cold—that struck a chord. Hours after these reports, one of which I published, the mania was in full swing. CDC reminders that one would have to come in contact with the bodily fluids of an Ebola victim themselves before getting infected fell on deaf ears. At hospitals across the nation, panicked Americans with flu symptoms began convincing themselves they were next.
There were cases in Honolulu, Salt Lake City, Washington, D.C., and Miami. Each accompanied by ominous press conferences and media briefings, each “no threat” conclusion quickly followed by a new case, a new city. Public health resources aren't unlimited. Every time someone comes in with bogus "Ebola-like" symptoms, that pushes back treatment for real disease and injury.
In the hours after Duncan’s death, the false alarms have simply grown louder. When a sheriff in Frisco, Texas involved in the Duncan case told his son he felt nauseous Wednesday afternoon, the local hospital’s decision to admit him under an “abundance of caution” exploded into a national news event. CNN juxtaposed a shot of a racing ambulances and caution tape alongside the livestream of a Frisco official, who Twitter had convinced itself was about to break news about the second victim. Instead, he declared the patient to be a “minimal risk.”
In some ways, panic is justified. Ebola is a horrifying disease for which there is no cure. In West Africa, where the epidemic began, the number of cases has been soaring for eight straight months. As of this week, more than 7,000 cases have been confirmed and more than 3,500 lives lost. In the hardest hit regions, villages lack even the resources to stay hydrated and nourished. “If the international community does not stand up, we will be wiped out,” an MSF nurse told the world from Monrovia in Liberia. But for the majority of the American public, the panic seems displaced.
For lack of other victims, Duncan has become, in the words of CDC Director Thomas Frieden Wednesday, “the face of Ebola.” Only one person has been diagnosed with Ebola here. Zero survived. Those odds are as terrifying as they are misleading.
There is no cure for Ebola, but there is treatment. This statement is backed not only by science, but our own experience. Three humanitarian workers infected with Ebola have been brought back to receive treatment here. Aided by care, heroic health care workers, and—in some cases—experimental drugs, all three survived. For Duncan’s body, the treatment was either insufficient or overdue—or both.
But despite daily briefings from the CDC that the disease is only capable of spreading through the bodily fluids of a contagious person, mania ensues. Beyond the psychological implications is the babysitting this level of fear requires.
For every "potential Ebola victim" that arises in the U.S., the CDC is forced to mobilize to the location. Twice in the past two weeks, this has entailed meeting a plane on the runway to retriever sick passengers who may be infected. It’s an enormous amount of pressure to put on the only American organization with the ability to test for Ebola—not to mention a drain on resources.
Dr. Lee Norman is a Chief Medical Officer at the University of Kansas Hospital and a longtime bio threat advisor to Homeland Security. For Norman, who has 40 years experience in the bio safety universe, the circumstances in which individuals become panicky is not difficult to imagine. “They say, I’ve got fever, muscle aches, chills, headache and sore throat—these are the early symptoms of Ebola,” he says. “It’s understandable that people are frightened because the information sometimes is contradictory.”
But while Norman sympathizes with the fear, he does not believe in its validity. “If a person hasn’t traveled to these regions in West Africa, or come in contact with someone who was there and got ill, then the likelihood of catching or being exposed to Ebola is about 0,” says Norman. “It is the responsibility of health care providers and the media to help people put things in perspective.”
Dr. Irwin Redlener the Director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University and a professor in health policy and management has a different opinion. The death of Duncan, says Redlener, should be a “wake up call” both to the government and general public about how underprepared America is for a bio threat. “Preparing hospital systems or EMTs or doctors for disasters which are rare requires money because people have to get trained,” says Redlener. “When we decimate the funding for hospital preparedness, we put ourselves in great peril.”
Over the course of a decade, funding for our hospital preparedness program has been virtually cut in half, from its peak of $500 million in 2003 to around $250 million in 2014. Insufficient training, technology, and equipment to handle an Ebola epidemic, says Redlener, are byproducts of these cuts. “We have lost the surge capacity that we once had and that we once aspired to.”
Rather than convince other Americans that they too have Ebola, Redlener thinks the case should motivate the nation to refocus on disaster preparedness. The Ebola epidemic, he’s quick to clarify, is not the disaster itself. “I can understand why people are frightened by this it’s in a category of violent illnesses that end very badly,” he says. But feeling anxious and unsettled about an epidemic that your own nation seems underequipped to handle isn’t necessarily a bad thing. “People look at Ebola in America, they are looking at what’s going on in Africa and are probably rightly distressed about the problem,” says Redlener. “It may not be rational but I don’t think it’s going to harm the country.”
Whether our individual panic over Ebola is justified or not remains to be seen. But with no sign of an epidemic in the U.S. it seems, at the very least, irrational. Norman agrees. “In our mind’s eye we see very graphic images of people going crazy; dying in the streets,” he says. “Indeed dying in the streets is happening—but it’s happening in Africa.”
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