[governance] Senate OKs Immunity for Telecoms

[Dan Krimm]

Sorry for the sporadic peanut-gallery engagement here, but WRT this:

At 4:54 AM -0800 2/14/08, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:

>I must admit, nor would I regard anything from moveon.org or the EFF when
>taking about the internet as anything other than propaganda ..

I like EFF, and while I do not consider them "politically neutral" I do
approve of their staunch defense of the public interest.  Whether their
activities derive from progressive or libertarian origins (some mixture, at
this point), I find no fault with them.

In short, EFF may be involved in "propaganda" at times, but not *just*
propaganda -- their main activity is litigation in the public interest,
usually against either large monopolistic corporations (progressive) or the
government itself (libertarian).  While EFF takes strong stands on ICT
policy issues, one thing one cannot say about them is that they are
*partisan* (in the sense of favoring any particular political party) --
nothing of the sort.

Sometimes people use the word "propaganda" as a pejorative term.  When it
is abused, for sure it is.  But not all "propaganda" is abusive in the
unethical sense, per se.  It can simply be a reflection of one's political
values.

If one endeavors to discuss political issues at all, then *everything* is
propaganda when it comes to stating the "ought" about an issue, especially
including the statement quoted above.  So, let's understand that all
statements about policy are "political" and often even "ideological" and
further not every political statement is meant to mislead.  But it is
probably true that most political statements carry implicit or explicit
framing that reflects the subjective political values of the speaker.

For example, I recently took a job at an institute that does basic policy
research of a nonpartisan and independent nature -- we are monolithically
data-driven and take our mission of objectivity *very* seriously (and while
we all have subjective opinions about policy, it is very important that we
leave them at the door when we go to work).  That mission of objectivity
requires that we do not do any lobbying (partly for legal reasons connected
to our incorporation, and partly for institutional branding reasons, which
affect how broadly our work is received and how much external funding we
can get to support our work) and we are fairly minimal about policy
recommendations, with more of a focus on trying to best understand what is
actually going on in the real world (whatever analysis results from that,
it is coming from the data first, not the other way around -- we are like a
public policy research department of an academic institution without the
classes and students).

Part of the logic here is that, regardless of what ideological values one
has, if one wants to design effective public policy, one must start from an
accurate understanding of the world's causal dynamics and the facts on the
ground.  But in order to proceed from that point to designing policy,
policy-makers' political values must enter the picture, and that includes
choices as to how to frame the issues themselves.

Dan

PS -- This may also relate to the discussion about "what is CS" in context
of Internet admin bodies.  If we try to lump everything that is not public
sector or for-profit sector into "CS" we get a very motley crew, ranging
from ultra-right-wing and religious groups to very progressive advocacy
groups and social service providers.  However, when I think of the term
"civil society" I tend to include a progressive political skew, because I'm
thinking of organizations concerned with the public interest, which largely
tend toward inherently progressive missions.

Also, even if an admin body is formally structured under nonprofit law, it
may act as an extension of the public sector (so-called
"quasi-governmental" institutions), and/or it may be highly controlled or
influenced by the wealth of the for-profit sector (such as trade
associations).  In these cases, I would tend not to include them in
non-profit sector per se, since they really behave more like either the
public and/or for-profit sector, at least insofar as they pursue missions
connected to those other sectors, and may have substantial authority to
make public policy directly.

PPS -- WRT the telecom immunity issue, the House had passed a version of
the bill without retroactive immunity, and decided to let the old law
expire since Bush said he would veto a temporary extension, and the Senate
waited until the last minute to drop their version of the bill with
retroactive immunity included.  The House was not given information to
evaluate the lawsuits in question (which the Senate bill would moot), and
apologists for immunity say "the Senate decided no laws were broken" but
then why not let the suits play out in the courts which should have the
authority to decide legality?  It's not as if the telecoms are so poor that
they can't engaged the judicial process -- they're fighting against much
poorer public interest groups with far less resources, and the telecoms are
generally on the winning side of such chilling effects.  Let this not be an
example of a breakdown of trust in government (it is specific to the
officeholder, not the office), but rather an example that if an unethical
officeholder should come to power, the private sector should stand up to it
if the admin asks it to break the law.  We need the private sector not to
feel it is safe to collude with government corruption, but rather to
independently stand up for the rule of law in the face of political power.

My two cents:  I applaud the House for not approving the Senate version
(which probably resulted from heavy pressure from the Bush admin, leading
to the possibility of filibuster by Senate Republicans, thus procedurally
tying the Democrats' hands and playing politics with the issue of "national
security" in an election year), especially for not responding to the
last-minute no-information nature of the pressure coming through the Senate
from the President.  This lame duck is still using all the structural
leverage it possibly can, dogmatic to the finish.


-- 
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