Author: Joshua Hedlund

Reasons For Optimism 69-75

69. There has been a lot of momentum in the move to re-legalize the unlocking of cell phones, from a generally supportive White House petition response to calls for reform from industry groups to legislation introduced in Congress. (If you’re interested in progress on this front, follow leading activists @sinak and @DerekKhanna)

70. The Obama Administration has set rules for greater public access to publicly-funded research following a White House petition and open advocate Aaron Swartz’s suicide. There are still limitations, but it is an improvement to the status quo, and should enhance the public goodness that justifies its funding.

71. While federal drone policy is finally in the headlines, about 30 state legislatures have been moving to limit drone surveillance within their borders. Various legislation has been introduced in Alaska, California, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas, and has begun completing steps to passage in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Virginia, and Washington. (For progress on this front, follow @drones)

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Ramblings About Rand

I’m starting to like Rand Paul more. When he first ran for the Senate in Kentucky, I remember watching an awkward interview with Rachel Maddow and thinking he was trying to seem like a Ron Paul 2.0 who could get farther in the Republican Party but was so much less charismatic than his father that he might not get anywhere.

Of course, Paul won the Republican nomination, won the Senate race, and has only continued to expand his influence. Last year he lent support to the elections of some like-minded Republicans, many of whom supported his filibuster on Wednesday.

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Filibusters And Partisan Whiplash

Rand Paul filibustered the nomination of John Brennan to CIA Director for over twelve hours yesterday, demanding clear answers about the federal government’s authority to target US citizens for drone strikes without a trial. It was an exciting performance that blurred the tired left/right political lines as Paul won rare praise from both Heritage and the ACLU, from both Rachel Maddow and Sarah Palin.

For the record, while I think our overseas drone strikes are unethical and counterproductive, I think malicious use of drones to assassinate non-“imminent” US citizens on US soil is completely hypothetical, and not something the Obama administration ever wants to use, just like I don’t think Obama really wants to “take all our guns away.” But, on principle, I still think the President shouldn’t have powers that he just promises not to use; that’s the fundamental reason behind our notion of a Constitution, of limited government, of being a nation ruled by laws and not by men. Even democratically-elected leaders can abuse their powers; just look at Hugo Chavez, who in many ways was the socialist that many American conservatives still think Obama actually is.

So I think this is an excellent discussion to be having, and I’m ecstatic that in a few months we have gone from hearing no questions about drone policy in the entire election campaign to leaked memos, Congressional hearings, and now 12-hour filibusters that make national news! Whatever your opinion of Paul’s particular arguments, I think this was a much-needed pro-civil-liberties event that was led by Paul and supported almost entirely by fellow Republican Senators (with the admirable exception of Ron Wyden, D-OR).

Of course, the political affiliation of last night’s speakers caused no shortage of irony:

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A Subtle Shift In Climate Change Defense

A new study blames volcanoes for the lack of global warming since 2000. This continues an interesting trend in the realm of climate science.

For years, climate change skeptics have been claiming that the earth has been failing to warm as scientists predicted. Climate change defenders have been accusing them of fabrication and cherry-picking, insisting that all the Smart People all agree that the Earth is still warming and even accelerating!

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, more and more scientists are coming up with theories to explain why there hasn’t been any warming lately. Maybe it’s pollutants in Asia. Maybe it’s hiding deep in the ocean. This time, maybe it’s volcanoes. Increasingly, the scientific community seems to be subtly abandoning the old argument that “the planet is definitely still warming, and anyone who doubts the consensus is anti-science,” in favor of a new argument that “the planet doesn’t appear to be warming, but climate change is still true, and here’s the reason for this unexpected pause.”

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Bring On The Sequester!

Wow. After much dilly-dallying, delaying, and obstructionism, it looks like the Sequester might actually Go Through this week. For some reason Americans aren’t very freaked out about it; the latest theory is that “it lacks a catchy name.” Maybe it’s harder to overhype something when it doesn’t have a scary word like “cliff” in the title.

What Spending Cuts?

Not that the government isn’t trying to overhype this thing. The powers that be are threatening us with delayed flights, furloughed workers — even “a lawless society“! To hear Obama and other politicians and officials talk about these “dire,” “brutal,” “devastating,” and “painful” cuts, you would think the Sequester is chopping the budget in half!

Actually, the apocalyptic post-sequester world involves federal spending that is still bigger than last year’s, just… not as big as it would have been. Here’s one of the charts going round the Internet:

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Everything You Need to Know About Last Week’s News #33

Nothing, really. No popes resigned, no nuclear weapons exploded, no giant meteors crashed into earth. If you only care about big news and you have a high opportunity cost for your next five minutes, just skip this one and come back next week.

In reverse order of importance:

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Asteroid Detection: A Public Good, or A Public Good-Enough?

It has been over 100 years since a big asteroid slammed into Planet Earth; the famous Tunguska Event in Russia flattened trees for miles around. Scientists and space nerds eagerly awaited the close arrival of another big one last week that was scheduled to miss us by about 14 minutes, coming closer than the moon and even closer than some of our satellites.

This rare close encounter of 2012DA14, which was only discovered last year, spawned much discussion about the utility of improving detection of all these nearby rocks, especially since sooner or later one of them seems bound to hit a populated area.

Stunningly, twelve hours before this once-in-a-century asteroid event, another once-in-a-century event came out of nowhere in the form of a smaller asteroid that actually did hit Earth in the same country that saw the last once-in-century asteroid. It exploded over a populated area, injuring over a thousand people who stood too close to glass windows that shattered while they were gaping at the unexpected fireball.

It was almost unbelievable that the two events were unconnected, but it appears that the meteor crashed from a completely opposite direction while 2012DA14 was still several moon lengths away!

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Petition Of The Day: Make Unlocking Cell Phones Legal Again

UPDATE 02/21/13: The petition stormed past 100,000 signatures yesterday! I shall imagine that my timely blog post was what helped propel it over the finish line. (Naw, it’s probably better for my ego if I don’t.) Now we’ll see whether the White House responds meaningfully or if the petition will join the ash heap of political talking points.

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If you haven’t already, I encourage you to sign this petition on the White House website. Unlike most useless Internet petitions, these petitions actually at least elicit a response from the White House if they reach the arbitrary threshold, which was recently raised to 100,000 signatures. The petition to Make Unlocking Cell Phones Legal has 85,000 and needs 15,000 more by Saturday.

Reaching the threshold may not actually change anything, but even for a White House petition the odds are greater than normal. The regulation that recently and arbitrarily made it illegal to unlock cell phones came from the executive branch (The Librarian of Congress, specifically) and could theoretically be reversed. Based on my understanding of the subject, there was no good reason to change this regulation, and reverting it back would provide a better and freer market for consumers.

Derek Khanna, who has been helping to lead the charge on this, argues that “The Law Against Unlocking Cellphones Is Anti-Consumer, Anti-Business, and Anti-Common Sense.” Khanna is the same young conservative activist who was fired from his Republican staffer position after he rocked too many boats with his memo about common-sense copyright reform. I love how Khanna is directly trying to influence politics for the better by pursuing tangible and achievable policy changes – first with his copyright memo and now with his support for this petition.

So go sign the petition!