Chicago Boyz

Drudge links to a story about inactive-reserve Israeli military pilots who, as a political stunt, are refusing to participate in attacks on Palestinians. This is typical posturing by Israeli leftists whose agenda doesn’t have enough political support to be enacted via conventional democratic means; sort of the equivalent of U.S. leftists using the courts to bypass legislatures. Ho hum.

But the article links to another, much more interesting piece: an old interview (Part 1, Part 2) with Dan Halutz, the commander of the Israeli air force. The interview is long, and the questions are skeptical — almost to the point of hostility — about General Halutz’s claims of moral authority. But it seems to me that he has thought through the issues and answers the questions well. He comes across as articulate, morally serious and intensely pragmatic.

That’s what tech-journalist Declan McCullagh suggests in his latest online column — after learning that jetBlue Airways sold his (and lots of other people’s) personal info to a contractor who is doing research for U.S. government data-mining schemes.

A presentation prepared by contractor, Torch Concepts of Huntsville, Ala., describes how it merged the JetBlue database with U.S. Social Security numbers, home addresses, income levels and vehicle ownership information it purchased from Acxiom, a company that sells consumer data. Not all the details are clear, but the presentation discusses how Torch, on behalf of Uncle Sam, tried to rate each passenger’s security risk level by analyzing the merged databases.

That kind of disgraceful privacy intrusion demonstrates that it’s high time to amend the Privacy Act of 1974, which restricts databases that the U.S. government compiles but does not regulate how agencies access databases the private sector runs.

Enacted largely as a result of a federal report on automated data systems, the Privacy Act covers any “system of records” the government operates with personal information on American citizens. It limits the use and disclosure of those records and requires that the databases be protected with “appropriate administrative, technical and physical safeguards” to preserve their security and confidentiality. Government employees who disclose records in violation of the law’s procedures can be fined and imprisoned on misdemeanor charges.

In today’s world, the venerable Privacy Act doesn’t go far enough. It worked when computers could be defined as “automated data systems,” but Moore’s Law has exploded early 1970s-era notions of computing speed, and hard drive capacity has increased even more dramatically. The law fails to address the “databasification” of modern life.

Sounds good to me.

Hillary with Clark as VP? My long-standing prediction? It is looking more likely by the day. Mark Steyn has weighed in, suggesting that maybe, just maybe, what is happening is this: “General Clark is merely an unwitting “stalking horse”, designed to weaken both Dean and Bush just enough to enable the Democrats’ real white knight to jump in: waiting in the wings, Hillary Rodham Clinton.” William Safire analyzes the situation similarly, and more analytically, noting that control of the Democrat fund-raising apparatus is the key here, and Terry McAuliffe is the Clintons’ special buddy. But this guy, Craig Crawford gets it best of all. (Do read it all.) He starts out with some reverse spin “Sure, believing that the junior senator from New York will run for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination might be the political equivalent of believing in Unidentified Flying Objects.” (Not on this blog, baby.) He notes that Clark’s entire entourage is Clintonistas. The Clintons needed time for HRC to wiggle out of her promise not to run. They needed someone to derail Dean’s momentum. “Husband Bill publicly launched the pledge-dodge maneuver for his wife just as Clinton loyalists working for Clark leaked word to the media that the general would definitely run.” Clark’s campaign deals lots of dirt to the other Donk candidates. So, how the heck do they get Hillary in and Clark out of the way in just a few weeks? These are the Clintons, remember. “Clark and Clinton stage a summit and in a sudden burst of activity, the deal is done and she takes over his campaign organization just in time for the Nov. 21 filing deadline for the New Hampshire primary.” Right. Watch that date. November 21, 2003. That is D-Day.

Bill Clinton, with his pack of loyal advisors on hand, is the greatest tactical politician we have had in the White House since Nixon, and probably since Franklin D. Roosevelt, and maybe ever. He wants to get back in the White House. He and the wife are set to do it. Put nothing, nothing, nothing past these people. If she runs, she gets the nomination, and odds are better than even she beats W. It will either be close, or she will walk away with it, but Bush will have a Hell of a time beating her.

Jonathan sent me this article by Lee Harris entitled War and Wishful Thinking from Tech Central Station. Instapundit cited the article favorably, and Jonathan tells me that Harris has had good posts on technical issues. OK, so Harris gets some slack. But he is totally wrong in this article.

I sent an angry email in response, but for this post I’ll strip out much of the harshness and profanity for this family-style blog we’ve got going here.

First, Harris says that Bush describing what we are currently doing post 9/11 as a war is a “metaphor”. That is just so cloyingly academic, it reeks so foully of the faculty lounge. Please. For God’s sake, be smart instead of clever. Calling the current war a war is not about metaphor, it is about legality. If you don’t call it a war you can’t send your planes to blow things up and your troops to shoot people. Bush is commander in chief. If he doesn’t call it a war he can’t legally use what he has at his fingertips to destroy our enemies. The alternative is to call it a crime, which would change everything about what you can do. We are a law abiding society and if you don’t clearly define what you are doing and by what authority you are doing it, you get in deep trouble. Bush got himself a Congressional authorization for this very reason. That means the Commander in Chief can release the hounds. (Michael Lind’s interesting book Vietnam the Necessary War discusses this convincingly. Good review here by John Lewis Gaddis.)

Harris says this: “It is wishful thinking to believe that what we have before us is simply another war, of the kind that we have fought in the past.” What? Who ever said this? Bush said clearly it was NOT like any war we’ve ever been in. I heard him say that. So, duh, no.

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Michael Barone currently has an upbeat column about Iraq entitled Iraq in historical perspective. (Which I found via Instapundit— but I would have found it myself pretty soon. Really.) Meanwhile, David Warren has an incredibly depressing column entitled “Disaster”, on the same topic. Some light may be shed on this dichotomy by a perusal of the recent analysis provided by Victor Davis Hanson entitled These are Historic Times.

Barone castigates the media for holding Team Bush to a “zero defect” standard:

Today’s media have a zero-defect standard: the Bush administration should have anticipated every eventuality and made detailed plans for every contingency. This is silly. A good second-grade teacher arrives in class with a lesson plan but adapts and adjusts to pupils’ responses and the classroom atmosphere. A good occupying power does the same thing.

As usual with Barone, he supports his arguments with historical parallels:

Jean Edward Smith’s biography of Gen. Lucius Clay reveals that the first time he read the government’s plans for post-World War II Germany was on the flight over there to take charge. William Manchester’s American Caesar shows that Douglas MacArthur, however knowledgeable about the Far East, did not have clear ideas on how to rule postwar Japan. Clay and MacArthur improvised, learned from experience, made mistakes, and corrected them, adjusted to circumstances. It took time: West Germany did not have federal elections until 1949, four years after surrender; the peace treaty with Japan was not signed until 1951.

As Barone correctly notes, the media’s focus on bad facts misses most of the story: “It is news when there is a fatal accident at Disneyland and not news when there is not. But Iraq is not Disneyland. In a country that is occupied after decades of a brutal dictatorship, good news is news.” Exactly. He also points out that there is plenty of countervailing news which shows that the media is not telling us the whole story. He gives a few examples, and notes in particular “reports from soldiers on the ground, circulating widely on the Internet but seldom if ever appearing in old media, indicate that the large majority of Iraqis are friendly and helpful and glad that American troops are there.” (Pat yourselves on the back, O ye citizens of the Blogosphere.)

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