WikiLeaks and the Accused Leaker

Bradley Manning is the U.S. Army private who is accused of leaking information to the website Wikileaks. I have been sorting out my feelings on the Wikileaks controversy, torn between a desire for openness and freedom versus a desire for America's Government to be able to operate securely and effectively. I have quickly begun to lean in favor of prosecuting the guilty and shutting down Wikileaks. Considering the story of Bradley Manning led me in this direction.

First of all, I will concede that I do not know Manning and can not make any judgements about him. With that assumption, I can still justify an angry sense of ethical indignation against anyone who would take classified information and release it to total strangers. What he did was steal, and he stole something that belongs to every American, despite the fact that few of us can access it. Whomever revealed this information, they did so as a selfish act. They had no right to make that decision on their own, when so many other Americans were laboring tirelessly to secure that information and add value to it. This is a democracy where we make decisions through group consensus; the leaker of this information acted like a dictator when he made this decision without consulting a larger group of stakeholders.

Now what if Manning is guilty as charged? Assuming that most of what is written about him is true, Manning had a frustrating childhood, is socially awkward, and is gay. That leads me to believe that he is less a martyr for the cause, and more of an unstable personality using this opportunity to lash out at a world that never met his desires to belong and be accepted. If the stories of Manning's personal life are true, then I sympathize with him and wish that humans put a higher value on treating each other with mutual respect. However, that does not justify his actions anymore than it justified Jeffery Dahmer or Timothy McVeigh.

Leaking these videos and documents puts lives at risk, damages the reputation of a great nation, and diminishes or even nullifies the efforts of hundreds of dedicated professionals working for the causes of freedom and American interests. If he had a document that exposed a blatant act such as those that occurred at My Lai or Abu Graib, then this would be a very different conversation. In the case of Wikileaks, we just have a dump of data, the contents of which are unknown and the ramifications unconsidered. That is more than just unethical. That is treasonous.

The Meaning of Wikileaks

Wikileaks does it again, publishing material that was meant to be classified and protected. People have called it treasonous and recommended legal action. Others have suggested a cloak-and-dagger approach to punish the guilty. President Obama has called for agencies to review their procedures for handling sensitive material. The general consensus among those in Government and among those private citizens who oppose the action of Wikileaks is that we must stop the leaks somehow.

My opinion is that we can try sticking our finger in the cracked dike, but that will not stop all the leaks. What we need to realize is that it is a new world; it is an open world. In a flash, from anywhere in the world, I can publish a paragragh or a terabyte and make it instantly visible to the rest of the connected world. Iran and China have tried to block the more offensive addresses on the internet, but willful people longing to be free will find a way around the barriers.

Federal agencies should secure their secrets and protect the people mentioned within the secrets. However, I think the larger lesson is that we can no longer sustain large, secretive agencies. Overtime, the large federal agency will become irrelevant. The nature of the internet is to collaborate with total abandon. The rules of a nation-state are simply a hindrance to what will inevitably dominate the earth. We do not want more trade barriers or more wars; we want to be free to collaborate and compete globally.

As Thomas Friedman pointed out, there was a time when global collaboration and competition was driven only by nations. Eventually, the vehicle for global collaboration and competition was driven by the multinational corporation. Once the internet approached ubiquity, we found ourselves able to compete and collaborate globally as individuals. Some guy in a jungle on a remote continent can affect the thinking of a whole group of American suburbanites with one tweet. A talented wicker-weaver in the middle of nowhere can setup a global storefront and become a multinational corporation all by herself with little expertise or effort.

Unfortunately for some people, this is actually just controlled chaos. You can't herd cats, and you can't keep secrets easily. Now that we are all individuals playing by our own rules, we are are going to reject the rules around of others. Governments have an important role to play here to make sure that the wild west is kept on a level playing field--in other words, to protect us from the most selfish and greedy violators.

I am not defending or supporting Wikileaks here. They don't appear to be considering the ethical impact of their disclosures. As an individual, I wouldn't want my secrets revealed to the world. For instance, my SSN is a powerful number that needs to remain secret. My medical history may appear benign to my doctor, but in the hands of some people it may be enough to keep me from the job I deserve--therefore we keep it secret. I certainly don't want anyone to know what my spouse and I argue about, nor do I want to hear about your arguments. Some secrets are important.

What I am supporting is the inevitable. We can't stop the world from becoming more open. We don't want to. With more people working on a problem, the solutions become more creative and more efficient. Diseases like cancer may not be cured without openness, for example. We just need to realize that it is a different planet in 2010 than it was just 20 years ago. In 1990, if I knew a major secret I would have to go through the bureaucracy of a major publisher and it would takes weeks to get revealed if it ever was. Now I can expose it globally, for free, from the comfort of anywhere on the planet, all by myself or in collaboration with any one of the millions of individuals who would like to help me.

The war in Iraq has demonstrated that the old way of fighting wars will no longer work. The enemy will dress like a civilian, live with civilians, and not be seen when he detonates the IED. If you are dressed like a Marine and driving down the same road you always do in an unarmored Humvee, you will not have the chance to defend yourself when you are attacked. Fireteam formations and raw aggression are useless against an insurgency. The military is adapting to the new rules. Now our diplomatic and intelligence agencies will have adjust to their new rules too. One of those rules will be: support individualism and reduce or eliminate inefficient bureaucracies.

A New Favorite Blog

I have a new favorite blog, thanks to the excesses of TSA. Johnny Edge's blog is a rambling list of Libertarian-leaning opinions focusing on the economic effects of idiocy. At least, that's my take on it. I never would have seen this blog if TSA hadn't demanded to touch Johnny's junk. I followed a link on twitter to his post, and have been fuming ever sense.

Here the gist of it: if TSA demands to touch your genitals and you refuse, then they can fine you $10,000 dollars and bring a civil suit against you. I am not a Constitutional scholar so excuse my ignorance, but doesn't that run against the idea of the Fourth Amendment? That is one step beyond illegal search and seizure, into the realm of tyranny.

Here's a funny TSA story: I was cleaning out my laptop bag and found a small bottle of alcohol-based (i.e. flammable) hand sanitizer. This is supposed to be taken out of your bag and put in the gray bucket, but I had it at the bottom of my laptop bag for two months now, and have flown almost every week during that time. San Francisco , Reagan International, Dulles, Midway, Tampa, and Kansas City airports all have failed to detect my concealed flammable item numerous times, and that's even with a few bag checks. I am sure you have heard similar stories of missed knives, liquids, and other crap.

This morning, as I boarded my flight in Kansas City I attempted to bring a scanner through. Right now, printer toner is being singled out because a terrorist allegedly tried to ship a bomb from Southwest Asia in a toner cartridge. That logically means that every American carrying a printer is part of the same profile (note: sarcasm). My scanner doesn't print, and there is no place to put a toner cartridge, but that didn't stop our crack TSA team from delibberating for several minutes over the offensive item.

Then the supervisor asks me what size toner cartridge is in this thing. I am an engineer and am certified to work on laser printers, but I confess I do not know my toner sizes. Unfortunately, they are not sold that way. I simply stated that it was a scanner, not a printer, and didn't have a toner cartridge. Here's where I get mad: They let me take the scanner at that point, never opening it to check for a toner cartridge and never using their fancy wipes on it. I hope no one tells the terrorists that TSA will just take your word for it when you say that it's not what they think it is.

National Opt-Out day is coming up on the heaviest travel day of the year. If just 10% of the travelers participate, I know for sure that there will be delays nationwide. I saw it with my own eyes just a few months ago. There is a group called Honor Flights that sends veterans on a trip to thank them for their service. A few months back, they booked a flight out of Kansas City heading to Washington DC, and were full of WWII and Korean War Vets. Whether they were wheelchair-bound due to combat or age, I don't know. What I do know is that they couldn't just roll through the metal detectors. Each one had to be hand-screened (groped and humiliated) before they could board their flight.

We're talking about 30 or 40 veterans, each one taking several minutes to fondle. The plane was delayed for an hour, and the next plane scheduled for that gate had to be diverted to another gate. The ramifications of one delayed flight can be pretty bad once it hits two or three other airports and is combined with weather and maintenance delays on other planes.

Besides that, if a man is willing to lay his life on the line for his country in combat, we can give him the benefit of the doubt and leave his junk un-fondled.

Capitalism is Good and It Saved My Life

I have tried, unsuccessfully, to write a post about the greatness of Capitalism. There is waaaay too much ground to cover; Capitalism is great on so many fronts, and that makes it hard to write less than 10 pages on its introduction. It is hard, but not impossible.

I have deleted 1000 paragraphs in my attempt to talk about the greatness of Capitalism, and why we should embrace it as a future economic system rather than scrap it and try something else. Considering what I wrote in Capitalism Is Bad, there are many opportunities to improve Capitalism. However, the fundamental principles of Capitalism are time-tested. They are like the laws of physics; you may not like them, but that does not make them any less true.

Where I am going with this is to set up a series of posts about how I believe that the future of Capitalism, Democracy, and perhaps Western Civilization, lies in the success of Corporate Social Responsibility. It all starts with the assumptions that Freedom should be a fundamental right for all people, and that Capitalism provides that freedom economically to all who choose it.

If Capitalism is so bad, why not embrace Socialism, or some new -ism that we haven't defined yet? Because Capitalism gives us freedom. I started this series off at the beginning of this month by sharing my thoughts on freedom. Capitalism is equal to economic freedom for me. I cannot imagine a system that provides more freedom with my money. Therefore, in a nutshell, that is what makes Capitalism so great: its provision of freedom.

Look back on history and try to imagine where you would be given your current lineage, gender, race, and religion. If you go back to the eighteenth century or earlier (pre-Enlightenment) you would have lived a very dull, oppressed, and limited life unless you come from a family of nobility. 99% of us are not descended from nobility so we can imagine that at any point in history, we would have been restricted from owning property, borrowing, education, voting, moving to another town, whom you could marry, where you could travel, what occupation you worked at, etc... And I am talking about most white men here. If you were a woman or a man of another color back then, I shudder to think of your life.

So many things have contributed to our current freedoms and quality of life. None has contributed more than Capitalism, I would argue. When I take a week off of work and travel away from my home to a destination of my choice, I take it for granted. Had I been born in Ukraine in 1700, I would neither have the option to leave work nor to leave my town. Had I been born anywhere in 1600, I would not have had a choice of who I worked for or what my occupation was.

If I had been born in 1974 in South America or Africa, chances are I would still not have the options and liberties I enjoy today. Had I been born yesterday into an "untouchable" family in India, I would never have the hope of owning property, working a meaningful job, or marrying the hottie that I am currently married to.

The fundamental basis of Capitalism is market theory: Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand" that efficiently rights the wrongs without human intervention. I know, many people think that market theory is not as efficient as we would like to believe. Those are all people who have a stake in managing the economy and would be out of a job if we depended solely on an "Invisible Hand". Look at the Soviet Union if you want to see how managing an economy can bring you nothing but woe. The market contains too many unknown variable for any group of humans to regulate efficiently. When it is left alone, it regulates itself.

Market forces work better when there are more participants and less regulators. As we continue to add people to the world market, we continue to see prosperity grow. That is why it was in the best interests of the wealthy European families to allow more people to participate in the market economy once it began; those wealthy families that participated in the market continued to prosper as the market grew. The families that squandered their wealth and resources and depended on their "birthright" to get by rather than exercising their privileges in the market quickly lost their wealth, land, titles, and places in society.

Capitalism has a tendency to bring out the best in some people and the worst in others. We have laws to deal with the worst people. The best people would not be the best in any other economic system. By giving people the opportunity to own, control, and profit from their creations, we have provided an awesome incentive--one that can not be reproduced in any other system.

Let's say that the year is 1976. I have just graduated from an advanced Scientific University in Soviet Socialist Russia. I am a math wizard, a creative and energetic person, and I have the inkling of an idea for connecting computers and sharing information. It is going to take many hard years of my life to develop this idea, write the software, invent the non-existant hardware I envision, fight the political battles, scrounge up money, convince hordes of people to help...And it will all be owned and controlled by "the People"--the State.

I have the opportunity to invent something that is potentially life-changing and history making. I have the talent, I have the knowledge to get started, and I can probably pull the whole thing off. On the other hand, I could just be satisfied with a secure job for 8 hours and not endure the hard work, frustration, and heartbreak as "the People" take my invention and use it for something I am opposed to. I could just do what I am told for 8 hours a day, play around in my leisure, and live a stable, comfortable life with my family and friends.

Which would you do? Would you altruistically spend your blood, sweat, tears, and years on an invention and give it away for the good of humanity? Or would you just ignore the idea, letting it die quietly in the back of your mind as you enjoy the simple pleasures of life?

Let's look at the costs and benefits: if you develop the idea, you lose years of your life and in the end you get nothing back except (perhaps) a warm fuzzy feeling and a portrait of yourself hung in the hallway of the science institute. On the other hand, you can receive accolades, respect, and comfort from just doing your job well in a Socialist society, and you can spend more time with family and fun if you are not chasing down all the things you need for your machine.

Now assume that it is 1976 and you are Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, or Bill Gates. You are a college dropout with a good idea. You may not be the most talented programmer or engineer, but you are good enough to invent something that people want to buy. You could remain in your stable job at HP designing calculators or you could face the frustration, heart-break, and hustle of selling your idea.

Again, you are faced with a choice: do you live a life of obscurity and moderate means or do you put in the effort, make a $100 million overnight, gain widespread fame, have people offer you thousands to come and speak to them, have people name their kids after you, have powerful executives take notes when you share your opinion, and have the opportunity to sell your next idea for more money and less effort?

That is Capitalism. In China, you see people working furiously to copy products that already exist so that they can make a few bucks. No one is allowed to be rich and powerful if they are not a communist official, so no one actually invents anything. This is a people who are unbelievably well-educated, they have a looooong history, and there is money everywhere. However, they know that if they were ever to let out a great idea, it would no longer belong to them. Without an incentive for greatness, we will not see greatness come from China. We may see more lead-painted baby products and poisonous dog food, but not the cure for cancer or a new rocket engine that approaches light speed.

In Capitalist America, you have people throwing out every idea they can to see which one sticks. Everyday, people who were born into inopportune circumstances are finding that they can be rewarded for their hustle and creativity. Even if you are a minority, poor, illiterate, and illegitimate trouble-making slacker, if you can play sports or rhyme in a way that other people are willing to pay money for, you can be rich, famous, and relatively powerful. A self-imposed ignoramus like College Drop-out Kanye West can make money, scoop up the finest honeys, and insult the President of the United States on live TV in front of millions of people...and get talked about for years afterwards.

Therefore, despite the many ways that Capitalism is Bad, it has a fundamental underpinning that we must cling to: the freedom of the individual to profit from their efforts. First of all, it is only right that if "it" is yours, then you should enjoy the benefits and make the decisions regarding "it". Secondly, there is no stronger motivation we know of to inspire greatness in people than the allure of fame, fortune, and power.

Capitalism has allowed, and even encouraged, some bad things in our society. However, almost ever good thing that we enjoy is the result of Capitalism. The benefits of Capitalism inspires scientists, engineers, entertainers, and almost everyone else to new heights.

I know that for myself, I would never have educated myself if I didn't expect it to lead to future wealth, power, and status for me. Mainly, my education provides me with more options and control over future employment. In addition, I am a better employee due to my education. I am a better communicator. I understand more about business dynamics and I understand more about the world around me. Ultimately, I probably make better decisions due to my higher education. I am also in a better position to do something great, if all the other stars fall into place. In that case, my employer is better off because of my education. That means that my coworkers, managers, shareholders, and customers benefit from my education. My education not only improves me, it enables me to improve the society around me. And that is all the result of Capitalism.

Had this been a Socialist or other type of economy, I would not have read one book without naked pictures in it. Without the hope of reward, I would have just done what I had to do to stay out of trouble. Sure, I might have done a little to improve my position, but very little. If I had the brains and talent of Woz or Thomas Edison, I expect I would have been happy to hold a better job than most other people in my Socialist society, and I would have taken up fishing or Chess to wile away my freetime.

As an alcoholic, I can tell you right now what I would have done if I had come of age behind the iron curtain. There is no way I would have chosen industry over booze if that industry resulted in nothing more than callouses on my hand. Without the hope of owning assets, retiring in comfort, and building a better life for my progeny, I am sure that Vodka would have won out.

Therefore, Capitalism saved my life.

Freedom and Political Systems

Freedom cannot be left unrestricted, and I have come to accept this based on ideas from Locke and Jefferson: That freedom for one can cause a lack of freedom (the state of injustice) for another. For example, if I steal your car, I have a new freedom from that car, but your freedom has been restricted by my actions, which is unjust. However, if I purchase your car from you without coercion or dishonesty on either part, we both enjoy the liberty that allowed the transaction.

Because human nature is inherently selfish, and because some people are truly evil, a political system is required to keep honest people honest and protect us from evil people. We need to restrict some of our own freedoms to protect our whole freedom from others. The trick is to balance protection and freedom within the political system.

Therefore, a political system that would make sense to me would allow as much freedom as possible, while protecting me in the event that another entity or individual tried to restrict my freedom. Democracy provides a means for me to influence the political system that oversees my society; democracy allows the people in a society to make decisions that restrict freedom and oppresses groups of people. Democracy has its pros and cons. Is there a system that provides as much freedom as democracy without as much injustice? My answer to that is, “Not yet.”

I do not think that a new political system is necessary to provide more freedom. The problems that exist in our democracy are not the cause of the system, they are caused by the people. Instead of changing the system, we need to change the people. It is possible that simply by changing a paradigm among the people in a system, they can make better use of that system.

It is possible that the most efficient and effective method to spread a paradigm is through the corporations who are causing so many problems today. That is where I think the value of freedom and the concepts of Corporate Social Responsibility meet. The latter can be used to increase the former.

Is Freedom a Good Thing?

Freedom makes people great. It increases their self-esteem, their quality of life, their education, their fulfillment, and their self-actualization. Increasing a person's freedom often provides an immediate positive influence on their life.

Sure, freedom is not always an immediate improvement. There have been times that providing freedom has increased a person's problems. Emancipating the slaves was not all wine and roses; many former slaves were not prepared for the responsibility of freedom. When children today are emancipated from their parents as they go away to college, this often creates more problems than they anticipated. We all saw how increased freedom was not exactly an immediate blessing in Iraq.

However, the problems were not caused by freedom itself. The problems were caused by the system that existed prior to freedom. A system of oppression followed by freedom leaves a chasm that cannot be quickly or easily filled. If you prepare a person for freedom, and gradually increase their freedom as their ability to handle decisions develops, you improve their life dramatically over time.

If a person or people is prepared for some level of freedom, then increasing their ability to think, learn, criticize, earn, own, travel, communicate, and create will always be an improvement over any life of restriction that can be forced upon a person. If the Taliban system of life is truly superior to any other, then it would be even more beneficial if it was practiced willingly rather than by threat of beatings and executions.

I do not propose that we inflict freedom on the planet against its will; the people of Saudi Arabia would be better off if their women were allowed equal rights; they will not realize these benefits if we try to force this freedom on them against their will. People need to have the freedom to decide not to enjoy their freedom. The U.S. achieved our level of freedom because we demanded it, we valued it, and we were willing to fight for it. The people of Vietnam did not value their own freedom in this way, which is why they are not free to this day despite the best efforts of the United States.

I argue that freedom is an ideal that everyone should seek. If it is implemented on a people who desire and value it, freedom is the one ideal that will be able to propel them to exceed their wildest dreams. No other ideal that I know of can have the empowering and enlightening effect that freedom can bring. Freedom is not a good thing, it is a great thing.

The Most Important Thing I Ever Learned

The most important thing that I have ever learned was the concept of freedom; this one discovery has shaped my intellectual life ever since. The American concept of political and economic freedom has been the central theme of my thoughts and actions; the issues and items that cause the greatest stress for me are the ones that limit freedom in any way, shape or form.

Issues regarding taxes which restrict my economic freedom are on my mind often, as are the other fees and expenses of life which limit how much power and pleasure I can purchase, the choices I can make, and the future freedom of choices that I and my children will face.

There have been several periods of my life where I experienced intense inner struggle though outwardly my life carried on as usual; that internal struggle revolved around freedom. I joined the Marine Corps partly because of a patriotic notion of protecting liberty. However, a Marine does not get to enjoy half of the freedoms that he or she protects, and that was a constant source of turmoil while I served. When my alcoholism took a turn for the worst, what motivated me to save myself was the promise of freedom in sobriety. That notion of freedom keeps me sober today. What has lead me to seek treatment for depression and ADD has been their effects on my freedom. The increased freedom of employment prospects caused me to persevere through ten years of college, despite many setbacks and struggles.

I discovered freedom in fifth grade. I also discovered the arch-nemesis of freedom: injustice. I think both discoveries were made on the same day. In fifth grade, I was in Mrs. Davis’ class at Woodland Elementary School in Grayslake, Illinois. The Bears would almost go undefeated that year, and would win the Superbowl. I remember Mrs Davis reading to us, but I am not sure what books she read. I remember we attempted to write out the number 1 google (a 1 followed by 100 zeroes). That is all I remember from 1985, except that one defining moment when my life paradigm was formed.

We studied U.S. history that year. In the previous years, we had heard of Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin, and the Declaration of Independence to some extent. We especially learned to love the freedom fighters George Washington and Abraham Lincoln because they earned us a day of freedom from school each year. Somehow, whether by design or by accident, all the fundamental political concepts of the American Revolution were put together in such a way that year that I understood it for the first time: Some people were free and some people were oppressed, but as an American I received the birthright of freedom.

Later, I discussed this concept with my mother; probably on the same day that it sunk in. This moment is burned into my memory; I can see the car we were riding in and the landscape going by. Until this conversation, my understanding was more of a Libertarian or Anarchist view of freedom; unrestricted freedom. My mom burst my bubble by explaining that not only was there limits to freedom in general but as an eleven year-old in her house, I enjoyed few freedoms. There was a promise that, “one day, when you’re an adult” I would taste the freedoms that America had to offer. Until then, I would suffer the despotic regime of Mr. and Mrs. Slobodzian.

The idea that there was the possibility of total freedom in theory, and somewhat unrestricted freedom to adults, but little or no freedom for fifth-graders introduced me to the concept of political injustice. I am sure that, like most kids, I learned to say, “It’s not fair!” at a young age; my four year-old says it daily, though I have no idea where he learned it. Even so, I didn’t really have a concept of true injustice, the type that affects groups of people. I knew when something unjustly affected me, but after this enlightening conversation with my mother I began to see that there was societal injustice, oppression that affected large or small groups of people.

Since then, I have analyzed systems and made decisions based on freedom. I have thought extensively about freedom and injustice, from many angles and in many applications. For the rest of my life, the cause of freedom for myself, for my children, for my sphere of influence, and for the world at large, will guide my thoughts and actions.

Some people shape their value system around a religion or a philosophy, some shape their value system on concepts of struggle or contest. My value system is based on freedom vs. injustice. If I have an ethical decision to make, I try to seek these two poles to help decide the issue: which decision grants freedom and which decision creates or sustains injustice.

A New Series: Freedom and Corporate Social Responsibility

I have wanted to write a concise post about my political philosophy ever since I created this blog. It was a major reason why I was excited about the blog in the first place. My political beliefs are something that I have been developing and thinking about for years. I have also wanted to write about a concept that is of growing interest me: that of Corporate Social Responsibility. However, these two concepts are so large, and I have so many thoughts about them, that every attempt at either subject has resulted in frustration and a feeling of being overwhelmed.

As they twist and turn through my neurological fun house, they have begun to run into each other and merge. I now believe that that they are so intertwined that they could only be described together. This is exciting for me, because I am starting to put some thoughts together that I think will lead to something creative and important. On the other hand, this has only made the dream of a “concise” post become even more impossible.

I think that instead, I will “chunk” the information into smaller pieces over the next several days (or months, or years, whatever it takes.) In the next posting, I will talk about the concept that shapes almost every thought in my head and is the basis of my value system. This will lead to a discussion of how I view American Politics and where I stand. I will then discuss how my political world-view and my overriding value of freedom makes Corporate Social Responsibility such an important issue for our future.