Naomi Klein on the Corrupting Influence of $$$ (x-post from C-C)

December 18th, 2008

Naomi Klein, activist and author of No Logo, has a great series of 1 minute videos on BigThink.com. In one she addresses the corrupting influence of corporate money in politics:

“I think there needs to be a citizen’s revolt against the corporate takeover of politics… Americans are in an endless election campaign. It never ends. So the idea that after the election then there will be policy, there is no after the election. There is always another election, another fundraising campaign, and you know it never ends.”

Klein also highlights the critical importance of campaign finance reform: “Before this can actually lead to political change, we need to change the rules. We need to get corporate money the hell away from politics; or at least a huge separation. It has to . . . It’s the most pressing issue of our time. It’s the most pressing issue of our time because it’s what needs to happen before anything else can happen.”

We’re advocating the same thing.

Money is not the only problem but it’s the problem that must be fixed first. The time is ripe and with your help we will create the change that we need.

Morning thoughts on data, identity and the almighty $$$

December 11th, 2008

This was a comment on Identity Woman’s blog – I’m reposting here.

A snippet of IW’s post:

“Mary Hodder is one of the 8 experts Fast Company tapped to predict evolutionary trends for web 2.o in 2009:

Mary Hodder, Founder of Dabble.com and VP of Product Development, Apisphere

‘The future of social media is user’s owning their data, deciding who to send it to. Look for more companies that currently host the user’s identity to have less control over that, as things like Open ID take over and more companies try to compete by giving users more control over themselves. Look for ways users can own their own data, and companies that might offer that, sort of like a personal information bank’.”

—–

Sounds dead on to me.

I agree that one company or a small set of companies having preferred access/control over user data is not ideal. Sadly, I’m not sure that concentrated control won’t become the norm. Our economic and political systems have strong tendencies to concentrate power – it’s a recurring collective action problem where a small number of players (facebook, google, msft, etc…) have access to lower cost “cooperation” (collusion) than 6 billion citizens of the world – despite the fact that net social benefit would be maximized by a non-collusive approach.

Despite this historical tendency I hope that the power of the net to decentralize / distribute decision making power will lead to more user control over their own data. It’s an ongoing battle and the open stack, data portability, etc.. are all fighting the good fight here.

One other thought tied to biz models – I have a sense that the most fruitful pathway to user controlled data is focusing on $$$. Recast privacy concerns as monetary ones, where data=gold and control over your data translates into income.

Advertising offers a quick and easy entry point. Imagine a scenario where only the user controls access to their entire pool of data. Individual sites may have access to some subset of the data pool but ad delivery/targeting efficiency presumably correlates positively to the size of the data pool. Advertisers would then have a preference for targeting ads based on the complete data pool, which only the user has access too and which the user could $ell to the highest bidder.

There are some technical hurdles to providing translucent data (vs. full transparency) but we went to the moon & decoded the human genome so I’m crossing my fingers that we’ll be able to build secure, flexible, translucent identity/data systems in the near future.

Anyway, those are my morning thoughts on Identity & Data. Thanks for the great work in this space.
Best,
Chris Camp

Senate Seat for Sale

December 9th, 2008

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has been arrested and charged with corruption. Initial signs are appallingly bad.

Wiretap recordings indicate that Blagojevich was actively working to sell or trade Obama’s old seat in the Senate to the highest bidder, “I’m going to keep this Senate option for me a real possibility, you know, and therefore I can drive a hard bargain. You hear what I’m saying. And if I don’t get what I want and I’m not satisfied with it, then I’ll just take the Senate seat myself.”

Wow.

In exchange for the Senate seat Blagojevich asked for “a substantial salary” at a non-profit or labor union for himself, substantial meaning $250,000 to $300,000 a year. For his wife he sought memberships on corporate boards that would amount to $150,000 a year.

Apparently there was at least one candidate engaged in the bidding, “Candidate 5.” Blagojevich said that he received an offer of $500,000 from Candidate 5 in exchange for the seat.

In the very best possible light this evidence looks terrible. Again we appear to have found a politician engaged in the most offensive sort of political corruption. There is a temptation to think that we’ve found just one more bad apple but the truth is that our system is a bad apple factory.

Blagojevich may be one of the worst offenders but his actions are evidence of a more pervasive culture of corruption. A systemic addiction to money. Every political party is afflicted and each politician plays a part.

It is time for the people to raise their voices and insist on change. Blagojevich can become a catalyst for that change – take two minutes to pester your representatives and tell them that you’re mad as hell and not going to take it any more.

(Cross posted from http://change-congress.org/blog/2008/12/09/senate-seat-sale)

Houston we HAVA problem

October 2nd, 2008

Problems with Electronic Voting Machings

Recent articles in the Washington Post and New York Times raise concerns about potential electoral problems this November. The areas of concern may sound familiar to Change Congress readers: security of electronic voting machines, lack of an auditable paper trail, voter registration, and voter identification & disenfranchisement. Similar concerns were raised in the run up to the 2004 & 2006 elections. In the aftermath of both the 2004 and 2006 elections there were numerous and significant claims of voter disenfranchisement and voting irregularities. Some went so far as to claim that these irregularities had altered the outcome of the 2004 presidential election. These claims, while never having been fully proven in a court of law or of public opinion, are nonetheless unsettling when considered in the light of the problems that accompanied the 2000 presidential election.

Why is it that we are hearing similar stories eight years later?

Potential answers can be found in the origins of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, the chief sponsor of the Senate bill, described HAVA as “the first Civil Rights Act of the 21st century.” HAVA was a response to the election problems of 2000. The explicit goal of HAVA was to fix America’s electoral system by replacing outdated voting systems with newer, more reliable machines and procedures. The act created the Election Assistance Commission to administer Federal elections, to establish a set of election standards and to allocate $3.9 billion to be used for investing in new voting equipment.

Lobbying, Campaign Contributions and Conflicts of Interest

HAVA’s goals were noble but the results have been questionable. Some of the most vilified political figures in recent memory are deeply associated with the creation of the act. Former Ohio Congressman Bob Ney was the chief sponsor of the House bill. Robert F. Kennedy Jr described Ney’s HAVA involvement – “The primary author and steward of HAVA was Rep. Bob Ney, the GOP chairman of the powerful U.S. House Administration Committee. Ney had close ties to the now-disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, whose firm received at least $275,000 from Diebold to lobby for its touch-screen machines. Ney’s former chief of staff, David DiStefano, also worked as a registered lobbyist for Diebold, receiving at least $180,000 from the firm to lobby for HAVA and ‘other election reform issues.’ Ney – who accepted campaign contributions from DiStefano and counted Diebold’s then-CEO O’Dell among his constituents – made sure that HAVA strongly favored the use of the company’s machines.” For the record, both Abramoff and Ney are convicted federal felons as a result of accepting money and gifts in exchange for political favors.

Kennedy also found a series of deep financial and professional ties between lawmakers and voting machine manufacturers. “Diebold, along with its employees and their families, has contributed at least $300,000 to GOP candidates and party funds since 1998.” Additionally, Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, who also voted in favor of HAVA, was the former chair of one of the four major voting equipment manufacturers.

Given theses facts, it’s very easy to believe that Diebold and other voting equipment manufacturers gave money to well placed politicians in order to influence legislation that was worth $3.9 billion to their industry.

HAVA Unchanged Since 2002 + Diebold Today

From what I was able to gather from an hour and a half of research on Google, Maplight.org and the Library of Congress site, the Help America Vote Act has not been modified once since its initial passage in 2002. Of the more than 50 HAVA-related bills that have been introduced in the House and Senate since 2002 none have passed.

The Diebold board of directors acted to put an end to all executive level political giving in 2004 stating that Diebold officials “may not make contributions to, directly or indirectly, any political candidate, party, election issue or cause, or participate in any political activities, except for voting.” Despite the ban, Diebold executives continued to give money to Republican campaigns. Since that time Diebold has changed the name of its voting equipment subsidiary to Premier Election Solutions and while executive level campaign contributions appear to have come to an end, state level lobbying efforts continue. In addition to Diebold/Premier, other voting equipment manufacturers have engaged in an aggressive lobbying campaign in order to counter negative public opinion and to win business from states which have been allocated hundreds of millions in HAVA funds.

Saving our Democracy: A Call for Transparency

Given the importance of the issue, the integrity of our democracy, there is a surprising lack of information available on the link between campaign finance, lobbying and the voting records of politicians. The data exists but it’s certainly not easily accessible. Our friends at OpenSecrets and MapLight have been doing a tremendous job of increasing the transparency in politics but neither has data that goes back to 2002 and the HAVA vote. If you have access to useful tools or information related to HAVA, please let us know.

In general our political system and the economy of influence that drives it need to be more open and accessible. Political contributions by PACs, lobbyists and corporations make up a significant proportion of money in politics and we need a more transparent system that will allow us to more easily determine if the drafting of legislation and votes are being traded for cash. There are plenty of tools out there that are being developed for this, including the array that the Sunlight Foundation have been working on. What we need to do is integrate these tools into our daily lives. Sunlight Foundation is collecting comments on the recent federal bailout bill. You can add your own here.

I’ve cross-posted this from Change-Congress.org

Count Votes, Not Money. Joining Lessig’s Change Congress effort…

September 12th, 2008

I just spent some time meeting with the nice folks at Change Congress yesterday and they’ve been good enough to let me pitch in a few days a week – starting next week. Very excited to be joining the effort.

Lessig: A Recap

For the technologists in the crowd the name Lessig invokes angel song and heavenly bells. Along with halos, cherubs and other god-related finery. Lessig spent ten very productive years dealing with copyright, intellectual property, the internet, and other leading edge tech issues. I may have already impressed on you the strength of his reputation in this area but any good point is worth making again – and again – and even again and then maybe once or twice more[1. I picked this up from the George Bush Presidential School of Rhetoric - semesters 1&2 in 2000 & 2004. The guy stays on msg - maybe because it's all he's got. But it fucking worked; with frightening effectiveness.].

Laboring at the epistemological grindstone and honing a sharp edge

His early paper – Regulation of Social Meaning – is worth earthing up and digging into, I see it as a foundation for what follows. Remember DOJ v. M$? The Hon. Penfield Jackson picked Lessig to pull together a report on Microsoft for the government’s antitrust case. He has been the preeminent technology thinker of the last 10 years, evidenced by his prolific writings and the creation of Creative Commons. The big picture: he’s created compelling arguments that (1) we’re all better off when we embrace the commons and (2) that current policy favors concentrated interests over the general welfare…

Amongst those who aren’t paid to think otherwise – his ideas have won[2. In the field of human thought there have yet to be any absolute victories. Sure, we've had some solid wins - mere existences seems tough to defeat. Basic logic? Pretty solid. Gravity? I wouldn't bet against it - unless I got the right odds. It is worth noting a few things: the openness and malleability of human cognition, the range of beliefs that can be held, the ability to sustain a high degree of internal hypocrisy, the almost absolute lack of absolute consensus and that everlasting foothold for doubt. Philosophy has been a brutal battlefield - you'll have those who attempt to build something up and then someone like Hume runs by and knocks it all down... So it goes.]

But a funny thing happened on the path to victory. He lost.

He took his copyright argument to the Supreme Court – and lost. He gained as much traction as one possibly can in the intellectual arena short of entering a Ghandi-level orbital… and, in a limited but important sense, he lost again.

So… WTF happened?

Our economy of influence is driven by those who have their hands on the wheel. And right now we’re running a pay to steer program and we’re headed straight for a ditch.

SALE! Steer US anywhere you want for $5.00!!!!!!

What happened? That’s what happened.

Here’s a more eloquent version from Lessig.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_obGaWfkDgs]

I’m scared Mommy.

Uh, me too. Corruption has evolved relative to our defenses against it. Fortunately we have the opportunity to create a new set of tools to offset some of that corruption and to aim the mechanisms of public decision making back in favor of net social welfare.

That’s Impossible!

Impossible? If I read correctly, we had a revolution. and won. We distributed rights more equitably. We freed a lot of people[3. Marvin Gaye - cheesy youtube vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_OqdHMoTxE&feature=related.]. Oh yeah, we also went to the moon. Invented the transitor, the internet and some other stuff – like flubber[4. We may not have actually invented this yet. But when we do I'm looking forward to watching Robin Williams in the NBA.]. Our “reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable–and we believe they can do it again[5. JFK. Knocking out one of my favorite speeches of all time. I can't recommend it highly enough - definitely worth 27 minutes of listening.].”

We’re the people. Let’s change this shit.

Learn more at Change-Congress.org. Or do your own thing, but let’s get moving.

_______________________________________________

Bowl Movement: Week 1 Recap and Stats

September 7th, 2008

The Beginning – On Wedneday, September 3rd, Bowl Movement began it’s thirty-six week journey to victory.

Setting the Stage – Let me bring you back a few days, back to the night of the third….

The night was humid. The streets were wet but the night was as bright as the earrings in Margaret Donner’s ears[1. you know what I'm talking about.] As you know, these are the type of conditions under which Bowl Movement thrives..

There was an electricity in the air when we stepped on the wood. Albany Bowl was buzzing – 1st night of league, who would step up and take command? Who would make their presence felt and send a message that they’d come for victory and would accept nothing less?

Not us, that’s not our style. Instead we decided to play things loose – really, really loose.

We had other things to worry about.

Team building. Camaraderie. Season strategizing. Adapting to the bowling lifestyle. Picking up on bowling nomenclature. Heavy drinking. Greasy food. These were the subjects of our intense focus, of our unbridled lust for total domination. It was an experience in high-grade immersive learning. We had jumped straight into the deep end – no turning back, sink or be impaled. That is what the first week was all about.

We learned Lane Etiquette: This is the primary indicator of a serious bowler. Lane etiquette guides the highly choreographed dance of the bowling insider. Summarized into a single rule – don’t step on the wood if your neighbor is on the wood. Of course the nuance of any rule of social behavior cannot be captured by a single line.

  • Is it ok to pick up your ball when another player is on the wood? Maybe
  • Is it ok to step onto the deck after your neighbor has released their ball? Probably
  • What about bowling ahead of another player who was waiting first but is in the middle of their elaborate pre-deck ritual (ball cleaning, talking to teamates, deep meditation and/or beer drinking)? You’re good to go

We also began picking up some bowling lingo

  • Ball return: this is what you scream into the mic when the machine eats but does not give back your ball. In our case a highly trained technician spent 20 minutes deconstructing the beast and sticking a mop handle into its belly…
  • Dead wood: this friendly comment will send an employee skipping down the mid-lane hump to get a pin out of the gutter or off the lane
  • Brooklyn: a strike that hits the left side of the pocket (for righties at least)

So much to learn, so little time. On the whole it was a brilliant debut. A perfect night.

In the coming weeks we’ll have more in depth coverage of the team, it’s members and it’s pursuit of gold medals, laurel wreaths and applause and adulation from millions[2. I'm thinking something along the lines of the true triumph of will displayed by Owens at the '36 Olympics. Nothing like taking 4 golds, sticking it to the devil and doing it all in front of the entire universe.]. You’ll get access to behind the scenes interviews! member profiles!! weekly statistics!!! and even…. live updates from the lanes!!!!

Now for the Week 1 stats:

A handy table:[3. actually I can't get tables to work via the wordpress plugin?!? So this week you'll have to live with less...]

—————– Game 1 — Game 2 — Game 3 — Total Pinfall — Session Avg
Carol Camp           97           111             129              337                112

Shannon Noe         63           109              86               258                 86

Liz Cardenas         72             94               90               256                 85

Cal Inman           **33**         64              123              220                 73

Chris Camp          130          130              132             392                130

Bowl Movement    395          508              560             1463              97.2

There are few things like watching a grown man bowling a 33. It’s an astonishing and shocking thing to witness. It was a gutsy performance and proof that a newly drilled finger tip ball can bring the strongest to their knees…

And now for a beautiful graphic

As you can see I’m clearly no Edward Tufte – we (aka I) pride ourselves on supplying some of the most useless data visualizations you’ll find anywhere….

A note on the handicapping system. Our Graphic Arts League is handicapped. Handicapping is a means of placing bowlers and teams with varying degrees of skill on as equitable a basis as possible for their competition against each other[4. http://www.bowlingfans.com/faq/hc.shtml.].” We use a 90% handicap, it works like this… Example: 210 – 160 (player’s avg) = 50, then 50 x 90% = 45. If your average is 160, your handicap is 45.

Since this was the first week of the league, our handicaps hadn’t been set. The other team is in the same boat and this combination makes it tough to determine who actually won. Next week our averages/handicaps will be in place and we’ll be able to start tracking the number of points[5. A brief not on the point system: 4 points are awarded each week. One to the winner of each game and one to the winner of total pins.] we won…

_______________________________________________________

Bowl Movement: Introducing the Greatest Bowling Team in the Universe

August 28th, 2008

It’s bowling time amigos!

This blog will be following Bowl Movement’s trajectory through the Albany Bowl Winter League. No doubt it’ll be a hard fought battle but we will stop at nothing in our search for truth, beauty and the title of winter league champion. In the coming weeks I’ll be recapping the action of each league night (Wed.), giving you in depth player profiles and offering up Bowl Movement schwag to lucky readers.

For now I offer up just the logo – a preview of things to come:

Hello world!

August 12th, 2008

Opoli blog up and running.

First post :)