The Daily Parker

Reddit recently published their 2015 Transparency Report, in which they tell how many times they received official requests for user information. However, NSA letters often require that the companies receiving them keep the letters themselves secret. So how to let the world know you've received one? Kill a canary:

At the bottom of its 2014 transparency report, the company wrote: "As of January 29, 2015, reddit has never received a National Security Letter, an order under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or any other classified request for user information. If we ever receive such a request, we would seek to let the public know it existed."

That language was conspicuously missing from the 2015 transparency report that was published Thursday morning.

Warrant canaries work like this: a company publishes anotice saying that a warrant has not been served as of a particular date. Should that notice be taken down, users are to surmise that the company has indeed been served with one. The theory is that while a court can compel someone to not speak (a gag order), it cannot compel someone to lie. The only problem is that warrant canaries have yet to be fully tested in court.

When users wondered if this meant the site had been subjected to a secret court order in the /announcements/ subreddit, CEO Steve Huffman, known on the site as "spez," wrote: "I've been advised not to say anything one way or the other."

Secret warrants are totalitarian instruments that have no place in an open democracy. We need to end the practice. I hope someone with the balls and bucks challenges one soon.

Bruce Schneier explains:

The FBI...has been given whatever vulnerability it used to get into the San Bernardino phone in secret, and it is keeping it secret. All of our iPhones remain vulnerable to this exploit. This includes the iPhones used by elected officials and federal workers and the phones used by people who protect our nation's critical infrastructure and carry out other law enforcement duties, including lots of FBI agents.

This is the trade-off we have to consider: Do we prioritize security over surveillance, or do we sacrifice security for surveillance?

The problem with computer vulnerabilities is that they're general. There's no such thing as a vulnerability that affects only one device. If it affects one copy of an application, operating system or piece of hardware, then it affects all identical copies. A vulnerability in Windows 10, for example, affects all of us who use Windows 10. And it can be used by anyone who knows it, be they the FBI, a gang of cyber criminals, the intelligence agency of another country -- anyone.

I understand the frustration of cops everywhere who see these troves of data that didn't exist 10 or 15 years ago just out of reach thanks to manufacturers' security measures. But it shouldn't take a security expert like Schneier to convince people that those features protect us more than they hurt us.

As someone with both student debt and mortgages, our encroaching deflation (and consistent below-target inflation) frustrates me. Take a look at this special report by Crain's showing how bad the problem of student debt has become in general:

The share of college grads owing at least $30,000 in inflation-adjusted dollars jumped from 6 percent to 30 percent in the eight years ended in 2012, according to the College Board, while the average debt of new graduates in Illinois ballooned 85 percent, to $29,984, over the last decade. Among 46 Illinois schools reporting data to the Princeton Review, 19 say 2014 graduates' debt averaged more than $30,000. Debt for graduates of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago was $42,097, topped only by downstate MacMurray College's $50,039. Neither school commented.

A study published in 2014 by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, noting that small businesses account for about 60 percent of net jobs and rely primarily on personal debt for startup capital, found "a significant and economically meaningful negative correlation" between growth of student debt and small-business formation.

February's unemployment rate for 25- to 34-year-olds was a seasonally adjusted 5.1 percent, not much higher than the 4.9 percent overall rate and down from 9 percent four years ago. Yet median compensation for 30-year-olds in 2014 has dropped over the last decade to mid-1980s levels, according to the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C.

So let's review:

• You need a college degree to meet the minimum qualifications for most jobs.
• College costs have risen at multiples of inflation for 20 years or more.
• Students have to borrow more money than ever before to get the college degrees they need to get jobs.
• The resulting debt service depresses consumer spending, reducing demand for goods and services, and making the jobs even scarcer.
• Republican Party policies aimed at reducing taxes and government spending, especially in the wake of the 2008 crash, have also suppressed demand for services.
• Republicans have also simultaneously chipped away at the social safety net built up by bipartisan governments from 1934 to 1976, making repaying debt even harder for people living on the edge.
• Let's not forget the Republican-drafted, Bush-approved bankruptcy law of 2005 that makes it impossible to get out from under crushing student-loan debt in most circumstances.
• All of these Republican policies cause—cause—lower inflation verging on deflation, which makes it harder to repay debts. Keep in mind that the biggest beneficiaries of lower inflation are the bankers who contribute disproportionately to Republicans.

As we say in software, the transfer of wealth from young students to old bankers is a feature, not a bug, of Republican economic and tax policies.

You want to know how to keep student debt from destroying the Millennials? Simple. Government stimulus to get us out of the deflation trap, and allowing student loans to be discharged in bankruptcy.

You want to know how to do those things? Simple. Elect Democratic majorities in Federal and state legislatures, and vote for Hillary Clinton on November 6th.

I've been running around all day and only have a couple of minutes to list some things I've read on my phone while running around. All day.

• New Zealand voted 56-44 to keep its existing flag. But the 44% suggests there will be another flag referendum in a few years.
• Chicago 9th Ward Alderman Anthony Beale wants to kill your ride-share service. Because why deregulate taxis when you can over-regulate cars?
• Chicago lost its fight to renegotiate public employee pension payments, so I expect my property taxes are going up again.
• We also have a very large hole that will very soon have a very large dirt mound around it. Verily.
• One of my local El stations may get a park under it.
• That Donald Trump hates powerful women isn't news. Josh Marshall thinks about what that means when he's up against Hillary Clinton this fall.
• Trump is worse than, but in the same mold as, four early presidents.
• Nation writer Joshua Holland thinks about what ISIS' motives really are.

There were a few other things in there, but these were the ones I paid most attention to.

Via Fallows, I'm now reading the transcript of Donald Trump's recent meeting with the Washington Post editorial board. It's...I don't even know how to describe it. He makes no sense. Example, from early on:

[Fred] HIATT [WaPo editorial page editor]: The root of many people’s unhappiness in Baltimore was the perception that blacks are treated differently by law enforcement. And the disproportionate – do you think it’s a problem that the percentage of blacks in prison is higher than whites, and what do you think is the root of that situation?

TRUMP: Well I’ve never really see anything that – you know, I feel very strongly about law enforcement. And, you know, if you look at the riot that took place over the summer, if that were stopped – it all, it mostly took place on the first evening, and if that were stopped on the first evening, you know, you’d have a much nicer city right now, because much of that damage and much of the destruction was done on Evening One. So I feel that law enforcement, it’s got to play a big role. It’s got to play a big role. But that’s a pretty good example, because tremendous amounts of damage was done that first evening – first two evenings, but the first evening in particular. And so I’m a very strong believer in law enforcement, but I’m also a very strong believer that the inner cities can come back.

HIATT: Do you see any racial disparities in law enforcement – I mean, what set it off was the Freddie Gray killing, as you know. Is that an issue that concerns you?

TRUMP: Well, look, I mean, I have to see what happens with the trial. I—

HIATT: Well, forget Freddie Gray, but in general, do you believe there are disparities in law enforcement?

TRUMP: I’ve read where there are and I’ve read where there aren’t. I mean, I’ve read both. And, you know, I have no opinion on that. Because frankly, what I’m saying is you know we have to create incentives for people to go back and to reinvigorate the areas and to put people to work.  And you know we have lost million and millions of jobs to China and other countries. And they’ve been taken out of this country, and when I say millions, you know it’s, it’s tremendous. I’ve seen 5 million jobs, I’ve seen numbers that range from 6 million to, to smaller numbers. But it’s many millions of jobs, and it’s to countries all over. Mexico is really becoming the new China. And I have great issue with that. Because you know I use in speeches sometimes Ford or sometimes I use Carrier – it’s all the same: Ford, Carrier, Nabisco, so many of the companies — they’re moving to Mexico now. And you know we shouldn’t be allowing that to happen. And tremendous unemployment, tremendous. They’re allowing tremendous people that have worked for the companies for a long time, they’re allowing, if they want to move around and they want to work on incentives within the United States, that’s one thing, but when they take these companies out of the United States. Other countries are outsmarting us by giving them advantages, you know, like in the case of Mexico. In the case of many other countries. Like Ireland is, you’re losing Pfizer to Ireland, a great pharmaceutical company that with many, many jobs and it’s going to move to Ireland.

What...the...fuck is he talking about? Incoherent doesn't seem strong enough a word. The lack of thought, the lack of knowledge, the lack of any ability to discuss a real problem in a real way should be completely disqualifying.

But after the Republican Party has spent 50 years hammering into people the idea that coherent, reasoned, informed thought doesn't get the job done (and by extension, education is worthless and fast-talking liberals are trying to win one over on you), this was kind of inevitable, wasn't it?

Skipping Mitt Romney's dig that Trump's wives have been foreign-born because "there are jobs that Americans won't do," it's becoming obvious that Trump has a problem with women mocking him. New Republic's Jeet Heer explains:

An old-fashioned sexist boor, Trump tends to divide the world into a simple binary: men are rivals to be bested and women are potential sexual conquests. When he’s confronted by a strong, assertive woman outside the mating arena, his synapses tend to short-circuit, leading him to odd and often self-destructive behavior. Before Carly Fiorina’s presidential bid fizzled out, she was the only Republican who had managed to faze Trump at all. He walked back his initial attempt to insult her looks and found himself booed by the debate audience on November 10 when he snapped, “Why does she keep interrupting everybody?”

If the presidential contest does become a battle between Clinton and Trump, Clinton is likely to enrage Trump in much the way previous women have. This suggests a strategy of using the red cape of gender to enrage the bull-headed Trump—the better to get him to make mistakes that will prepare him for the slaughter. 

Trump’s problem with women is not just personal, of course, but political. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, half of American women have a “very unfavorable” view of him, which has led The Washington Post’s Paul Waldman to argue that Trump could face “the largest gender gap in history” in his race against Clinton.

That's a problem with running a campaign on instinct, and with a narcissism bordering on delusion (but on the other side of the border than most people). It shouldn't be too hard to goad him into a "self-destructive rage that will destroy his presidential aspirations," as Heer says. He's already come close enough.

Stuff to read later:

• New Republic asks, if so many people hate Hillary Clinton, why is she getting more votes than any other candidate running in either party?
• Paul Krugman expands on the thought that the Republican Party made Trump possible.
• New York Magazine wonders why we're not talking about the GOP disasters in Louisiana and Kansas, when their national candidates are still running on those failed platforms.
• The Chicago River is getting cleaner. You still never want to fall in, though...
• Cranky Flier explains why TSA Pre-Check isn't the solution people had hoped it would be. (Hint: The Republican-led Congress.)
• Turns out, people in Roman times weren't usually nailed to crosses; they were tied up.
• Millennials are now finding out what it's like to try managing millennials. Pass the popcorn.
• Josh Malina is starting a weekly West Wing podcast. I'll have to listen.

OK, conference call is ending. Time to perambulate the pooch.

I'm leaving Harold Washington in a few minutes, now that I've caught up on some reading:

• Clancy Martin attempted to explain the martyr-like appeal of Ted Cruz.
• Deeply Trivial, who writes survey questions as part of her job, explained why she doesn't take surveys.
• Via Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, the University of Arizona outlined some new data linking sunspots, shipwrecks, tree trunks, and hurricanes.
• Suzy Khimm described the return of the pillory—via Internet, of course—as a tactic of some public prosecutors, most notably in the 2013 "Flush the Johns" operation in Nassau County, New York.
• Cranky Flier got interested in a robot that cleans airplanes. It's pretty cool.
• NPR media critic Adam Frank said I should watch SyFy's new series, "The Expanse."
• Engineer John Hayes wondered if we'll ever see a space elevator of the sort depicted in Neal Stephenson's Seveneves or Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars.
• Spanish writer Cristina Pop thought living in London was the worst three years of her life. (It sounds like her experiences don't exactly line up with mine, starting with her not speaking a word of English when she got there.)

I also watched a time-lapse video of the Chicago River turning green last year. If you want to see this odd Chicago tradition, go downtown tomorrow at 9.

In between four rehearsals and two performances this week (Monday through Sunday), I'm taking tonight off. So while I have a minute or two between helping new developers understand some old code, I'm jotting down this list of things that looked particularly appealing when they came up on RSS feeds:

• Citylab explores cities that use numbers for both streets and avenues. They also wonder why America hates roundabouts.
• New Republic reassures Republicans that it's OK to burn down their own party, and reassures David Brooks that he's not crazy.
• Writing for The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg examines the Obama Doctrine.
• Josh Marshall calls bullshit on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

OK, the new devs are testing something...and more on that later.

Not surprisingly, he behaves like a dick:

Though Trump is pitching himself to voters as a dealmaker who wins, the 12-year drama of the Trump International Hotel & Tower offers a more complicated narrative. While it reinforces his preferred image as a bold risk-taker and consummate salesman, it underscores his darker reputation as a bullying businessman willing to back out of deals and trash the competition when it's convenient. And that big TRUMP sign on the front of the building fits perfectly with the caricature of the developer as a narcissist and braggart.

Altogether, buyers of 43 condos—32 residential units and 11 hotel units—took advantage of [a 10% discount "friends and family"] deal, a group that included attorneys at DLA Piper, Trump's law firm, and architects at Skidmore Owings & Merrill, which designed the skyscraper. Some buyers demanded that Trump honor his original deal, and Trump backed down. Others were unwilling to jeopardize a valuable business relationship and simply accepted Trump's new terms without a fight.

Trump took on another group—his financial backers. Unable to pay off a maturing construction loan from a bank group led by Deutsche Bank, he sued them in 2008 for more time, citing a “force majeure” clause in his loan agreement. Such clauses are designed to give borrowers relief in the case of unforeseen, cataclysmic events, like floods or wars, but Trump argued that the financial crisis qualified. He also sought $3 billion in damages.

That a good 25% of American voters support this guy turns my stomach. But evidence about how he behaves, and how he repeatedly tries to screw his counterparties on deals, actually boosts his standing among those voters. Regardless of the outcome of this election—I'm hoping for something like the Whig implosion of 1852—it speaks poorly of our country that he's got this much support.