NPR on Net Neutrality

"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."

-- Louis D. Brandeis

Listening to the radio today I heard a very disturbing story on NPR regarding Net Neutrality and the fact that the American people had broken a new record by filing over 1 million open comments to the FCC. In fact, the New York Times hints that the vast majority of comments are in favor of Net Neutrality.

OK, but you wont find any mention of that in the NPR story.

To the contrary, NPR takes great pains to "soften" the message. For example, having an academic weigh in with: "The vast majority of the comments are utterly worthless.", and an FCC rep. add: "A lot of these comments are one paragraph, two paragraphs, they don't have much substance beyond, 'we want strong net neutrality." This is some solid reporting...

What if instead the policy in question regarded the death penalty and a majority of people weighed in with the simplistic message: "I'm against it."? Would that still have no value? Is the point of the FCC rep. that, well, Net Neutrality is a complex subject. You couldn't possibly express any worthwhile opinion in just a paragraph or two. In any case, you probably don't really get it, and that's why we listen to experts. I'm not really sure why we put this up in the first place (OK, I do, but it has something to do with mollifying the public into believing they have a voice... as if...!)

Maybe that's too cynical. But really, would it be asking too much for the folks at NPR to throw in some discussion of how the level of enthusiasm demonstrated by the American public through the sheer numbers alone may be indicative of strong popular support, and that, well, something about representative government, etc., etc.?

Now at midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row

-- Bob Dylan

The Moral Justification of Leaking Government Secrets

In a recent review, David Cole considers Snowden, Manning and Assange, and the moral justification of leaking government secrets. He considers the criteria Rahul Sagar has put forward in his recent book, "Secrets and Leaks:  The Dilemma of State Secrecy":

... Sagar argues that disclosure of secrets by private leakers is morally justified when it (1) is based on clear and convincing evidence of abuse of public authority, (2) does not pose a disproportionate threat to public safety, and (3) is as limited in scope and scale as possible.

Cole (along with Sagar) then goes along considering recent leaks under these guidelines.

I believe this entire approach is flawed. Moral justification can't rest on taking some kind of "measured approach". The recent acts by Snowden, Manning and Assange directly address what may be the most serious threat to our Democracy in our time: the erosion or our fundamental liberties. Where all other "checks and balances" from Congressional oversight to Judicial review have consistently failed us in bringing these government overreaches into check, the leaking of government secrets can fairly be viewed as a last ditch effort to curb this dangerous trend.

What's more, in the face of our current political climate, these acts are a brave self-sacrifice. While the rest of us sit back and watch the slow moving train wreck of our failing political system and throw our arms up, these are the people that are taking action. To sit by after the fact and hem and haw over how "limited in scope" the disclosures were seems to me no more than an act of cowardice.