We Shall Overcome

Let's Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice Let's Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice by Paul Butler

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
As a former student of Professor Paul Butler, I was not surprised to find his book refreshing in its candor, raw in its emotion, and revolutionary in its outlook. At bottom, Professor Butler's analysis is grounded in the radical notion that the government should respect people's right to be secure in their persons and property, a right formerly enshrined in the Fourth Amendment. Even more fundamentally, he argues that we should re-embrace freedom in this country in ways that range from not incarcerating nonviolent offenders to decriminalizing drugs. Our prisons, he points out, have made our lives more dangerous by serving to indoctrinate nonviolent offenders in the ways of violent crime. Not only are we squandering lives that might otherwise be productive, but we are also creating a contempt for law not seen since Prohibition and extending police power in a manner not consistent with a free society.

Ironically, Butler points out that prosecutorial bullying coupled with the indiscriminate use of paid informants ("snitches") has radically undermined the rule of law. Indiscriminate prosecution leads to a fatalistic attitude in some communities that come to regard prosecution more as an inevitable misfortune than an avoidable sanction. Paid informants not only undermine community trust and generate false information, but they also allow some of the worst offenders to carry on a life of crime in the knowledge that the police will protect and excuse their paid informers.

As the book's title suggests, Butler derives a series of principles for approaching the problems of criminal justice that are derived from hip hop culture. No disrespect, but I am about as familiar with hip hop as I am with Russian folk dancing, which is to say, not very. Yet given the immediacy of a genre like hip hop on today's streets and among today's youth, it is all the more necessary to read books like Butler's that serve as a bridge to new ideas. Butler's ideas about selective noncooperation with the police may raise an eyebrow in some, but mostly they constitute standard advice for anyone on the wrong end of an inquiry by law enforcement: do not consent to a search, ask for a lawyer, say nothing more until you have one. Even Butler's signature advocacy of jury nullification in cases of non-violent drug offenses is hardly a notion that would shock James Madison.

Later in the book, Butler raises questions about the possible uses of technology in providing alternatives to mass incarceration. However, he does not attempt to answer them, much less address the broad implications of placing intrusive monitoring devices in the hands of the bullying police and prosecutors he so eloquently decries elsewhere. Such a discussion deserves at least a book of its own, preferably one that examines the commoditization of information technology as a counterweight to Big Brother.

Butler concludes the book with a series of suggestions for citizen action with which anyone who believes we can shape our culture by improving our environment should find themselves in immediate sympathy. While in some ways a pastiche of personal memoir, social analysis, legal primer, and citizen handbook, this book is a compelling read and a call to action for anyone who has ever had a moment's concern about crime or racial justice in America.

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Overclocked

I have just read the first of Cory Doctorow's short stories in Overclocked, which are available for download under a Creative Commons license. It has the virtues, among others, of a) being short, b) illustrating an important point about a fundamental freedom, c) alluding to George Orwell, d) relying on the common programming concept of recursion, and e) availing itself of an innovative legal structure for marketing and distribution purposes. All in all, it's "Science Fiction" in the best senses of both terms.

Postscript to Outliers

A minor postscript to Outliers is that it is the first Amazon Kindle book I have read, although I read it not on a Kindle but on an iPhone. All in all, it is delightful to have a book always at hand. The book was quite readable, and really my only reservation is that charts did not always reproduce well on the iPhone. In addition to Amazon, I am heartened to see that high quality e-books continue to be published by ereader and others.

Outliers

Outliers Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

My review


rating: 4 of 5 stars
Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers is uplifting because it promises us we can master our destinies. What at first blush might correctly be seen as a debunking of the notion that genius is the sole product of mysterious innate ability is also a celebration of the confluence of natural ability, unusual opportunity, dedicated practice and good fortune that has produced such prodigious individuals as Bill Gates, Bill Joy, Steve Jobs, Canada's hockey champions, classical musicians, Asian math champions, New York's Jewish lawyers, and even a bestselling half-Jamaican Canadian author.



An essential ingredient in Gladwell's recipe for genius is hard work, at least 10,000 hours of practice before one reaches true proficiency in any discipline. A predicate for that kind of practice, however, is not merely inner discipline but opportunity. Bill Joy and Bill Gates had rare opportunities in the form of essentially unlimited free access to programming time on computers at a time when such access was a rare commodity. Coupled with this rare access in their youth, they along with most other household names in the computer industry were able to gain such extraordinary experience at just the moment when the computer industry was undergoing a tectonic shift from the clunky batch-programmed mainframes that had hitherto dominated the industry to the revolutionary light personal computers that represented the future. A few years earlier and they would have been wedded to the mainframe dinosaurs of the past, a few years later and they would they would have been too late to play a critical role in shaping the future and would simply have joined the herd rather than leading the charge.



Gladwell's conclusion is that once we dispense with the notion that genius is spontaneous, innate, and mysterious, we are liberated to cultivate it. To be sure, not every seed will grow to be a Giant Sequoia, but even the seeds of the Giant Sequoia will come to nothing if they are cast upon dry stone. And Gladwell broadens his analysis to include not merely a condemnation of lack of opportunity, but also a critique of culture. In successive examples, he shows that the occupations cultures pursue, the hardships they suffer, and even the syntax of their language and content of their manners can have a critical effect on their economic success, job performance, or intellectual achievement. Far from succumbing to a crude determinism, however, Gladwell holds forth the possibility that by enriching our children's opportunities and examining our thinking, we can create the conditions necessary for civilization to flourish in new abundance.

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DRAFT PLEA FOR THE PROPAGATION OF ENCRYPTION

Short of the unhealthy interest of a three letter government agency, in which case you probably have bigger problems than worrying about whether your data is encrypted, there are still good reasons to consider a few simple measures to ensure privacy in communications. Many of us are familiar with the by now somewhat shop-worn point that people who still use the postal service tend to prefer putting their personal letters and bill payments into envelopes rather than pasting them on a postcard for general review. Ironically, perhaps, the same people who would hesitate to have the postman reviewing their medical report are quite happy to leave their unencrypted email to reside on the servers of the Google or Yahoo corporations after it bounces halfway around the world from one server to the next. In addition, all this unencrypted data quietly residing on the Internet can become easy prey should the heirs of J. Edgar Hoover cast the same suspicious eye on you that he cast on David Halberstam and Martin Luther King, Jr. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore_(software).

Aside from whether the jack-booted thugs are on their way to come a knocking at the door, imagine the boss at your fortune 500 company has sent out a global email trumpeting the latest way to make money off of sub-prime mortgages, and you decide to send a snarky comment to your best friend about the progression of your boss's Alzheimer's. Then you hit the "reply all" button and realize that it is time to polish up your resume. Alternatively, if snarky remark had been encrypted, only best friend could read it, no matter where it is was sent.

And who has not received an email from the ex Foreign Minister of Nigeria explaining that a small advance contribution can liberate millions of untraceable funds, eighty percent of which will be turned over to you? Laughable that anyone would fall for such a transparent scam, but wouldn't it be reassuring to be confident that emails from your friends really are from your friends and not from the ex Foreign Minister of Nigeria pretending to be your friend. By requiring each person to have a unique private key, encryption reliably identifies the sender of a a signed or encrypted email.

Public key encryption requires a public key and a private key. In sending a message, the sender uses his private key and the recipient's public key to encrypt the message. Upon receipt, the recipient decrypts the message with the private key corresponding to his public key. While the public key, as the name implies, is widely circulated, the private key is held only by the owner, kept secret, and generally protected by a password. Verifying the identity of a key owner generally depends initially upon personal verification between users, but ultimately upon a "web of trust" built up as users' sign each other's keys. It seems to be generally conceded that used carefully, public key encryption systems such as GPG are capable of withstanding all but the most determined of institutional attacks, but that special care is necessary to create strong passwords, guard private keys, and verify relationships in the web of trust. See http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/security/?p=412 .

Although only in limited use by private individuals, high quality public key cryptography is widely available to the public for free, supplemented by low cost refinements that increase its convenience. Among these are PGP/GPG (supplemented as needed by the public hushmail implementation) and SSL certificates providing S/MIME encryption.

Gnu Privacy Guard (GPG)

Gnu Privacy Guard (GPG) is a free program that encrypts files using the OpenPGP standard. It offers additional security because the source code (instructions for the computer) are freely available and can be examined by anyone with sufficient expertise to ensure that there are no back doors or other flaws in the program. Although GPG is standard on Linux platforms, Windows users need to install a Windows variety of the program such as gnupg.exe or gpg4win.exe.

My preferred standalone email client is Mozilla's Thunderbird, which provides for encrypting email using either GPG or S/MIME. Instructions on downloading and installing gnugpg.exe, creating and importing keys, and installing the Thunderbird Enigmail add-on in order to use GPG can be found at http://enigmail.mozdev.org/documentation/quickstart-ch1.php#id2532629 .

After downloading and installing gnupg.exe, you need to open a command window from Start>Run; type "cmd" in the "Run" window and hit return.

Use the "cd" command to change directories to c:\\Program Files\GNU\GnuPG, then

On the command line, type, as needed,

gpg --help to get help
gpg --gen-key to create your public and private keys
gpg --import to import previously generated keys

Although there are a host of other command line options for gpg, the most useful functions for sending email will all be available within Thunderbird once Enigmail is installed.

After downloading Enigmail, one may wish to take advantage of one of the other features of GPG, which is its ability to verify the authenticity of downloaded software. To do so, first download and import the Enigmail public key as follows:

C:\Program Files\GNU\GnuPG\gpg --import enigmail-key.asc

Then, download the signature file from the website and the Enigmail file itself, and run

C:\Program Files\GNU\GnuPG\gpg --verify enigmail-0.95.7-tb+sm.xpi.asc enigmail-0.95.7-tb+sm.xpi

Enigmail, which is simply a Thunderbird .xpi file, is easily installed by anyone familiar with Mozilla simply by opening the extension in Thunderbird from Tools>Add-on>Install, otherwise see the more detailed instructions referenced above. Once installed, the new buttons on the Thunderbird toolbar allow you to easily encrypt, decrypt, sign, and verify signatures on your mail. (One note: mail signed with GPG should be sent in text format rather than HTML).

Hushmail

So far this solution works fine for desktops and laptops where one can install GPG, but increasingly people are using cellphones to send email to and fro over easily intercepted wireless connections. Although PGP Corporation (http://www.pgp.com) experimented briefly with a PGP client for the Palm Pilot, in general I have not found support for GPG on mobile mail clients. However, increasingly cellphones also have web browsing capability, and one method of addressing the problem of unencrypted email can be found at http://www.hushmail.com. Hushmail is essentially a web-based email server with GPG installed; it lets you create a free account and send encrypted email. For $50 (or more) a year, it will also let you integrate your hushmail account with your desktop or laptop GPG account, so you can access your hushmail account from the web on your cellphone, laptop, or desktop, and also from Thunderbird on your laptop or desktop.

S/MIME

An alternative to GPG is to create a personal SSL certificate, have it signed by a recognized certificate authority, and use it for encryption and signature of email. Depending on the purpose of the certificate, the process of creation can sometimes be a bit involved, and Certificate Authorities will sometimes charge a hefty fee to issue a signed certificate. (The signature from a trusted authority ensures a recipient of your email, for example, that you really are who you say you are. However, there is at least one good free Certificate Authority -- CACert.org.) CACert.org will issue a certificate suitable for email use for six months at no charge, and all that is required is registration at their site and the completion of a few web forms.

Go to www.cacert.org and click "Root Certificate" and then click Root Certificate (PEM Format) and Intermediate Certificate (PEM Format). This will set up your Certificate Authorities for use by your browser and for export to your mail client. Click each of the three boxes to indicate that you trust the certificate. In Firefox, go to Options>Advanced>Encryption>View Certificates and click on Cacert Class 3 Root under Root CA. Click View>Export and save as an X.509 Certificate with chain. Repeat for CA Cert Signing Authority. In Thunderbird, go to Tools>Options>Advanced>Certificates>View Certificates>Authorities>Import and Import each of your saved Certificate Authorities, again checking off the boxes to indicate that they are trusted.

Now sign up for a free account at www.cacert.org (although as a public service organization, they do accept donations). Once your email is confirmed and your account set up, go to Client Certificates and follow the directions to set one up for your email. Click on your certificate to install it in your browser. (You will now be able to sign into cacert.org using your certificate rather than your password if you wish). In Firefox, you can now go to Options>Advanced>Certificates>View Certificates>Your Certificates>Backup and save your personal certificate as a PKCS12 file (filename.p12), and then reverse the process to import your certificate into Thunderbird. You now have a personal SSL certificate in Thunderbird that can be used to create an S/MIME signature or encrypt your email. Of course, before you can send anyone encrypted mail, you will need to have them send you a copy of their certificate.

Responses? Questions? Suggestions? Send me encrypted mail at williamson [dot] day [at] hushmail [dot] com.

GPG Public Key:


-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)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=a0/2
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

UPDATE 3/16/09: It looks as though you can use the gpg4win package to install a plugin for Outlook 2003. (Outlook 2007 is apparently not supported yet.) Their site is located at http://www.gpg4win.org/. I have not had a chance to try it out yet, but a detailed instruction manual is available at http://www.gpg4win.de/handbuecher/novices.html. People who have a serious need for encryption can also buy a commercial implementation of PGP (the commercial version of GPG) such as PGP Home at http://na.store.pgp.com/desktop_home.html for $99. For web-based mail, you probably need something like hushmail as a practical matter, and hushmail also appears to offer Outlook integration in the paid version. Mostly, objections to GPG are not that it is insecure (although many people do not choose a strong enough password) but that 1) the learning curve is too steep, 2) it is too much of a hassle, 3) it may raise questions about what you have to hide if you are using encryption, or 4) anything you have to encrypt should not be sent from an insecure location like work, anyway. You pays your money, and you takes your choice.

Why We Luv Jon Stewart

Blogging from the iPhone

This post is as much in the nature of a test as anything else, but it is impressive to me that technology has advanced to the point that one can make blog posts from a cell phone!


[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]


Atavism

So, my every progressive instinct should rebel at this kind of thing, but I can't help getting a thrill out of the Red Bull Air Races! Shot in my old hometown, too.










To the Mountaintop

Parting the Waters : America in the King Years 1954-63 Parting the Waters : America in the King Years 1954-63 by Taylor Branch

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Standing in front of the smoking ruins of the bombed dwelling lately occupied by your wife and newborn daughter before a seething mob crying out to avenge you is a powerful test of a man's character. On January 30, 1956, Martin Luther King's house was bombed during the Montgomery Bus Boycott; his wife Coretta and daughter Yolanda barely escaped the blast. After the bombing, the house was ringed by a thin line of white policemen in imminent fear of attack by a much larger African American crowd. Appearing before the crowd, King had first to show them that Coretta and Yoki were unharmed before they would let him speak. Addressing the crowd, King reminded them that his movement was founded upon nonviolence, urged them to disband, go home, and pray, and told them that he would see them at the next mass meeting to support the boycott.

For me, that is the defining moment of Taylor Branch's first thousand pages on the history of Dr. King and his movement: Parting the Waters. The entirely human response would have been to order the summary execution of any white person in sight after one's house had been bombed and one's family nearly killed. To our benefit and his everlasting credit, Dr. King was able to rise above the normal human response and live up to the true meaning of his creed.

Branch's book is by no means a hagiography, however. As it gallops through a thousand pages of burnings, bombings, knifings, shootings, hangings, and mass protests met by police attack dogs and high-powered fire hoses, Branch's book also captures the very human side of King the icon. How many people realize, after all, that the great civil rights leader was born "Mike King, Jr.," a name he retained among his closest associates, that he had a passion for soul food, or that he was an accomplished pool player? From the intrigue within the Baptist Church to the fundraising problems of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Branch effectively conveys a picture not only of the dramatic highlights but also of the tumultuous inner life of the movement.

King is by no means the only luminous figure in this first volume of Branch's trilogy, which sharply limns the generosity of Harry Belafonte, who virtually bankrolled the movement, the quixotic idealism and complicated personal life of Bayard Rustin, the quiet courage of Bob Moses, the fiery sermons of James Bevel, and the unflinching courage of John Lewis. At the same time, it also paints the vacillation and political calculation of the Kennedys and the monomania of J. Edgar Hoover. Indeed, even Eugene "Bull" Connor seems to have human qualities compared to the demonic intensity and Machiavellian scheming of the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, whose anti-Communist fantasies not only led him to persecute the Civil Rights movement but also to ignore the real dangers of organized crime.

As the book closes with the March on Washington and the assassination of JFK, one looks forward to climbing the mountaintop at an ever accelerating pace in the two subsequent volumes.

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The Rift

A recent conversation broached the topic whether it is possible to heal the rift between the American military and America's elite universities. Despite our different perspectives on the issue, our common conclusion was: not likely. Many of the disciplines with the most to offer the military have been compromised in the past. For example, anthropologists who spied on indigenous populations for the CIA have left the field with an international reputation as intelligence agents. See, e.g., Inside Higher Ed. Not only do anthropologists in such situations potentially betray indigenous populations who are subsequently attacked or exploited, but they also taint the discipline and undermine the trust upon which further research depends.


Psychologists and medical doctors, suspected of being complicit in engineering the Bush Administration's torture program, are in an equally awkward position. It is hard to square the Hippocratic oath with facilitating torture by calibrating the maximum physical and mental pain an individual can suffer before he dies or goes permanently insane.


Finally, so long as the military thumbs its nose at academia on issues such as gay rights, in an effort to placate the crackers in the Corps, there is unlikely to be much reconciliation. The same people who oppose gay rights now and the integration of gays into the military were just as insistent that the introduction of blacks, Asians, and even -- women! -- would prove fatal to morale and military effectiveness. In fact, without the participation of all of those groups, the modern all-volunteer force probably could not exist. The response that it was Congress who passed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is no answer: anyone can see that on this kind of personnel issue, the Congress would fall all over itself to do whatever the military asked. As it was, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was a universally unpopular compromise that was rammed down the military's protesting throat.


My ancestor, Kenneth MacLeish, was one of the founding member of the First Yale Aviation Unit, which he and a group of other Yale student volunteers formed to fight in World War I. MacLeish died a death at once heroic and tragic in aerial combat against superior German forces over the fields of France. In more recent times, the prevailing sentiment at Yale is not likely to lead to comparable volunteer effort on the part of the school's leading students. In this respect, I do not believe that Yale is any different from any other elite American University.


The difference, I suspect, stems at least in part from a fundamental distrust of the ends to which the military is put. At least initially, MacLeish in his letters reflects a belief that joining the cause is morally necessary. Today, despite the occasional apparently altruistic mission in places such as Kosovo, I believe that the common assumption is that the military is simply a another means of advancing American economic interests and, in some cases, imperial ambitions. Catastrophic blunders such as the war in Iraq and the immoral means employed in its prosecution only serve to reinforce such an impression. While the economic interests of the United States are important, relatively few people are eager to risk dying to improve Exxon's balance sheet. More people might want to join the military if they believed it was truly acting primarily to ensure our safety and to promote peace. In light of the fact that the repeated actions of the United States government belie these goals, it seems hard to expect that America's educated population will respond to an Abrahamic injunction from the local recruiter to sacrifice their sons and daughters.

Lest we forget - a melancholy favorite

The story goes that Senator Bob Kerrey once responded with this song when asked about losing a leg in Vietnam. It's also a favorite of my good friend, Peter Shaw. Peter might not say it, but it is a reminder not only of the waste of war, but of the often overlooked sacrifices of the ANZACS in the global conflicts of the last century.

Open Source Propels Obama to the Presidency

Doc Searls has a fascinating article in Linux Journal on the evolution of Barack Obama's technological infrastructure. Searls explains how the Obama technological revolution had its genesis in the experience of Joe Trippi, who got his start working for Debian Linux developer Ian Murdock before he became Howard Dean's campaign manager and the midwife of the Democratic Internet machine. Since then, open source developers have played a key role in developing the Democratic communications infrastructure, while also-ran John McCain was tied to a clunky and inert Microsoft platform.

Good Man in Bad Cause

My former Congressman Tom Davis is a decent person — thoughtful, moderate, and generous. Now, the New York Times reports, he is giving up his seat in Congress, a casualty of the reckless and foolish policies of the Bush administration and increasing domination of his party by hard-core right-wingers. I am torn between personal sympathy for Davis the man and fury over the evil policies of the party he worked tirelessly to promote. Sadly, probably the most good Davis can do now is to give Virginia an opportunity to send one more Democrat to Congress.