Trump’s “Quiet Revolution”

Bob Barr

1/31/2018 12:01:00 AM – Bob Barr

Depending who you ask about the success or failure of President Donald Trump’s first year in office, you are likely to either get an earful about all the offensive things he has said as president, or hear about all the “winning,” delivered as promised. The reason for the dichotomy in responses certainly is related to one’s partisan beliefs; but, perhaps more important is whether the observer is able to separate Trump the Man, from Trump the Manager.

As a man, Trump is brash, turbulent, and lurches from one gaffe to another as he speaks and tweets whatever appears to occupy his mind. Trump the manager, however, is calculated, driven, and while superficially engaged in squabbles with his opponents, has expertly flouted the D.C. establishment to start a regulatory upheaval unlike anything we have ever seen from a Republican president; including Ronald Reagan.

The reason for Trump’s resounding regulatory successes is no accident. While critics fully expected Trump to surround himself with inexperienced yes-men meant to do nothing more than fluff his ego, Trump instead modeled his administration as an elite football program; where as head coach he could focus on the big picture, leaving the execution of his vision to talented support staff heading the various agencies and positions within the Executive. Almost immediately, they quietly went to work.

Mick Mulvaney, while serving in the cabinet as the director of the Office of Management and Budget, also has made quick work of gutting the onerous Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as its interim director. Trump’s pick for Interior Department Secretary, Ryan Zinke, recently announced “revolutionary” plans to reduce the amount of land owned by the federal government, and return control back to states. Zinke also, from day one, helped open more federal lands to hunters and fishers by eliminating regulatory statutes blocking access to supposedly “public” lands. Scott Pruitt, picked to head the Environmental Protection Agency, has greatly reduced the agency’s budget and staff, while rolling back Obama-era regulations and muzzling the agency’s inappropriate political posturing about global warming. At Education, Secretary Betsy DeVos reversed the Obama administration’s “Dear Colleague” letter policy; thereby restoring the Fourth Amendment to college campuses.

These are but a handful of the more public examples of how Trump’s appointees have gone nuclear on D.C.’s regulatory state. More impressively, they have done so almost completely under the radar as the Mainstream Media chooses to focus its attention on smearing Trump at every turn. What has been sour grapes for liberals, however, has provided ample cover for a quiet, conservative revolution in the halls of agencies responsible for billions upon billions of dollars in regulatory red tape.

“There is so much noise in this town that I think it obscures the real work that’s being done,” Heritage Foundation President Kay Coles James, told the New York Times. “This administration is doing quite well in terms of advancing a conservative agenda — clearly, quite well.”

Outside the excellent work of his Cabinet, Trump also deserves credit for Nikki Haley, who has proven to be a fierce and deft ambassador of U.S. interests among the vipers nestled at the United Nations. Kudos are due Trump as well as for the appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, who was perhaps the very best successor to the seat vacated by the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

Then there are also his legislative victories, including a historic tax cut immediately prompting huge corporate investments back into the economy (and into American workforces in the form of bonuses and raises), and killing the odious “Obamacare tax.” Together, these wins along with those from his appointees, amount to as much as conservatives could have hoped for in a first year, especially given initial concerns with Trump during the campaign.

To be sure, Trump’s first year has certainly come with its disappointments; for example, Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ obsession with reviving antiquated Drug War era law enforcement on medicinal and recreational marijuana. And, there certainly is ample room for improvement, such as working with Congress to pass dramatic cuts to spending to help offset Year One’s tax cuts, and yet-to-be-passed legislation enhancing firearms rights (e.g. Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, and the Hearing Protection Act). Nevertheless, an objective look at Trump’s first year proves that all the “winning” he promised during the campaign, even if in different and surprisingly positive ways than many of us thought, is very real.

Government Snooping Survives Government “Shutdown”

Bob Barr

1/24/2018 12:01:00 AM – Bob Barr

In Washington’s theatrical production of “Shutdown: 2018” – directed by Sen. Chuck Schumer, produced by the Mainstream Media, and featuring all of Congress’ top stars – we saw Republicans and Democrats hopelessly mired in an intractable partisan gridlock.  As the hours trickled by in the 24-hour news cycle, the audience waited with bated breath for our heroes to reach a last-minute, temporary compromise that saved the day, and our country. It was a story written for the headlines, and although enjoying only a limited run of one weekend, the drama captivated the attention of a nation, and distracted us from the actual problems facing the country – such as the warrantless electronic surveillance of American citizens.

In the thick of the “Shutdown” theater, and unaffected by it, the Congress quietly passed, and the president quietly signed, legislation that extended for six full years Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.  This in effect allows the government to continue gathering and using electronic communications by American citizens unsuspected of any criminal activity, and without bothering to ask a court for permission.

This was the first reauthorization of FISA surveillance powers since Edward Snowden revealed in 2013 just how dark and pervasive these programs had become.  It also came in the wake of recent evidence that these powers were employed by the Obama administration against then-candidate and president-elect Donald Trump.  One might have hoped that with this background, there would have been meaningful debate about reauthorizing Section 702. Or, at the very least, amendments to finally bring it into compliance with the Fourth Amendment.  But it was not to be.

Instead, debate was attempted, but was quickly shut down; and, amendments presented, but were rejected by both parties. At the end of the process, FISA reauthorization sailed through the House and Senate late last week with bipartisan support. 

Despite the popular narrative in Washington of inter party intransigence, Republicans joined hands with Democrats to again allow unconstitutional surveillance of American citizens; barely pausing to consider curtailments of these powers despite overwhelming evidence of abuse. Neither party was willing to “shut down” government over it; nor was there a need, with overwhelming support coming from both aisles.  Both sides had their priorities: protecting illegal aliens was more important to the Democrats, and keeping “non-essential” government workers in place took precedence for Republicans.

As to the slight tweaks to the law providing “protections” in the post-Snowden world (or, more likely, to assuage the guilt of lawmakers rushing to reapprove legislation they know is widely abused against their constituents) — they provide no substantial burdens to agencies involved. They merely continue an environment in which the former head of National Security, James Clapper, felt emboldened enough to perjure himself in front of Congress knowing full well he either would not be caught, or if he was, nothing would ever come from it because of the nature of his work (“national security”). 

It was a good bet. The statute of limitations runs out on him this year.

While the new version of Section 702 pays lip service to the Fourth Amendment — for example, “requiring” law enforcement to obtain a warrant to search the results of data-based intercepts, it carves out virtually limitless exceptions for the Attorney General to otherwise use this information in criminal proceedings, making such warrants more of a formality, not a necessity. And, given that anything the FISA court does is secret and ex parte, and the reasons for granting a court order for surveillance are as broad as the latitude given to attorneys general, a formality it certainly is. 

As for oversight of these agencies, one need only look to the recent “memo” outlining what the public has been told are extraordinary abuses of FISA power by one administration against the man who would become President of the United States. Was this memo made public, even to Congress, before the vote to reauthorize FISA; notwithstanding that disclosure was well within the power of Congress or the White House to do so? No. Why not? As noted privacy advocate Judge Andrew Napolitano suggested on FOX News recently, it would have undermined support for the very same spy powersabused in the worst way imaginable. Napolitano suggests this was also the same reason why Trump had a sudden and radical reversal on his criticisms of FISA. 

“I suspect that leaders in the intelligence community hurriedly convinced the president that if he sets aside his personal unhappy experiences with them and any constitutional qualms,” Napolitano noted, “they will use the carte blanche in the FISA amendments to keep us safe.”

So much for taking a bite out of the Deep State.

Twitter Bad, Government Worse

Bob Barr

1/17/2018 12:01:00 AM – Bob Barr

When it comes to the Internet, people often take for granted “free” access to online products and services, such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter.  We tend to think that our use alone of such services, bolstering metrics like their “daily average user” figures, is what allows them to generate greater ad revenue. Yet, as undercover journalist James O’Keefe revealed this week in a Project Veritas investigation of Twitter, this is pure delusion; proving, once again, that if something is free, you’re the product.

As with much of O’Keefe’s work the findings, while revealing, are not shocking since the targets of his investigations become “targets” because they are suspected of engaging in unethical (or illegal) dealings. So, for example, to hear Twitter engineers and security experts talk of unfettered access to personal correspondences (called “direct messages” or “DMs” for short), and essentially how nothing transmitted across the platform is private or erasable, confirms what we have known all along about online privacy — there is none; particularly on platforms that make their money harvesting data from its users.

“So, what happens is like, you like, write something or post pictures on line, they never go away,” Pranay Singh, a Direct Messaging Engineer for Twitter, tells an undercover investigator for Project Veritas. “Because even after you send them, people are like analyzing them, to see what you are interested in, to see what you are talking about.”

“And they sell that data,” Singh adds; in a not-so-shocking revelation.

So what exactly do Twitter employees see? Everything. Private conversations, lurid photos, clicked links, and location data are just the tip of the iceberg to what information can be collected on users. Then, according to Twitter employees, all of this information is assembled into a private profile of users, to be sold to the highest bidder; or, far too often, hacked and stolen.

Of course, as uncomfortable and, perhaps, creepy as it is to have our deepest fears about online privacy confirmed so directly, it is important to remember that social media platforms are still private-sector entities (cozy relationships with federal law enforcement not withstanding). In other words, digital profiles of users compiled by sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google are primarily used to monetize online activities via advertisers, and not, as in the case of federal agencies that also are actively building digital profiles of people, used to put people in prison.

However, the disparate reactions to O’Keefe’s most recent exposé, and the speed with which the U.S. House passed an expansion of domestic surveillance powers last week with nary a bit of public concern, demonstrates that our anger is far too narrow.

Just as it is true in the tech world, the end goal of government surveillance programs and data sharing is to build as comprehensive and exhaustive a profile of citizens as possible. This harvesting of data is not confined to suspected terrorists or criminal organizations; but includes also private digital conversations and transmissions between innocent Americans swept up in the process, without any meaningful safeguards against abuse; actions ranging from illegally snooping on paramours, to targeting firearms owners, and worse.

Moreover, even when the data is not handled directly by humans, and instead analyzed by computer algorithms designed to look for suspicious patterns in the data, the potential for abuse is very real. Innocent Americans can easily come under investigation for perfectly legal activities that suddenly appear suspicious according to secret, predictive pattern-matching formula; with “probable cause” deemed unnecessary because Uncle Sam is “fighting terrorism” with such powers.

So why is it that especially in conservative circles, Twitter elicits more scorn and anger than federal agencies and their enablers in Congress? Given how often (and easily) innocent Americans are swept into the clutches of the federal justice system, we have much more to fear from government snoops than social media engineers; and, more to be concerned about with digital profiles used by law enforcement than those used by advertisers.

Granted, the Leftist agendas of social media platforms, and their schemes to silence conservative users have made these tech giants an understandable political foe for conservatives. However, the fact that only 45 Republicans voted against the reauthorization of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) powers (and only 55 supported Rep. Justin Amash’s privacy protection amendment), signals a massive imbalance in our priorities in a party that ostensibly claims privacy rights as a core tenet.

Fortunately, in the person of Sen. Rand Paul, we have an opportunity to at least put the brakes on the speeding FISA locomotive. But regardless, and over the longer run, if users of social media platforms remain ignorant of, or uncaring about how both the private and the government sectors are collecting, data-basing, and using our private information, there’s precious little one U.S. Senator can do.

Outrageous Prosecutorial Misconduct Comes Home to Roost in the Cliven Bundy Case

Bob Barr

1/10/2018 12:01:00 AM – Bob Barr

There is an old Latin proverb, “Fiat justitia, ruat caelum,” which means, roughly translated, “Let justice be done, though the heavens may fall.”  On Monday, January 8, 2018, the heavens fell on the United States Department of Justice.  More specifically, on that day a United States District Court Judge, Gloria Navarro, dismissed the criminal charges that had been pending against Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, two of his sons, and a third defendant, for nearly four years.

What made this action especially significant is not simply that the judge dismissed the charges, but that she did so with prejudice, meaning the federal government cannot later retry the defendants.

Such steps by a federal judge – dismissing charges and doing so with prejudice – are not routine, but they are unusual; not so significant, perhaps, as to warrant special attention by persons not directly involved. What happened in the Bundy case, however, is that important.

Monday’s announcement in the federal courtroom in Las Vegas should concern every American who carries with him or her an understanding of, and appreciation for, the rule of law.  The judge’s findings should frighten every American.  Why?  Because they document and confirm how easily any one of us could wind up like Cliven Bundy — the victim of overzealous, dishonest and vindictive government employees; including, most disturbing, those within the Department of Justice.

What makes the Judge’s ruling so important, are the reasons underlying the decision.  In her ruling, Judge Navarro found that the government (including the United States Attorney’s office in Nevada and the FBI, among others) not only had withheld evidence from the defendants and their lawyers – evidence that was potentially exculpatory and could establish their innocence – but that it had done so repeatedly and willfully; that is, deliberately and maliciously.

A fair question might be posed, as to “why” the government had behaved in such a despicable manner; what was at stake that drove federal lawyers and law enforcement officers to engage in what the Judge noted was “outrageous” and “unconstitutional” behavior?

Was it money?  After all, the federal Bureau of Land Management (a subsidiary of the Interior Department) was seeking over a million dollars from the Bundys; which, it claimed, was owed Uncle Sam because the ranchers’ cattle grazed on land claimed to be owned by the U.S. government.  But is there a dollar amount beyond which the Bill of Rights does not apply?

Was it an egregious violation of the Endangered Species Act as claimed by the feds; grazing that threatened the very existence of a tortoise that inhabited this particular patch of sagebrush?  But is a tortoise more important in the eyes of our Constitution, that human beings; does it, too, trump the Bill of Rights?

Was it because the government had conducted a fair and objective “threat analysis” of the Bundys and their activities leading up to the stand-off that took place (and ended peaceably) on April 12, 2014, and found credible evidence that the family and its supporters posed a clear and present threat to federal officials?  Is it now impermissible to peaceably assemble on any plot of soil claimed by the government to belong to the government?

The Judge noted that the Bundys’ fear of federal surveillance and snipers, which preceded the 2014 stand-off, were in fact justified and well-founded; even though the government deliberately hid evidence of such actions and derided such assertions as fictions and “urban myths” conjured up by over-imaginative defendants.

The government claimed repeatedly that its agents “feared” for their lives in part because a “threat analysis” concluded that the Bundys and their supporters posed a very real and imminent danger of violent opposition.  In fact, as the Judge found, the so-called “threat analyses” were based on nothing factual; and actually concluded just the opposite.

What appears to have been at the heart of the Justice Department’s unconscionable behavior was sheer hubris; the arrogance that comes from a superior sense of status and power, built on decades of legislative and judicial decisions concluding that the federal government can do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, to whoever it wants and that its actions are not to be questioned.

A thorough investigation of this sorry incident is due by the Attorney General, the Secretary of the Interior, the head of the FBI, and perhaps most important, by those in the Congress responsible for ensuring that our Constitution and laws are carried out with a far higher degree of integrity and respect than that which has been afforded the Bundy family. Moreover, unless those responsible are punished appropriately, surely other American citizens will find themselves the targets of future witch hunts.

And, incidentally, why is this case largely being downplayed, if not ignored, by most media outlets?

Russia’s “Breadbasket” Is Not Part of America’s Vital National Security Interest

Townhall.com

Bob Barr

1/3/2018 12:01:00 AM – Bob Barr

“Make America Great Again.” The phrase became ubiquitous during the 2016 presidential election as both a branding tagline and rallying cry for Donald Trump’s campaign. It quickly came to symbolize an “America-first” attitude in solving the country’s problems; rebuffing the rampant “anti-exceptionalism” demonstrated by the previous administration. Now, “MAGA” (as it is often abbreviated) appears to guide Trump’s every domestic and foreign policy decision; even when its applicability may not be clear.

Just last month, the Administration approved plans to sell sophisticated Javelin anti-tank missiles to the Ukraine, bolstering that government’s ongoing conflict against pro-Russian separatists. The move is a dramatic shift in U.S. policy in the civil conflict, as the previous administration refused to offer Ukraine anything other than “non-lethal” aid. As expected, Russia condemned the move as an intentional provocation that could easily escalate tensions not just within the region, but between Russia and the U.S. as well.

Western experts, too, question the military effectiveness of the decision, and believe poking the “Russian bear” may have been Washington’s true motive. “This idea doesn’t flow from a policy or strategy,” Michael Kofman, an expert on Ukraine, told the Washington Post in August of last year, referring to the then-proposed deal for Javelins. According to Kofman, tank battles are increasingly rare; and while they might prove a factor in skirmishes yet to come, the arms deal is more likely meant as a political message to Putin. “The Ukrainians want the U.S. to provide them with a weapon as a meaningful signal in Kiev and the Kremlin,” Kofman noted.

It as well may be a political message to Trump’s supporters in the U.S. Perhaps to show to his detractors that he is not a puppet of Putin, as many have charged?  To establish he is his own man?  More macho?  Less afraid? Great again?   These hardly are questions relevant to a debate about the value of involving American military resources in a dispute over an area that had been referred to for centuries as “Russia’s breadbasket.”

There are, however, very real questions that should be asked, and answered coherently and expressly.  Of what strategic military, diplomatic, or economic value to the U.S. is providing anti-tank missiles to Ukraine? Does it strengthen (or perhaps weaken) America’s military power? Does it provide the U.S. meaningful leverage in the international community? Or, does it further tie America to another foreign civil war in which our interests take a back seat to those of another government and citizenry?

In other words, what exactly is America’s “vital national security interest” underlying this consequential move?  This is the same question many asked in April last year, following Trump’s order to launch some five dozen cruise missiles at what was a rudimentary Syrian Air Force facility; but one that apparently had been the base from which some Syrian jets had taken off to drop chemical bombs on that country’s civilian population.

At that time, we were told – predictably — that the cruise missile strike was to prevent civilian suffering and to “encourage” Syrian President Assad to cease such actions.  It was a “humanitarian” operation.  It continued a policy of opposition to Assad’s regime that had been in place during the Obama Administration.  All true.  But what was the “vital national security interest” that every president in the past three decades has cited as the reason for making such military moves (and which virtually every presidential candidate – including Trump – promised would be the sole reason for committing American military resources overseas)?  No coherent answer has yet been articulated regarding Syria; nor now, regarding the Ukraine.

Syrian President Bashir Assad is a bit player on the world stage; propped up by temporary benefactors in Tehran, Moscow, and perhaps a few other puppet masters.  It is easy to target and bomb his military installations, and there is little he can do in retaliation.  Russian President Vladimir Putin, on the other hand, is not a bit player and Russia is not a third-or fourth-rate military power.

In other words, there almost certainly will be consequences for Trump upping the ante in the Ukraine-Russia dispute.  They may be mild, such as diplomatic cutbacks or rebukes.  They may be indirect, such as Russian moves to support anti-U.S. regimes or non-state actors in hot spots elsewhere in the world. They may be long-term, such as strengthening Putin’s already significant political base.  And they may have no direct correlation to the Ukraine, but may manifest themselves in how others will seek to draw the U.S. into their conflicts, or perhaps push their opponents to seek aid from sources adverse to America’s actual national security interests.

What we do know from history is that making military decisions without first understanding, thinking through and articulating a clear and rational delineation of America’s vital national security interests, will lead to problematic consequences.