I'm excited by the chinks in the armor that have come with marijuana legalization/decriminalization, and I think once that spreads across much of the US, some of the Drug War will have lost its teeth, but I don't imagine it will make a large dent the surveillance industry.
Now that we have built the infrastructure, conceived of parallel construction, etc there will always be a shadowy enemy lurking in our midst that we need to turn it on. Its kinda like having a giant military-industrial complex. You really can't sustain it without war, yet it has its own momentum and seeks to sustain itself, so it makes war more likely.
How successful is the drug war? The recent headlines related to heroin seem to imply that it's been a failure. Before that there was a meth crisis and before that there was likely something else. Is enforcement actually reducing the negative social impacts of substance abuse? It would be interesting to see the ROI for enforcement.
As a jobs program it's probably pretty good. Law enforcement jobs. Prison jobs. Court jobs. Political prizes to argue over and differentiate yourself from the other guy.
As a control program it's fantastic. Look at all the traffic stops, civil asset forfeiture and surveillance they get away with.
> This electronic briefing book is compiled from declassified documents obtained by the National Security Archive, including the notebooks kept by NSC aide and Iran-contra figure Oliver North, electronic mail messages written by high-ranking Reagan administration officials, memos detailing the contra war effort, and FBI and DEA reports. The documents demonstrate official knowledge of drug operations, and collaboration with and protection of known drug traffickers.
A friend of mine, a MBA/PHD fellow who happened to give lectures on one of the most prestige US University, as well as working for very prestige Hedge Fund in NYC, is a great example of this.
In 2007 we was pulled over for a missing stop light. The car was his grandmother and he wasn't aware. As the cop approached him from the right side to look into his glove compartment while he was reaching for registration, the cop noticed a pill on the floor. It happened to be some sort of para-morphine tightly controlled drug that his grandmother used for a pain from her cancer.
No amount of explanation was enough for this cop. Even when his grandma showed up at the police station with bottle of same drug to explain.
Shortly after his life got ruined very quickly. Of course both University and his job found out and he was removed from his duties due to "very strict no drug policies". No amount of explanation was enough. He tried to get another job and over 3 years went from looking jobs at Universities to trying for McDonald waiter, but even they did not want to hire "a druggie".
As he had some savings, it wasn't the worst part. But as he got 6 years parole, being mandatory forced to go to some sort of AA meetings where for 45 minutes a week he had to listen stories of people who couldn't hold a cigarette cause that's how much they got their hands stung by needless, was worst of all nightmares. He even got approached by few drug dealers who happen to often visit those premises to try to recruit new members, and was somewhat glad he had some savings set aside, otherwise he might have gone and really start dealing!
Also he couldn't move out of State until the end of his parole (it would be considered violation) and had to check once a week to the local police station and bring updated drug test, even though he had to pay for those tests from his own pocket. If you think you just come to overcrowded NYC police station and drop a piece of paper at some drop box, then you wrong. Those "visits" usually took about 3-6 hours, depending on how busy they were. Sitting in the line in such a place every week for so long has to be nightmare on its own...
Not to end this tragic story too sad, eventually once his parole ended he moved to his uncle to Alaska and find some peace working on a fish farm. But his drug record will remain in the system for at least next 15 years.
So boys and girls don't "do" drugs....
Edit: there seems to be some confusion in the replies about my point. This isn't an endorsement of drug laws. We who oppose legal injustice need to have an accurate understanding of how these laws work and what is actually likely to happen in order to be taken seriously, and to prioritize our advocacy for legislation and DoJ rules. I don't believe this story is likely to be true, and that helps me to focus on things that actually happen every day.
The criminal justice system seems very lenient towards certain kinds of individual when it comes to minor quantities of drug possession. If the pedigree that the OP mentions is even half true, this guy should have had the charges dropped with a half decent lawyer.
And the worst case scenario should have been a pre-trial intervention program, which is basically a lenient probation for a year or two, after which the charges go away and during which no criminal record exists.
On the other hand, driving a car and not knowing it's your grandmother's is likely I make any cop think you're a lying sack of shit and or high on said drugs.
Leaked emails shows she sides with law enforcement regarding encryption, publicly she is calling for an "intelligence surge" as a core part of her national security strategy, and in interviews she still strongly stands by her support for the Patriot Act:
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/clinton-wont-budge-mass-surveillanc...
The people who will end up getting appointed to the various leadership roles is the other big question. Hillary's advisers contain many hold-overs from the Bush-Cheney era, including ex-DHS lead Michael Chertoff who strongly supported the TSA full body scanners (made by the company he went on to work for), who I hope aren't given big roles.
Regardless, all of those cyber contractors in DC, Maryland and Virginia must be excited that their gilded age was given a 4yr extension and likely a further expansion. Not that they were ever at much risk of losing it - given the majority of the candidates were hawkish from the start of the primaries, the pull of influential thinktanks, and of course the media, with the NYT - in between fawning over Hillary - publishing daily articles citing 'anonymous intelligence sources' supporting various causes.
There's also been almost entirely silence over surveillance policies from the tech industry/community as far as I can tell. Although typically our industry isn't very political or partisan (until things actually go down like SOPA), so this is not entirely atypical.
Note: most of this is regarding military/defense but it seems to spill over into federal drug and criminal investigations. Drug policies are another big elephant in the room.
This is the saddest thing about this election. Everyone is so distracted by the Trump buffoonery that a Generic Politician (tm) is going to take the reins and continue policies we've been bitter about for years. And most will see this as a "good thing" ("At least it's not Trump!")
We did get two decent outsider runs this year, and I do wish Bernie Sanders was mopping the floor with Trump, but there are limits to the amount a President can do when the entire process rewards pay-to-play, incremental change, and preserving business-as-usual.
And, to be fair, it's pretty great that it's not Trump.
But yes, it was a horribly sad election. In some ways HRC represents everything that is wrong about politics in the US, and Trump represents everything that is wrong about, well, pretty much everything.
A lot of people know the repercussions of mentioning anything that sounds like affinity toward Trump.
A lot of people know the inefficiencies in the Republican nomination process and the inefficiencies in the Democratic nomination process that promote the dichotomy being presented.
The point is, not everyone is distracted by that.
1. Instant 50% reduction in prison population. More than half of all prisoners are there for drug crimes [1]. It costs 20-40k/year to house a prisoner [2]. There are approximately 2.2 million prisoners the US [3]. That equates to an instantaneous savings of $6.6 billion.
2. Elimination of the DEA. Instantaneous savings of $2 billion [3].
3. Massive reduction in crimes that are caused by drugs. E.g. theft, assault, etc. Personally, i'd estimate that as making up the bulk of the other 50% of all crime. Of course, I can't back that up with any data, but it makes logical sense to me that the majority of crime that happens is in one way or another connected to drugs.
4. Drug cartels disappear essentially overnight. Yes, they might switch to kidnapping or extortion or something. But those are not hyperscale businesses. They would evaporate to the point of irrelevance almost immediately.
5. Street gangs disappear or dramatically lose influence. Why fight a turf war if there's no money to be made on the turf? Sure, some will still happen. But they'll be dramatically reduced and the ones that remain will be severely underfunded.
6. Police and the communities they serve will no longer be enemies. Drug use is a victimless crime, and people resent being shaken down and arrested on suspicion of drug dealing and/or using. If drugs were legalized, police would only arrest people who are antagonizing others. This would go an enormous way towards healing the divide between police and citizens.
7. No more impure, uncertain drugs. Things would be labelled correctly and their doses standardized. This should dramatically reduce accidental overdose deaths, and improve the health and wellbeing of addicts by eliminating the nasty stuff their drugs are cut with.
8. Reliable, cheap supply for addicts. Being an addict involves an enormous amount of wasted time and money. It's extraordinarily difficult to hold a job, because just getting the drugs takes lots of time, waiting, and exposure to risk. Now, there are other reasons it's hard to hold a job as an addict, but these are big factors.
9. Massive reduction in social stigma around addiction and drug use. This is a double-edged sword, of course. But I think on balance it'd be a good thing. It would make it easier and less shameful for addicts to seek treatment. Taking it out of the underworld would make families more aware of their member's possibly spiraling problems, and give them an earlier opportunity to do something about it.
10. The way i'd like this to be structured would be that the government would sell these drugs in unmarked shops at essentially their marginal cost of production (which is extremely low). They wouldn't advertise, obviously, and you could implement reasonable age controls by checking ID in a similar way to alcohol. Now, that system is imperfect obviously. But that's ok I think. It's not like kids don't have access to drugs now. Monitoring and maintaining open lines of communication with these people will allow them to be studied and given access to treatment options and help. They can be guided into jobs and offered medical help with detox.
I say all of this as a former heroin addict. It's easy availability would make it somewhat harder for me not to use it. On balance though, it seems extremely clear to me that it's the right thing to do. The synergy of all the policing/crime benefits would be extraordinarily profound. The enormous reduction in crime and improved relationship between police and their communities would make police even more efficient at stopping what remaining crime there is. It would not surprise me in the slightest to see something like a 75-80% reduction in all crime within the first couple of years.
That isn't even to address the benefits to narco-states like Mexico. There it would be truly transformative. Terrorism would lose its largest funding source [5]. Border patrol agents would stop facing well-funded adversaries. The civil war in Colombia would stop. Corruption in government would be reduced to standard corporatism. The list is just endless, and it's not like drugs aren't available now.
What, really, is the marginal harm of making them slightly more available, when weighed against all of this? In my opinion, the drug war and its effects are the greatest ongoing crime against humanity in the world right now.
[1] https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offen...
[2] http://thelawdictionary.org/article/what-is-the-average-cost...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_St...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_Enforcement_Administratio...
[5] http://www.cfr.org/terrorist-financing/tracking-down-terrori...
1. Instant 50% reduction in prison population. More than half of all prisoners are there for drug crimes [1]. It costs 20-40k/year to house a prisoner [2]. There are approximately 2.2 million prisoners the US [3]. That equates to an instantaneous savings of $6.6 billion.
It will cut new admittance to prisons. Anyone currently serving time would need their sentences pardoned or legislation passed that allows for their released. Over time, still savings.
2. Elimination of the DEA. Instantaneous savings of $2 billion.
We'll still need some enforcement of the controls we put in place, though we can do it through other branches -likely something like a combination of the FDA, USDA, and the ATF. Lesser cost savings, but much better sort of spending.
Furthermore, I'm definitely into having marked shops for some drugs. I think smoke shops/coffee shops (for pot and hash) would be an improvement to the culture and give some alternative to bars. I'm fine with some hallucinogens being sold in a marked shop - and anything else that proves to be about as safe. I'd also make sure anyone working in the shops - either marked or unmarked - had some training or have training levels - basic knowledge for cashier with more advanced knowledge person on premisis at all times.
Under a partial legalization regime, yes. Personally i'm thinking they should all be legalized, though. The drug shops can be self-funding by charging slightly above marginal cost.
> Furthermore, I'm definitely into having marked shops for some drugs. I think smoke shops/coffee shops (for pot and hash) would be an improvement to the culture and give some alternative to bars. I'm fine with some hallucinogens being sold in a marked shop - and anything else that proves to be about as safe. I'd also make sure anyone working in the shops - either marked or unmarked - had some training or have training levels - basic knowledge for cashier with more advanced knowledge person on premisis at all times.
Ya I agree. I'd like to see the 'less harmful' drugs, like marijuana and hallucinogens completely legalized. Like, you can buy them at 711 legalized. For 'harder' stuff like cocaine, meth, heroin, et al, i'd like to see them sold by the unmarked government-run drug shops that don't advertise or try to encourage consumption in any way. That feels like the best balance of interests.
1. http://norml.org/ (National Organization for the Reform of Marijauna Laws)
2. http://www.maps.org/ (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies))
3. http://www.drugpolicy.org/ (Drug Policy Alliance, part of George Soros's Open Society Institute, I believe)
4. http://www.leap.cc/ (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition)
They aren't all pushing exactly for my positions, but they're all pushing in that direction. And the further
How come your default is "why not"? Shouldn't there be a justification for indefinitely storing these types of records? And "might commit a crime in the future" doesn't qualify.
Yes it's cheap to store them. So what?
So I hear anyway.
edit: Nevermind I'm blind.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/10/25/at-t-is-spy...
Maybe the repost is supposed to be a diversion, is what I'm implying. However, I see the new story has been posted already:
https://www.eff.org/cases/hemisphere
I ran across this trying to see if there was earlier public mention. Rather good conspiracy containment if not.
However, AT&T’s own documentation—reported here by The Daily Beast for the first time—shows Hemisphere was used far beyond the war on drugs to include everything from investigations of homicide to Medicaid fraud.
Hemisphere isn’t a “partnership” but rather a product AT&T developed, marketed, and sold at a cost of millions of dollars per year to taxpayers. No warrant is required to make use of the company’s massive trove of data, according to AT&T documents, only a promise from law enforcement to not disclose Hemisphere if an investigation using it becomes public.
Fines clearly dont work. We have drug epidemic currently in the united states. What other solutions do you suggest that will stop the drug money flows? I say bend over the banks - but no one of course will do that ;)
