Throughout this book the authors use the word "securitization" as the name of a process, or "securitize" as a verb. To securitize an issue X is to come to regard X as a security issue or threat. The process of securitization brings a nation-state's decision-making elite to this point: X is a threat. Once in a while, too, a desecuritization takes place. What had formerly been considered a threat ceases to be so, not because it disappears but because it fades into the status of a background fact. Their use of these two words can be a little confusing for someone accustomed to the very different use of "securitization" in financial news: an asset or income stream is "securitized" by being used as the basis for the sale of securities. But over time I did become accustomed to their use. Simply by using the word in this way, they have suggested that what is or is not a security issue is not a given -- that it is, to a great extent, a matter of...
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I have no love for John Bolton. I have, to be more clear, no sympathy for him as a figure in our public life whatsoever. But if one is only going to defend the free speech and press rights of those with whom one has some sympathy, one is a two-faced jackass, not an advocate of freedom at all. The point about freedom is that it works, and coercion fails, for any worthwhile goals. Freedom of the press works largely because rats sometimes have fallings out, and because the public can often learn a good deal about the rats when they do have such a split, when some of the rats kick one of their number out of the rat nest, and when the evicted rat finds a publisher. That is a GOOD thing, not something to be regretted. Even though the process often involves the evicted rat making a good deal of money. As for the current dispute over whether the book contains dangerous national security secrets: I may believe that when I see an evicted-rat showing me the commander in chief's bo...
It now appears that there was never any reason for the US Justice Department to pick any fight with Apple over the encryption of its iPhones. Things happen so quickly now that events from as far back as 2015 are chiefly forgotten, but I'm going to resurrect this one. On December 2 of that year, a married couple targeted a Christmas Party being held by the San Bernardino Health Department to commit a terrorist attack. They killed 14 people and seriously injured another 22. Authorities covered one of the conspirators' work phones (they successfully destroyed their personal phone.) It was an Apple. In the aftermath of that attack, the US Justice Department received several court orders requiring Apple to cooperate with it is unlocking that phone. Apple objected to and challenged all such orders. As it happens, it was not necessary, for national security or for law enforcement or for any other urgent purpose, that Apple put itself in the business of ratting out its cust...
The latest plagiarism charge in the circles of the powerful involves Sheriff David Clarke. Clarke is apparently about to trade the rather humble seeming title of "sheriff" (heck, like Andy Taylor? let's go ask Aunt Bea nice for some pie...) for the more exalted title of Asst Secretary, Department of Homeland Security. He was an important Trump surrogate during the 2016 campaign, and the new job feels like job-well-done reward. The work in question is a master's thesis Clarke submitted on 2013 to the Naval PostGraduate School. One can read the whole thesis here: https://web.archive.org/web/20170521040645/https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3727893-13Sep-Clarke-David.html The subject is "Making U.S. Security and Privacy Rights Compatible." One can see a list of the unattributed use of sources here: https://web.archive.org/web/20170521000653/http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2017/05/politics/sheriff-clarke-plagiarism/