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The Vindication of Dr. Aubrey de Grey and the Dangers of “Strategic Conservatism” in the Aging-Research Community – Article by Gennady Stolyarov II

The Vindication of Dr. Aubrey de Grey and the Dangers of “Strategic Conservatism” in the Aging-Research Community – Article by Gennady Stolyarov II

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Gennady Stolyarov II

It appears that the Board of Directors of the SENS Research Foundation saw fit to release an Executive Summary of a second Investigative Report that was undertaken after that Board had summarily terminated Dr. Aubrey de Grey without due process. Those who followed this matter know that I did not think highly of the first “Investigative Report”. The second report is still methodologically flawed, in my view, but that is not the point, and so I will not fixate on that. The point is the conclusion, which is what I and many others anticipated: “In the end, after extensive review – and except as otherwise identified by the Firm in this Executive Summary in paragraphs one through seven, as well as in the separate Executive Summary dated September 10, 2021 concerning the Initial Investigation – we do not find evidence Dr. de Grey engaged in conduct that constituted unwelcome sexual conduct towards current or former SRF employees, or any person associated with SRF, since the founding of SRF.”

So, other than the initial allegations against Aubrey de Grey, which, at worst, would have consisted of him sending two questionable e-mails (which were overlooked by the recipient for nearly a decade) and making a joke in poor taste (which there is no evidence that he made), there is… no evidence… of any unwelcome conduct! So this was all… much ado about nothing! It was all… a tempest in a teapot, stirred up to displace Dr. de Grey from his position on the eve of his success in raising an unprecedented $28 million for true rejuvenation biotechnology research. As many have suggested, and as I will reiterate, any harassment allegations here were just a pretext. The real motive is the power struggle within the field, between the initial visionaries like Dr. de Grey who built it up from ideas alone to a vibrant network of organizations, and those who came later, riding on the visionaries’ coattails, and who mistakenly wish to “mainstream” the field by appealing to the gatekeeper institutions through rhetoric of “strategic conservatism” (one of Celine Halioua’s favorite terms – indeed, the underpinning of her goal to turn aging research into a “boring” field that gets rid of the radical-life-extension aspirations). The “strategic conservatives” cannot have a man with a long beard, who speaks of 1,000-year lifespans, as the spokesperson for this movement, so they needed to find a pretext to oust him. Not only that, but they managed to hoodwink those of more left-leaning sympathies by exploiting the tendency to automatically believe women who accuse influential men of harassment – even though believing such allegations here plays right into the hands of the same interests who would wish to corporatize and render exclusive the pursuit of longevity research, to “tone it down” so that gatekeeper institutions provide their grants and imprimatur of “respectability” while the general public gets no say and no benefit. Those on the Left who wish to support harassment victims have understandable motivations, but it is so, so easy to twist those motivations to the service of one of the very corporate networks whom those same left-leaning individuals profess to despise, often quite explicitly.

What the “strategic conservatives” did not realize is that the grassroots movement that has emerged over the years to support the vision of SENS and the pursuit of longevity escape velocity is simply not inspired by the timid focus on “healthspan” or “compression of morbidity”. By getting rid of the ambitious visionaries who lit the spark of this movement, the “strategic conservatives” also undermine the foundation beneath themselves. They will not succeed in “mainstreaming” anything, because the gatekeeper institutions and their spokespeople see right through any version of the toned-down rhetoric anyway. What they may succeed at, unfortunately, is in ruining the crucial philanthropic sector within longevity / rejuvenation research, which will be needed for a long time to bridge the gap between early-stage academic research and late-stage commercial application. We need for-profit corporations and investors in the field as well, but the “strategic conservatives” wish to corporatize everything and remove the role of philanthropy and grassroots support altogether. That would spell suicide for the longevity field.

The SENS Board stated, “Our respect for Dr. de Grey and his work remains deep and unwavering. His accomplishments are singular; he brought this Foundation — this profound scientific moment, truly — into being. While our separation was necessary, we intend to move forward with SRF in a way that honors his legacy.” Of course, this leaves open the unanswered question of why the Board considered the “separation” to be “necessary” – and why they wish to relegate Dr. de Grey merely to having a “legacy”. (He is very much alive and active, after all!) Most likely, some of them do actually regret this course of action, but their thinking may be along the following lines: “Aubrey de Grey got this movement this far, but from now on he is more of a liability than an asset. We can take it from here.” Well, no, they cannot. In order to have even a slight probability of success, the SENS vision requires support from at least appreciable segments of the general public and from the dedicated core of activists within the life-extension movement. Without them, there is no movement – just stagnation. But there will be a movement wherever Dr. de Grey goes. The SENS Research Foundation Board of Directors would be wise to invite him back.

Thank you to Immortalists Magazine for featuring this article, which will be republished in its blog in November 2021.

Aubrey de Grey Did Not Receive Fair Treatment in the Investigation Commissioned by the Board of Directors of the SENS Research Foundation

Aubrey de Grey Did Not Receive Fair Treatment in the Investigation Commissioned by the Board of Directors of the SENS Research Foundation

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Gennady Stolyarov II

I have read the “independent” investigative report that was commissioned by the Board of Directors of the SENS Research Foundation – the same Board that fired Dr. Aubrey de Grey before the investigation was completed and now, it seems, is using this report as ex post justification of its preconceived decision. Here are the insights I can glean from reading this report; not all are original to me, and many have pointed out some of these observations already. However, it is useful to summarize them here to spread understanding of just how flawed this report is.

1. This report underscores the essentially ubiquitous fact that, in corporate America, “he who pays the piper calls the tune”. There is no true possibility of a neutral, independent investigation when the investigator is financially compensated by one of the parties with a preconceived interest in the outcome. Whatever the personal ethics of the investigator, it would remain the case – and this is true for any paid professional contractor – that she would be concerned about where her future revenue stream would be coming from. Releasing a report that challenged or undermined the well-publicized intentions of (and actions already taken by) her clients – the Board of the SENS Research Foundation – would have jeopardized her future opportunities to be retained by the same clients or similar corporate Boards, whose interest is not so much in the objective truth, but rather in ratifying the legitimacy of the Board’s actions after the fact and mitigating adverse publicity.

It was naïve for many of us to give this investigation the benefit of the doubt and hold our peace while it proceeded, with the hope that it might have actually shed light on the situation in an impartial manner. Indeed, the mistake that we supporters of Aubrey de Grey have made is to assume throughout this process that all sides would have the intention of bringing the facts to light and making proportionate conclusions based on the evidence. Instead, the far more typical calculus of “cui bono” and motivated reasoning were clearly in play here.

2. The standard of “preponderance of evidence” utilized in the report is incredibly weak and subjective – essentially amounting to whether, in the opinion of the investigator, a given event was more likely than not to have occurred. This is not proof; it is not beyond reasonable doubt; it is not even clear and convincing evidence. Essentially, all of the assertions in this report are the investigator’s personal opinions that some chain of events was plausible. But the report does not actually bring any fundamentally new factors to light. None of this would hold up in a court of law or any official investigation by a governmental body (and even such an official investigation would not be warranted in any event, because no violation of law was ever made or even alleged).

3. It remains the case, based on what the report was actually able to corroborate, that the only definite actions that Aubrey de Grey was known to have taken were the sending of two ill-advised e-mails nearly a decade ago, which were poorly worded and definitely had a high likelihood of being misunderstood. To be sure, I consider those e-mails to have been a mistake on Aubrey’s part (and he does as well), but they stemmed from his own European cultural context, in which the sentiments expressed would have been considered far more innocuous than they would be in the United States of 2021. To punish a person with a loss of a prominent position and jeopardy to that person’s career, retroactively, for statements that would not have been and were not considered offenses a long time ago when they were made, and which are not at all criminal, civil, or otherwise actionable offenses even today, is a draconian perversion of justice. It implies that not only is anyone vulnerable to incredibly harsh penalties for any mistake or minor lapse in judgment, but even that a comparatively mild statement that would have been dismissed or overlooked in the past could become career-ending retroactively if societal norms change many years later. The fact that “Complainant #1” actively collaborated with Aubrey de Grey for nearly a decade after the ill-advised comments were made suggest that those comments were reinterpreted much more recently to have a motivation that nobody attributed to them in the past.

4. The allegations that Aubrey de Grey “interfered with the investigation” ultimately disregard the possibility that Aubrey could have been genuine in his stated motivation to help rehabilitate the reputation of “Complainant #2” after she made unsupported allegations which could, indeed, have jeopardized her career. The investigator interprets Aubrey’s e-mail to an intermediary as a threat to the career of “Complainant #2”, when Aubrey was much more likely expressing an objective fact – that few people in the longevity industry would be willing to work with someone who makes allegations of predation so lightly. The “Why risk it?” consideration is likely going to lead many in the community to tread extremely lightly around the accusers for the indefinite future. Aubrey himself could have been able to avert that particular outcome if the misunderstandings that prompted the allegations had been resolved.

5. Moreover, if Aubrey de Grey sensed that the investigation was not conducted in an objective or impartial manner, and that the actions of the SENS Research Foundation Board already placed the punishment before any official determination of guilt, then he would have had a clear and highly understandable incentive to attempt to tell his side of the story through channels outside of the investigation. If he had fully complied with the investigator’s admonitions, the outcome would have likely been the same; a determination of his guilt was a foregone conclusion based on the “he who pays the piper” principle. In that situation, Aubrey would have simply quietly acquiesced to his own professional destruction. Perhaps he would have been shown some leniency, perhaps not; the history of show trials demonstrates that compliance and even confessions by the accused seldom improved their outcomes and indeed lent legitimacy to the severe penalties that were imposed.

6. Even this report exonerates Aubrey de Grey from having interfered with the funding of the doctoral research position of “Complainant #2”. This would have been one of the principal allegations explaining the resentment that “Complainant #2” felt against Aubrey de Grey. If the rest of her actions were precipitated by that perception, and the initial perception was mistaken, then it is reasonable to expect that the rest of the narrative motivated by that perception would unravel under closer genuine scrutiny.

7. Moreover, this report, in its own telling, fails to identify any other concrete allegations against Aubrey de Grey beyond the relatively mild allegations which were made by “Complainant #1” and “Complainant #2”. There is no pattern of harassment or abuse, no legions of women who were somehow preyed upon. Indeed, the characterization of predation made by “Complainant #2” against Aubrey de Grey can be seen as clearly libelous even if the investigator’s understanding of the facts were ultimately shown to be correct. The term “predator” should be reserved for the likes of Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein, not someone who made a few poorly thought-out attempted compliments from which no other actions ensued – especially considering that many of the years between 2012 and 2021 contained no incidents of any nature documented within the report.

8. The report is sloppily written and has obvious errors in dates. On page 14 of 16 of the report, three e-mails addressed to Aubrey de Grey are mentioned as having dates in July 2019, when the events to which the e-mails refer could clearly only have taken place in July 2021. It seems that the motivation to release a report with these conclusions was so strong that shortcuts were taken in proofreading the report for basic accuracy. While anyone can make typographical errors, a robust internal editing process should have caught them. This also raises the question of what other, more fundamental errors were left undetected in the course of the internal review of drafts of this report.

9. I am left with no option but to conclude that the SENS Research Foundation Board acted in a deliberate and premeditated manner to displace Aubrey de Grey from his Chief Science Officer position, despite Aubrey de Grey being the originator of the SENS program and an indispensable presence to the research efforts that comprise this program. Instead of seeking to facilitate a truly independent investigation that could have brought genuine facts to light and resolved this immense misunderstanding, it is my impression that the SENS Research Foundation Board conceived of the investigation as a tool to validate and ratify the preconceived intention to remove Aubrey from his role. This is why the punishment came before the determination of guilt. This is why the Board failed to utilize the plethora of milder measures that were available to address any concerns of interference with the investigation on Aubrey’s part. I have no doubt that multiple members of the SENS Research Foundation Board are good people and did not intend any harm to Aubrey; I believe, however, that they were tragically misled by those who did have such motives. Perhaps they, too, naïvely believed that the investigation could be truly independent and impartial, rather than motivated by the agenda of whomever got the idea to engage the firm in the first place. Perhaps they thought that an independent investigation that exonerated Aubrey would be trusted more in the court of public opinion than an approach of the organization standing resolutely with one of its own (which is what should have been done, if for no other reason than loyalty to Aubrey and deep respect for his tremendous contributions to aging-research and advocacy endeavors for over two decades). The fact remains, though, that the cynical among the Board members were able to lead the rest along with a plan for the premeditated destruction of Aubrey’s career and reputation. By doing so, they irreparably damaged the standing of the SENS Research Foundation and made it unworthy of the tremendous dedication and trust placed in it by thousands of donors and activists within the longevity community. We always donated and stood by the SENS Research Foundation because of our admiration and support for Aubrey de Grey, not for the people who ousted him. We always understood Aubrey’s efforts to be the impetus behind the SENS Research Foundation; what remains is an empty shell. What could have motivated some on the Board of the SENS Research Foundation to remove Aubrey? The recent immense success of over $28 million collected via the PulseChain Airdrop fundraiser would certainly have been a tempting prize. Those who might have considered Aubrey to be too outspoken, too eccentric, too liable to “damage the respectability” of aging research with establishment “gatekeeper” institutions, would have seen the allegations against Aubrey as a convenient way to sideline him and then take custody of the funds. The tragedy is that now the funds raised through enthusiasm for the cause of longevity are at risk of being directed into more status-quo-acquiescent channels.

10. At this stage I am of the view that Aubrey de Grey should proceed to create a new foundation, where he remains in complete control, and there is good reason to believe that the researchers and new donations will follow his lead. It is unfortunate that the SENS Research Foundation Board has chosen to consign its organization to irrelevance, but we cannot let faux-outrage over some mildly inappropriate comments derail the far more essential mission of saving over 110,000 people who die per day of the diseases of aging. This entire episode also illustrates the folly of setting up organizational boards that are outside the control of the founders and prime movers of the organizations. In such situations, petty, short-sighted, fear-driven, and narrowly conventional motives come necessarily to predominate over the original vision and ambition of the founder(s). After so many stories of founders being displaced by the institutional machinery they have acquiesced to, surely it is time to learn the lesson – both for nonprofit organizations and for-profit startups. An organization succeeds because of the merits and vision of its founder(s); without the founder(s) the organization becomes a mere husk, replicating conventional patterns until it fades into the background with millions of other similar organizations. What we seek, on the other hand, is an organization that will bring humankind into the era of longevity escape velocity. We should all support any efforts by Aubrey de Grey to create such an organization.

Homicides in the US Fall for Second Year as Murder Rate Drops in 38 States – Article by Ryan McMaken

Homicides in the US Fall for Second Year as Murder Rate Drops in 38 States – Article by Ryan McMaken

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Ryan McMaken
December 28, 2019
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As 2018 came to an end, politicians and media pundits insisted that ” gun violence ” was growing and hitting crisis levels .

While a homicide rate of anything greater than zero is an measure of very-real human misery, it nonetheless turns out that fewer people were murdered in 2018 than in the year before. Moreover, 2018 was the second year in a row during which the homicide rate declined.

According to new homicide statistics released by the FBI last month, the homicide rate in the United States was 5 per 100,000 people. That was down from 5.3 per 100,000 in 2017 and down from 5.4 in 2016. In 2014, the homicide rate in the US hit a 57-year low, dropping to 4.4 per 100,000, making it the lowest homicide rate recorded since 1957.

 At 5 per 100,000, 2018’s homicide rate has been cut nearly in half since the 1970s and the early 1990s when the national homicide rate frequently exceeded nine percent.

The regions with the largest declines were New England and the Mountain west where homicide rates decreased 18 percent and 12 percent, respectively. The only region reporting an increase was the Mid Atlantic region, with an increase of one percent. This was driven largely by an increase in homicides in Pennsylvania.

 At the state level, the homicide rate went down in 38 states, and increased in 12.

The states with the lowest homicide rates were South Dakota, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine. The states with the lowest rates were nearly all found in New England and in the West. For additional context, I have graphed US states with Canadian provinces (in red):

Indeed, when we map the states by homicide rate, we can see some clear regional differences:

In American political discourse, it is fashionable to insist that those places with the most strict gun control laws have the least amount of violence.

This position, of course, routinely ignores the fact that large regions of the US have very laissez faire gun laws with far lower levels of violent crime than those areas with more gun regulations. Moreover, if we were to break down the homicide rates into even more localized areas, we’d find that high homicide rates are largely confined to a relatively small number of neighborhoods within cities. Americans who live outside these areas — that is to say, the majority of Americans — are unlikely to ever experience homicide either first-hand or within their neighborhoods.

We can see the lack of correlations between gun control and homicide, for instance, if we compare state-level homicide rates to rankings of state-level gun laws published by pro-gun-control organizations.

For example, using the Giffords Center’s rankings of state gun policy, many of the states with the lowest homicide rates (South Dakota, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Utah) are states with the most laissez faire gun policies. The Giffords Center naturally ranks these states the lowest for gun policy, giving Maine and Utah grades of “F” and “D-“, respectively, although both states are two of the least violent places in all of North America.

Homicide vs. “Gun Violence”

As is so often the case when dealing with gun statistics put out by pro-gun-control groups, the Giffords Center attempts to fudge the numbers by measuring “gun deaths” rather than homicides. By design, this number includes suicides — which then makes violence rates look higher — while excluding all forms of homicide not involving guns.

Thus, a state with higher homicide rates overall — but with fewer gun homicides — will look less violent than it really is.

Meanwhile, a state with little violent crime, but with relatively high homicide rates, will be counted as a state with many “gun deaths.” These nuances are rarely explained in the public debate however, and the term “gun deaths” is just thrown around with the intent of making places with looser gun laws look like they have more crime.

Moreover, the attempt to use suicide to “prove” more guns lead to more suicides is easily shown to be baseless at the international level: the US has totally unremarkable suicide rate even though it is far easier to acquire a gun in the US than many countries with far higher suicide rates.

Mass Shootings

As the total number of homicides in the US has gone down in recent decades, many commentators have taken to fixating on mass shooting events as evidence that the United States is in the midst of an epidemic of shootings.

Mass shootings, however, occur in such small numbers as to have virtually no effect on nationwide homicide numbers.

According to the Mother Jones mass shootings listing, for examples, there were 80 deaths resulting from mass shootings in 2018, or 0.5 percent of all homicides. That was down from the 117 mass-shooting total in 2017, which was 0.7 percent of all homicides. And how will 2019 look? This year, there have been 66 mass-shooting deaths. On a per-month basis, mass shootings have so far been deadlier in 2019 than in 2018. But we could also note that although there have been 66 mass shooting victims this year, the total number of homicides in Maryland alone fell by 68 from 2017 to 2018.

And then, of course, there is the issue of crime prevention through private gun ownership. Since averted crimes are not counted in any government database, we only know how many crimes actually occur. We don’t know how many are averted due to the potential victim being armed. Nor does the homicide data differentiate between criminal homicides, and homicides committed in self defense. Thus, sloppy researchers will simply report all homicides as criminal killings. But this is not the case.

As one might expect, pro-gun-control advocates insist that the number of crimes averted due to defensive weapons is very low. But, again, there is no empirical evidence showing this. Some gun control activists will point to studies that conclude more homicides occur in areas with more guns. These studies may be getting the causality backwards, however, since we’d expect more gun ownership to result in areas that are perceived to be more crime-ridden.

Ryan McMaken (@ryanmcmaken) is a senior editor at the Mises Institute. He has degrees in economics and political science from the University of Colorado, and was the economist for the Colorado Division of Housing from 2009 to 2014. He is the author of Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.

The Right to Repair: Shouldn’t Americans Have the Right to Fix Their Own Stuff? – Article by Brittany Hunter

The Right to Repair: Shouldn’t Americans Have the Right to Fix Their Own Stuff? – Article by Brittany Hunter

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Brittany Hunter
September 2, 2019

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If you’ve ever felt the hurt of shelling out $200 to fix your MacBook or repair your broken iPhone screen, then you might know how important it is to break the monopolistic hold huge corporations have on the world of consumer product maintenance, which is where the right to repair comes in.

Recently, Senator Bernie Sanders unveiled his plans to overhaul the agriculture sector and “Revitalize Rural America” on his 2020 presidential campaign website. While much of the text in this section is predictable and on brand for Sanders—who blames the business sector and capitalism for most problems, there is one area that stands out: his stance on the issue of the right to repair.

“In rural America today, farmers can’t even repair their own tractors or other equipment because of the greed of companies like John Deere,” the site reads. It then promises that, if elected, Sanders will “pass a national right-to-repair law that gives every farmer in America full rights over the machinery they buy.”

Sanders may be wrong on a number of issues, but when it comes to a consumer’s right to repair, he is absolutely correct. And while he may not recognize it, his stance on this issue is actually more aligned with free-market economics than it is with democratic socialism.

For anyone unfamiliar with the term, “right to repair” refers to each individual’s right to fix or alter their own purchased property without having to go directly through the manufacturer to do so. Often times, this means paying high costs or facing negative consequences—like a voided warranty—if repairs are made by a third-party or by the individual consumer themselves.

Today, many have to pay a large fee just to have their equipment digitally unlocked by John Deere before it can be fixed.

It might seem almost absurd that the “right to repair” is even an issue, especially since many of us have routinely attempted, to varying degrees of success, to fix many of our own household appliances and devices. Yet, many corporations and companies from PlayStation to Apple have erected barriers that make it harder for consumers to repair the property that belongs to them.

As Wired explains:

Increasingly, companies use a variety of tactics to block access to repair. Companies either don’t sell replacement parts, or they sell them at big markups. They don’t make repair information, such as manuals or schematics, publicly available or open-source. They manipulate the software so that if you get unauthorized repairs done, the device locks until the manufacturer unlocks it. This forces the customer to take any problem to the original manufacturers, who can charge whatever they want. This also means the manufacturing companies have all the cards to decide if, when, and how much it costs to fix something.

John Deere, who Sanders mentions specifically because of the role the company plays in the agricultural sector, has been a huge culprit of inhibiting a consumer’s right to fix what is rightfully theirs, which has caused major financial burdens for farmers.

As farming equipment has become more sophisticated and tech-reliant, it has become increasingly more difficult for farmers to perform their own repairs. Today, many have to pay a large fee just to have their equipment digitally unlocked by John Deere before it can be fixed. And if they cannot afford to pay the manufacturer’s price, they are unable to use their equipment to earn a living. However, John Deere is just one company of many utilizing this strategy.

Another company inhibiting a consumer’s right to repair is Apple. Apple relies on what are called “End User License Agreements” to monopolize the repair of its products. If you’ve ever noticed that some iPhone repair establishments boast of being an “Apple Authorized Dealer,” this means a shop has had to pay a fee to Apple in order to be given the authority to repair its products, effectively monopolizing who is allowed to fix Apple products.

Unfortunately, a consumer does consent to the terms of the contract when buying a product with a manufacturer’s warranty.

This causes prices to go up for consumers who are limited as to where they can take their devices to be repaired. For those who choose to go to an unauthorized dealer, their warranties with Apple become void.

In addition to Apple and John Deere, the video game industry is also guilty of impeding the right to repair. They do this by attempting to control who is allowed to repair their gaming consoles. In 2017, The Entertainment Software Association, a trade organization that includes Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, and others, worked diligently to block legislative efforts in support of right to repair legislation in Nebraska. Additionally, both Sony and Microsoft have “tamper-proof” stickers on their consoles, which warn the user that their warranty is void if they attempt to fix their device themselves.

Although this is most certainly a slimy move by many corporations to void warranties, make extra money on repairs, and force consumers to buy completely new products, a consumer does, in fact, consent to the terms of the contract when buying a product with a manufacturer’s warranty.

However, this situation became especially frustrating when both the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 had significant, widespread problems that left many consoles broken and useless to users. While Xbox 360s plagued by the infamous “red ring of death” were refurbished free of charge, so long as consumers were willing to send back their machines to Microsoft for repairs, PlayStation 3 consoles cost $200 to be fixed.

The flaws in both systems did not sit well with the gaming community, who were unimpressed with the handling of the situation. Had independent parties been allowed to fix these consoles, both companies might have saved themselves from angry consumers who were dealing with a manufacturing flaw and not a problem born of their own doing.

Interestingly enough, these “tamper-proof” stickers are actually illegal under a federal law called the 1975 Magnuson-Moss Warranty. However, most consumers cannot afford to pay all the legal costs associated with taking these giant corporations to court. And thus, most never challenge the warranties. Not to mention, so long as no one is being physically harmed, passing legislation that restricts how a private company can conduct business is not an ideal solution, even if its actions are shady.

Lexmark placed a chip in its single-use cartridges that rendered them useless if a consumer attempted to refill it with ink.

Lexmark, the printer company, took the fight against the right to repair even further than these other companies, eventually arguing its case in front of the Supreme Court in 2017. Everyone with a printer knows that it is exorbitantly expensive to replace the ink cartridges. Impression Products wanted to help consumers save money by refilling their existing Lexmark printer ink cartridges with toner instead of having to buy an entirely new cartridge.

Lexmark had placed a chip in its single-use cartridges that rendered them useless if a consumer attempted to refill it with ink. Impression Products, along with other small companies, found a way to disable the chip and refill the cartridges at a low cost.

Impression Products’ innovative solution to a frustrating consumer problem didn’t sit well with Lexmark, who sued for patent infringement and fought the company all the way to the highest court in the land. Unfortunately for Lexmark, the court ruled against it, declaring that the company’s patent rights were exhausted with the first sale of its toner cartridges and that consumers had every right to alter or fix property they rightfully owned.

To some extent, Sanders is correct to call out corporate greed over the struggle for a consumer’s right to repair. Many corporations resort to shady tactics in order to charge consumers more to fix their products or force them to buy entirely new products, as Lexmark has demonstrated.

The antidote to corporate greed is actually found within free market principles.

However, whether Sanders and his supporters realize it or not, above all, the argument in favor of the right to repair is actually an argument in favor of private property rights—something democratic socialists are typically against.

Once a product is purchased and money exchanges hands, the consumer becomes the sole owner of said property. This gives them the right to alter or repair a product in any manner they see fit. If manufacturers can literally remotely lock you out of your own property for having “unauthorized” repairs done, effectively holding your property hostage until you take it to an authorized dealer or until you pay their ransom to get it back, then whose property is it?

Sanders might not be a fan of big corporations, but the antidote to corporate greed is actually found within free market principles, like an individual’s right to do as they will with their own private property.

Brittany Hunter

Brittany Hunter is a senior writer for the Foundation for Economic Education. Additionally, she is a co-host of Beltway Banthas, a podcast that combines Star Wars and politics. Brittany believes that the most effective way to promote individual liberty and free-market economics is by telling timely stories that highlight timeless principles.

The War Crimes That Don’t Get Punished – Article by Ron Paul

The War Crimes That Don’t Get Punished – Article by Ron Paul

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Ron Paul

July 11, 2019

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Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) found himself in hot water recently over comments he made in defense of Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher, who faces war crimes charges over his alleged conduct while serving in combat overseas. Gallagher is charged with stabbing a 15-year-old ISIS member while in custody, of taking photos posing with the corpse of the teen, and with killing several civilians.

Defending Gallagher recently, Hunter put his own record up next to the SEAL to suggest that he’s an elected Congressman who has done worse things in battle than Gallagher.

That’s where Hunter’s defense earned him some perhaps unwanted attention. While participating in the first “Battle of Fallujah” in early 2007, by Hunter’s own account he and his fellow soldiers killed hundreds of innocent civilians, including women and children. They fired mortars into the city and killed at random.

In the sanitized world of US mainstream media reporting on US wars overseas, we do not hear about non-combatants being killed by Americans. How many times has there been any reporting on the birth defects that Iraqis continue to suffer in the aftermath of US attacks with horrific weapons like depleted uranium and white phosphorus?

Rep. Hunter described his philosophy when fighting in Iraq:

“You go in fast and hard, you kill people, you hit them in the face and then you get out…We’re going to hurt you and then we’re going to leave. And if you want to be nice to America, we’ll be nice to you. If you don’t want to be nice to us, we’re going to slap you again.”

This shows how much Duncan Hunter does not understand about war. When he speaks of hitting people in the face until they are nice to America, he doesn’t seem to realize that the people of Fallujah – and all of Iraq – never did a thing to the US to deserve that hit in the face. The war was launched on the basis of lies and cooked-up intelligence by many of the people who are serving in the current Administration.

And that brings us to the real war criminals. Rep. Duncan Hunter and his fellow soldiers may have killed hundreds of innocent civilians and even felt justified. Their superior officers, after all, established the rules of engagement. Above those superior officers, going up and beyond to the policymakers, the lie was sold to the American people to justify a war of choice against a country that could not have threatened us if it wanted to.

Vice President Dick Cheney knew what he was doing when he kept returning to the CIA headquarters, strong-arming analysts to make the intelligence fit the chosen policy. John Bolton and the other neocons knew what they were doing when they made claims about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction they knew were false. The Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans played its role in selling the lie. So did the media.

Edward Gallagher will face trial and possibly jail for his actions. Rep. Duncan Hunter may even face punishment – though perhaps only at the ballot box – for his admitted crimes. But until those at the top who continue to lie and manipulate us into war for their own gain face justice, the real criminals will continue to go free and we will continue pursuing a suicidal neocon foreign policy.

Ron Paul, MD, is a former three-time Republican candidate for U. S. President and Congressman from Texas.

This article is reprinted with permission from the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

Review of Frank Pasquale’s “A Rule of Persons, Not Machines: The Limits of Legal Automation” – Article by Adam Alonzi

Review of Frank Pasquale’s “A Rule of Persons, Not Machines: The Limits of Legal Automation” – Article by Adam Alonzi

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Adam Alonzi

From the beginning Frank Pasquale, author of The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information, contends in his new paper “A Rule of Persons, Not Machines: The Limits of Legal Automation” that software, given its brittleness, is not designed to deal with the complexities of taking a case through court and establishing a verdict. As he understands it, an AI cannot deviate far from the rules laid down by its creator. This assumption, which is not even quite right at the present time, only slightly tinges an otherwise erudite, sincere, and balanced coverage of the topic. He does not show much faith in the use of past cases to create datasets for the next generation of paralegals, automated legal services, and, in the more distant future, lawyers and jurists.

Lawrence Zelanik has noted that when taxes were filed entirely on paper, provisions were limited to avoid unreasonably imposing irksome nuances on the average person. Tax-return software has eliminated this “complexity constraint.” He goes on to state that without this the laws, and the software that interprets it, are akin to a “black box” for those who must abide by them. William Gale has said taxes could be easily computed for “non-itemizers.” In other words, the government could use information it already has to present a “bill” to this class of taxpayers, saving time and money for all parties involved. However, simplification does not always align with everyone’s interests. TurboTax’s business, which is built entirely on helping ordinary people navigate the labyrinth is the American federal income tax, noticed a threat to its business model. This prompted it to put together a grassroots campaign to fight such measures. More than just another example of a business protecting its interests, it is an ominous foreshadowing of an escalation scenario that will transpire in many areas if and when legal AI becomes sufficiently advanced.

Pasquale writes: “Technologists cannot assume that computational solutions to one problem will not affect the scope and nature of that problem. Instead, as technology enters fields, problems change, as various parties seek to either entrench or disrupt aspects of the present situation for their own advantage.”

What he is referring to here, in everything but name, is an arms race. The vastly superior computational powers of robot lawyers may make the already perverse incentive to make ever more Byzantine rules ever more attractive to bureaucracies and lawyers. The concern is that the clauses and dependencies hidden within contracts will quickly explode, making them far too detailed even for professionals to make sense of in a reasonable amount of time. Given that this sort of software may become a necessary accoutrement in most or all legal matters means that the demand for it, or for professionals with access to it, will expand greatly at the expense of those who are unwilling or unable to adopt it. This, though Pasquale only hints at it, may lead to greater imbalances in socioeconomic power. On the other hand, he does not consider the possibility of bottom-up open-source (or state-led) efforts to create synthetic public defenders. While this may seem idealistic, it is fairly clear that the open-source model can compete with and, in some areas, outperform proprietary competitors.

It is not unlikely that within subdomains of law that an array of arms races can and will arise between synthetic intelligences. If a lawyer knows its client is guilty, should it squeal? This will change the way jurisprudence works in many countries, but it would seem unwise to program any robot to knowingly lie about whether a crime, particularly a serious one, has been committed – including by omission. If it is fighting against a punishment it deems overly harsh for a given crime, for trespassing to get a closer look at a rabid raccoon or unintentional jaywalking, should it maintain its client’s innocence as a means to an end? A moral consequentialist, seeing no harm was done (or in some instances, could possibly have been done), may persist in pleading innocent. A synthetic lawyer may be more pragmatic than deontological, but it is not entirely correct, and certainly shortsighted, to (mis)characterize AI as only capable of blindly following a set of instructions, like a Fortran program made to compute the nth member of the Fibonacci series.

Human courts are rife with biases: judges give more lenient sentences after taking a lunch break (65% more likely to grant parole – nothing to spit at), attractive defendants are viewed favorably by unwashed juries and trained jurists alike, and the prejudices of all kinds exist against various “out” groups, which can tip the scales in favor of a guilty verdict or to harsher sentences. Why then would someone have an aversion to the introduction of AI into a system that is clearly ruled, in part, by the quirks of human psychology?

DoNotPay is an an app that helps drivers fight parking tickets. It allows drivers with legitimate medical emergencies to gain exemptions. So, as Pasquale says, not only will traffic management be automated, but so will appeals. However, as he cautions, a flesh-and-blood lawyer takes responsibility for bad advice. The DoNotPay not only fails to take responsibility, but “holds its client responsible for when its proprietor is harmed by the interaction.” There is little reason to think machines would do a worse job of adhering to privacy guidelines than human beings unless, as mentioned in the example of a machine ratting on its client, there is some overriding principle that would compel them to divulge the information to protect several people from harm if their diagnosis in some way makes them as a danger in their personal or professional life. Is the client responsible for the mistakes of the robot it has hired? Should the blame not fall upon the firm who has provided the service?

Making a blockchain that could handle the demands of processing purchases and sales, one that takes into account all the relevant variables to make expert judgements on a matter, is no small task. As the infamous disagreement over the meaning of the word “chicken” in Frigaliment v. B.N.S International Sales Group illustrates, the definitions of what anything is can be a bit puzzling. The need to maintain a decent reputation to maintain sales is a strong incentive against knowingly cheating customers, but although cheating tends to be the exception for this reason, it is still necessary to protect against it. As one official on the  Commodity Futures Trading Commission put it, “where a smart contract’s conditions depend upon real-world data (e.g., the price of a commodity future at a given time), agreed-upon outside systems, called oracles, can be developed to monitor and verify prices, performance, or other real-world events.”

Pasquale cites the SEC’s decision to force providers of asset-backed securities to file “downloadable source code in Python.” AmeriCredit responded by saying it  “should not be forced to predict and therefore program every possible slight iteration of all waterfall payments” because its business is “automobile loans, not software development.” AmeriTrade does not seem to be familiar with machine learning. There is a case for making all financial transactions and agreements explicit on an immutable platform like blockchain. There is also a case for making all such code open source, ready to be scrutinized by those with the talents to do so or, in the near future, by those with access to software that can quickly turn it into plain English, Spanish, Mandarin, Bantu, Etruscan, etc.

During the fallout of the 2008 crisis, some homeowners noticed the entities on their foreclosure paperwork did not match the paperwork they received when their mortgages were sold to a trust. According to Dayen (2010) many banks did not fill out the paperwork at all. This seems to be a rather forceful argument in favor of the incorporation of synthetic agents into law practices. Like many futurists Pasquale foresees an increase in “complementary automation.” The cooperation of chess engines with humans can still trounce the best AI out there. This is a commonly cited example of how two (very different) heads are better than one.  Yet going to a lawyer is not like visiting a tailor. People, including fairly delusional ones, know if their clothes fit. Yet they do not know whether they’ve received expert counsel or not – although, the outcome of the case might give them a hint.

Pasquale concludes his paper by asserting that “the rule of law entails a system of social relationships and legitimate governance, not simply the transfer and evaluation of information about behavior.” This is closely related to the doubts expressed at the beginning of the piece about the usefulness of data sets in training legal AI. He then states that those in the legal profession must handle “intractable conflicts of values that repeatedly require thoughtful discretion and negotiation.” This appears to be the legal equivalent of epistemological mysterianism. It stands on still shakier ground than its analogue because it is clear that laws are, or should be, rooted in some set of criteria agreed upon by the members of a given jurisdiction. Shouldn’t the rulings of law makers and the values that inform them be at least partially quantifiable? There are efforts, like EthicsNet, which are trying to prepare datasets and criteria to feed machines in the future (because they will certainly have to be fed by someone!).  There is no doubt that the human touch in law will not be supplanted soon, but the question is whether our intuition should be exalted as guarantee of fairness or a hindrance to moving beyond a legal system bogged down by the baggage of human foibles.

Adam Alonzi is a writer, biotechnologist, documentary maker, futurist, inventor, programmer, and author of the novels A Plank in Reason and Praying for Death: A Zombie Apocalypse. He is an analyst for the Millennium Project, the Head Media Director for BioViva Sciences, and Editor-in-Chief of Radical Science News. Listen to his podcasts here. Read his blog here.

Charlie Gard’s Parents Are Forced to Stop Fighting for Their Dying Baby – Article by Marianne March

Charlie Gard’s Parents Are Forced to Stop Fighting for Their Dying Baby – Article by Marianne March

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The New Renaissance Hat
Marianne March
July 27, 2017
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I cannot imagine the pain Charlie Gard’s parents are feeling now, as they savor their last moments with their precious child. Charlie is 11 months old and he’s dying.

Chris and Connie have been fighting for months to get treatment for Charlie, ever since he was diagnosed with a rare genetic condition, mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome. But they have been forced to give up that fight.

I can’t imagine their pain, but I can imagine their fury because I share it.

From the Hospital to the Courts

Charlie is not mine. I’ve never met him or anyone who knows him. Yet I am furious with the British government for refusing to allow his parents to take their dying son to the United States for treatment: a therapy trial, his last and only hope.

No further recourse was available in the UK, but an American doctor was ready to try to help him at Columbia University Medical Center. Charlie’s parents raised £1.4 million through crowdfunding; they had the money to take him to the US by air ambulance.

But doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London didn’t like that idea. They said it wouldn’t help, that the American therapy was experimental. They said the baby’s life support should just stop.

On April 11th, a British High Court judge ruled with the doctors, empowering them to turn off Charlie’s life-support machines. His mother screamed “no” when she heard the verdict.

There was a petition with more than 110,000 names on it. People wrote letters to the Prime Minister, calling on her to release Charlie from Great Ormond Street’s care. The pope said he was praying for Charlie’s parents, “hoping that their desire to accompany and care for their own child to the end is not ignored.”

And now Charlie is out of time.

Even US President Trump tweeted that “If we can help little #CharlieGard, as per our friends in the U.K. and the Pope, we would be delighted to do so.”

Charlie’s parents challenged the decision in the Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court, and the European Court of Human Rights.

All to no avail. The Courts would not allow them to try to save their baby’s life.

Who Can Call This Justice?

And now Charlie is out of time. According to the BBC, “US neurologist Dr. Michio Hirano had said he was no longer willing to offer the baby experimental therapy after he saw the results of a new MRI scan last week.”

It’s possible that Charlie’s doctors were right, that experimental treatment wouldn’t have helped (although his parents don’t think so, nor do American and Italian doctors). But what harm could it have done when he’s dying anyway? And if his parents had the means to give him one last chance, why shouldn’t they exercise their right to do so? They belong to Charlie just as he belongs to them, and no one but Chris and Connie should get the final say on his medical care.

I never really knew what people meant by the phrase “death panels” before. It was just a term bandied about by talking heads and political personalities. It’s chilling how well it applies in this instance: a group of bureaucrats that sits around deciding who is worthy of medical care.

I don’t know how the power slipped away from the individual, whether taken by force or given away with applause, but this is outrageous. And it’s wrong.

Read with a Box of Tissues

I will leave you with the words of Connie Yates, Charlie’s mom:

Due to the deterioration in his muscles, there is now no way back for Charlie. Time that has been wasted. It is time that has sadly gone against him.

We want people to realise that we have been speaking to parents whose children were just like Charlie before starting treatment and now some of them are walking around like normal children. We wanted Charlie to have that chance too.

All we wanted to do was take Charlie from one world renowned hospital to another world renowned hospital in the attempt to save his life and to be treated by the world leader in mitochondrial disease. We feel that we should have been trusted as parents to do so but we will always know in our hearts that we did the very best for Charlie and I hope that he is proud of us for fighting his corner.

Charlie had a real chance of getting better. It’s now unfortunately too late for him but it’s not too late for others with this horrible disease and other diseases. We will continue to help and support families of ill children and try and make Charlie live on in the lives of others. We owe it to him to not let his life be in vain.

Despite the way that our beautiful son has been spoken about sometimes, as if he not worthy of a chance at life, our son is an absolute WARRIOR and we could not be prouder of him and we will miss him terribly. One little boy has brought the world together and whatever people’s opinions are, no one can deny the impact our beautiful son has had on the world and his legacy will never ever die.

We are now going to spend our last precious moments with our son Charlie, who unfortunately won’t make his 1st birthday in just under 2 weeks’ time, and we would ask that our privacy is respected at this very difficult time.

Mummy and Daddy love you so much Charlie, we always have and we always will and we are so sorry that we couldn’t save you.”

Marianne March is a recent graduate of Georgia State University, where she majored in Public Policy, with a minor in Economics. Follow her on twitter @mari_tweets.

This article was published by The Foundation for Economic Education and may be freely distributed, subject to a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which requires that credit be given to the author. Read the original article.

Will the Trump Administration Overdose on Authoritarianism? – Article by Ron Paul

Will the Trump Administration Overdose on Authoritarianism? – Article by Ron Paul

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The New Renaissance HatRon Paul
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Last week Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered federal prosecutors in drug cases to seek the maximum penalty authorized by federal mandatory minimum sentencing laws. Sessions’s order represents a setback to the progress made toward restoring compassion and common sense to the sentencing process over the past few years. Sessions’s action also guarantees that many nonviolent drug-law offenders will continue spending more time in prison than murderers.

Sessions’s support for mandatory minimums is no surprise, as he has a history of fanatical devotion to the drug war. Sessions’s pro-drug-war stance is at odds with the reality of the drug war’s failure. Over forty years after President Nixon declared war on drugs, the government cannot even keep drugs out of prisons!

As was the case with alcohol prohibition, the drug war has empowered criminal gangs and even terrorists to take advantage of the opportunity presented by prohibition to profit by meeting the continued demand for drugs. Drug prohibition enables these criminal enterprises to make profits far above the potential profits if drugs where legalized. Ironically, the so-called “law-and-order” politicians who support the drug war are helping enrich the very criminals they claim to oppose!

The war on drugs also makes street drugs more lethal by incentivizing the creation of more potent and, thus, more dangerous drugs. Of course, even as Sessions himself admits, the war on drugs also leads to increased violence, as drug dealers cannot go to the courts to settle disputes among themselves or with their customers.

Before 9/11, the war on drugs was the go-to excuse used to justify new infringements on liberty. For example, laws limiting our ability to withdraw, or even carry, large sums of cash and laws authorizing civil asset forfeiture were justified by the need to crack down on drug dealers and users. The war on drugs is also the root cause of the criminal justice system’s disparate treatment of minorities and the militarization of local police.

The war on drugs is a war on the Constitution as well. The Constitution does not give the federal government authority to regulate, much less ban, drugs. People who doubt this should ask themselves why it was necessary to amend the Constitution to allow the federal government to criminalize drinking alcohol but not necessary to amend the Constitution to criminalize drug use.

Today, a majority of states have legalized medical marijuana, and a growing number are legalizing recreational marijuana use. Enforcement of federal laws outlawing marijuana in those states is the type of federal interference with state laws that conservatives usually oppose. Hopefully, in this area the Trump administration will exercise restraint and respect state marijuana laws.

Sessions’s announcement was not the only pro-drug-war announcement made by the administration this week. President Trump himself, in a meeting with the president of Colombia, promised to continue US intervention in South and Central America to eliminate drug cartels. President Trump, like his attorney general, seems to not understand that the rise of foreign drug cartels, like the rise of domestic drug gangs, is a consequence of US drug policy.

The use of government force to stop adults from putting certain substances into their bodies — whether marijuana, saturated fats, or raw milk — violates the nonaggression principle that is the bedrock of a free society. Therefore, all those who care about protecting individual liberty and limiting government power should support ending the drug war. Those with moral objections to drug use should realize that education and persuasion, carried out through voluntary institutions like churches and schools, is a more moral and effective way to discourage drug use than relying on government force.

Ron Paul, MD, is a former three-time Republican candidate for U. S. President and Congressman from Texas.

This article is reprinted with permission from the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

Oregon Man Fined $500 for Challenging Timing on Red-Light Cameras – Article by Melissa Quinn

Oregon Man Fined $500 for Challenging Timing on Red-Light Cameras – Article by Melissa Quinn

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The New Renaissance HatMelissa Quinn
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Mats Jarlstrom’s trouble all began with a red-light camera.

In April 2013, Jarlstrom’s wife, Laurie, received a ticket after driving her Volkswagen through an intersection in Beaverton, Oregon, that was equipped with a traffic camera.

His wife paid the fine, but the timing of the traffic lights at the intersection piqued Jarlstrom’s interest, so he decided to look into a formula created in 1959 to calculate the length of yellow lights.

Jarlstrom says he realized the original formula failed to take into account the extra time it takes for a car to slow before making a right-hand turn safely.

“Currently, people are getting tickets for running red lights because they’re slowing down when they’re making turns,” he tells The Daily Signal. “It’s a safety issue because any time we run a red light, we’re in the intersection for the wrong reason, and there is cross traffic, and especially pedestrians are in danger.”

Jarlstrom, an electronics engineer from Sweden, revised the formula to take the deceleration into account, and decided to take his findings public.

But doing so, he quickly learned, came with a risk, and a costly one at that.

Jarlstrom shared his findings with local media, policymakers, the sheriff, and Alexei Maradudin, who helped craft the original mathematical formula in 1959. He also emailed his theory to the Oregon State Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying, in hopes it would take a look at his research.

The Oregon panel said it didn’t have any jurisdiction over traffic lights. But it did have jurisdiction over the state’s engineering laws. And it decided to open an investigation into Jarlstrom because of “his use of the title ‘electronics engineer’ and the statement ‘I’m an engineer,’” according to an order from the board.

After investigating Jarlstrom for two years, the board fined him $500.

The reason?

Jarlstrom, according to the board, practiced engineering without a license each time he “critiqued” the traffic-light system and identified himself as an engineer in correspondence with the panel.

“You don’t need to be an engineer to understand this,” Jarlstrom says in an interview with The Daily Signal, adding:

I read something that was already public and understood it, and I wanted to share that information with the public talking about it. I felt completely shocked when I contacted them that they weren’t interested in listening to the problems that I presented to the board. They accused me of being illegal by saying I was a Swedish electronics engineer.

Jarlstrom paid the $500 fine, and the board closed its investigation. But now, the public-interest law firm Institute for Justice is fighting alongside the Oregon man in federal court to challenge the state’s engineering laws.

“The issues are classic First Amendment issues,” Sam Gedge, an Institute for Justice lawyer who is representing Jarlstrom, tells The Daily Signal. “The government can’t punish people for expressing their concerns. The government can’t take words and redefine them and then punish people for using them in a way the government doesn’t like.”

‘Unusual’

Jarlstrom does have education and experience in engineering.

He has a degree in electronics engineering from Sweden, which is the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree in engineering in the United States.

Jarlstrom, 56, also worked for Luxor Electronics before immigrating to the United States in 1992.

But in Oregon, anyone who engages in “creative work requiring engineering education, training, and experience” under the state Professional Engineer Registration Act is required to be licensed as a professional engineer.

Nearly every state requires professional engineers to have a license. However, those licenses typically are reserved for engineers who build skyscrapers or design electrical plans for buildings.

The Institute for Justice is challenging the vague definition of what constitutes a professional engineer in Oregon, which in effect allows the board to regulate the exchange of ideas and of the word “engineer,” Gedge says:

What makes Oregon so unusual is they’ve taken the licensing regime for professional engineers and are applying it to people like Mats, who are talking about issues that concern them. That’s unusual.

There are two issues for Jarlstrom, Gedge says: He used the word “engineer” to describe himself, and he talked about technical topics.

“There have been a number of instances about the board going after people simply because they used the word engineer to describe themselves,” the lawyer says. “There are also examples of the board going after people who have never used the word engineer to describe themselves, but are nonetheless going out in public and speaking about technical topics.”

“That word isn’t off-limits to people,” he says. “The laws can’t be used to stop people from sending an email to his sheriff for safety.”

Other Incidents

Indeed, Jarlstrom’s experiences with Oregon’s Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying aren’t exclusive to him.

Last year, the board opened an investigation into Allen Alley, a Republican gubernatorial candidate, who stated in campaign ads: “I’m an engineer and a problem solver.”

Alley received a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering from Purdue University and worked as an engineer for Ford and Boeing. But he isn’t a licensed professional engineer in Oregon.

The board’s investigation into Alley is ongoing.

In another instance, the panel investigated a woman profiled in Portland Monthly’s “Oregon Woman 2015” edition.

Included in the magazine was an article about Marcela Alcantar and a headline about “the incredible story of the engineer behind Portland’s newest bridge.”

The board opened a “law enforcement case” against Alcantar based on the line, since she wasn’t a registered professional engineer.

Ultimately, the case was closed after the board’s staff spoke with the journalist who wrote the article. The board determined “engineer” was a designation given not by Alcantar, but by the article’s editors.

“The definition of the practice of engineering is so broad according to the board, and the board has shown itself to be so aggressive,” Gedge says. “Expressing your concerns on technical topics certainly leaves you at the risk of being investigated.”

‘Whistleblower’

Although Jarlstrom ultimately paid the fine, he says he believes the board’s decision violated his freedom of expression.

And while he does have engineering experience, Jarlstrom contends the skills he used to craft his revised formula relied on 6th- and 7th-grade math:

It’s interesting that just because students here in Beaverton or elsewhere are using math and looking at some traffic-flow issues in school, they would be considered practicing engineering according to the board. We can’t have laws having that kind of power or overreach.

Jarlstrom says he considers himself a whistleblower and is surprised something like this could happen in the United States. But he vows to continue working to “improve our civil rights and freedom of speech so individuals like myself can share ideas, whether they’re good or bad.”

“We still need to be able to express them,” he says. “If we can’t, there won’t be any ideas to choose from.”

Melissa Quinn previously worked for The Daily Signal as a senior news reporter.

This article was originally published by The Daily Signal. It is reprinted here with permission.

Why the Government Cannot Ban All Immigrants from a Certain Country – Article by David Bier

Why the Government Cannot Ban All Immigrants from a Certain Country – Article by David Bier

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The New Renaissance Hat
David Bier
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I previously reviewed the exceptionally poor arguments that the Trump administration used to defend its blanket ban on immigration from seven majority Muslim countries in the State of Washington v. Donald Trump. Now, in its appeal of the district court’s temporary restraining order to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the government has added a new argument in favor of its position that is still fatally flawed. It claims:

The State continues to argue that Section 3(c)’s temporary suspension of the entry of aliens from seven countries contravenes the restriction on nationality based distinctions in [section 202(a)(1)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA)]. But that restriction applies only to “the issuance of an immigrant visa,” Id., not to the President’s restrictions on the right of entry [under section 212(f)].

The government was right not to attempt this argument initially. Their argument is that a visa does not entitle the recipient to entry in the United States, but merely to travel to the United States. Therefore, they are free to discriminate at the border. To bolster the argument, INA 101(a)(4) does specifically distinguish between admission and visa issuance.  Essentially, they are defining “visa” in section 202 to include only the visa document that permits travel to the border, but does not grant status in the United States. And status is what grants a person the legal right to reside inside the country.

The problem is that the definition of a “visa” in section 202 includes “status” that grants a right to enter and reside in the United States. The State Department’s regulations define visa in section 202 to mean visa or status and have for as long as the INA has been around. Eligibility for status is either determined by an adjustment of status application for immigrants residing inside the United States or at the border for immigrants entering the United States on an immigrant visa for the first time. It is the act of granting entry that confers legal permanent residency status.

Thus, the government would be violating the prohibition on discrimination in section 202(a)(1)(A) just as much by denying entry as by denying visas. An immigration officer cannot deny entry based on nationality without also discriminating in the issuance of status to an immigrant at a port of entry.

Why “visa” cannot be interpreted narrowly

Not only is this interpretation based on the government’s own longstanding regulations, the interpretation of section 202 that the government offered during appeal would require it to adopt a variety of other positions that are at odds with the statute and regulations.

If “visa” in section 202 was interpreted to mean only the visa document, then adjustments of status applications for persons inside the United States would be exempt from the numerical limitations on visas in that section and in section 203. The clear intent of Congress was to control the number of persons who are entering the United States, not visa documents issued, and so the department has always held this view. Thus, the U.S. attorney in oral arguments before the district court admitted that per-country limits were about allocating how many people the United States allows “to come into the country.”

If the person is determined ineligible to enter, the visa is revoked at this point, and the State Department considers it not to have been issued at all. In other words, the department only counts “status” determinations against the visa caps, despite the fact that the section never mentions status. It is interesting to note on this point that the original version of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 actually had consular officers grant immigrants “status” abroad, which could be revoked at entry if they were deemed ineligible.

Why the government cannot be biased in entry but not in visa issuance

This interpretation does not undermine the distinction between visa issuance and admission in section 101(a)(4) because a determination of inadmissibility under section 212 applies equally to admission at the border as it does to visa issuance abroad. Immigration officers inside the country rely on the same criteria to determine eligibility to enter that consular officials use to determine eligibility for an immigrant visa. A person granted an immigrant visa in an unbiased manner would not be entitled to enter at the border. He would just be entitled to similar unbiased treatment.

This proves that the law forecloses the idea that the government could be unbiased in visa issuance but not in entry. This is also why all presidential proclamations under 212(f) are immediately printed in the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Manual. The manual explains, “Aliens who have engaged in conduct covered by a Presidential Proclamation issued under the authority of section 212(f) may also be inadmissible under other sections of the INA or other statutes. These statutory inadmissibilities are to be considered prior to determining whether a Presidential Proclamation applies.”

The executive order itself admits that the State Department will be enforcing it by suspending visa issuance just as much as the Department of Homeland Security by suspending entry, and indeed, it has suspended visa issuance to nationals of those seven countries.

Another problem for the government’s view is that it implies that Congress intended to create a system in which it required non-discrimination for applicants abroad, but not applicants at ports of entry or inside the United States. Indeed, their argument would free the government to discriminate based on nationality in adjustment of status applications for immigrants who are residing inside the United States right now, even without a presidential determination that they are a “detriment.”

Not only is this plainly absurd, this would create the bizarre result that immigrants adjusting in the United States would have fewer protections against discrimination than immigrant applicants abroad. This leaves the government arguing that immigrants abroad have fewer constitutional rights than immigrants in the United States, while somehow also having more statutory rights.

This obviously cannot have been what Congress intended. In fact, as I have previously explained, Congress debated this very question of whether ending discrimination would allow unvetted individuals to enter the United States from certain countries where information is difficult to obtain. They rejected this argument. No member of Congress in 1965—whether they were for the bill or against it—believed that President Johnson could then have immediately undone their work with a presidential proclamation.

David_BierDavid Bier

David Bier is an immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity.

This work by Cato Institute is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.