Tyranny Technology Update: Artificial Intelligence for Facial Recognition

Chinese policewoman using facial-recognition sunglasses linked to artificial intelligence data analysis algorithms while patrolling a train station in Zhengzhou, the capital of central China's Henan province

A series of B&B discussions is focused on the technology that China is bringing to bear on how the tyrants there are applying technology in an effort to build a deep surveillance state to control both behavior and minds. China is exporting an array of technology to other countries, who can use it to help tyrants remain in power under cover of reducing crime. A key part of the behavior and mind control effort is the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technology to help power facial recognition. Police in China are being equipped with glasses that scan faces. The is sent data to computers with AI-powered facial recognition capacity.

Tech Xplore reports that researchers at the University of Bradford in the UK attained 100% accuracy in facial recognition based on both three-quarter, top half and right half face images. This technical advance permits identification of a person using less than a full frontal face image. Images of the bottom half of the face was correctly recognised 60% of the time, while images of only the and eyes and nose dropped to 40% accuracy. The original article, Deep face recognition using imperfect facial data, was published in the journal Future Generation Computer Systems.

It is reasonable to believe that China is well ahead of the West in this kind of technology development. This is a critical component of China's massive social engineering experiment in building an unassailable tyranny. Obviously, this technology can be used for legitimate law enforcement and security purposes. Nonetheless, it is obvious that this can be used for any purpose where facial recognition is employed, legitimate or not.

B&B orig: 5/6/19

26 USC 6103(f) and Trump's Tax Returns

“The tragic paradox of the electoral route to authoritarianism is that democracy’s assassins use the very institutions of democracy—gradually, subtly, and even legally—to kill it. . . . . One of the great ironies of how democracies die is that the very defense of democracy is often used as a pretext for its subversion” How Democracies Die, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, 2018

By now it is obvious that President Trump is making a run at establishing a full-blown corrupt, anti-democratic tyranny. His past statements make it clear that he wants to be a dictator for life. His recent statements make it clear that he will resist any further attempts by congress to exert its oversight authority by conducting any further investigations related to him. What was the republican party is now the Trump Tyranny Party (TTP), so there is essentially no possibility they oppose Trump's plan. For practical purposes, the TTP is just as corrupt, anti-democratic and authoritarian as Trump. The last stand of democracy just might come from congressional democrats exerting their congressional oversight authority. The recent assertion that Trump can fire any prosecutor he believes is investigating false allegations against him is tyrant rhetoric. There is nothing democratic about it.

Democratic norms that had been in place since the end of World War 2 are mostly gone now. The stunning weaknesses of democracy in the face of a committed tyrant are obvious. The TPP was fully complicit in their fall. The 2020 elections could turn out to be a sham if Trump gains tyrant power before those elections. The odds of that outcome are low, but now significantly higher than they have been in a very long time. claims that 'we have been through this before and we'll be OK' ring hollow. America has never been through this before. There has never been a time when (1) American society was this divided, (2) one party in power was fully in accord with the tyrant president, (3) America's enemies were relentlessly attacking society and democracy with endless sophisticated, effective propaganda, and (4) the leader of a hostile foreign power, Vladimir Putin, bribing, blackmailing and/or cajoling a virulently anti-democratic US president to do his bidding in foreign and probably also domestic policy. That combination of circumstances has never existed in US history. Absolutely no one can know that 'we'll be OK'. We just might not turn out OK. we might wind up another kleptocratic police state like Russia wants us to be.

It is possible that House of Representatives demands to see Trump's tax returns will trigger a crisis that leads to the fall of American democracy in the coming months or years. He will resist allowing any member of congress from seeing his returns, presumably because they contain evidence that he is a felon and a traitor. Given those stakes and his obvious authoritarian character, it is logical for Trump reject all congressional oversight authority from now until his last day on Earth.

Congress can demand to see tax returns under 26 USC 6103(f): In the early days, all US taxpayer returns were public. That is still the case in some European countries today. Newspapers routinely published the taxes paid by the wealthy. That amounted to transparency that went away over time. The wealthy have always been able to defend themselves from transparency and they will always try very hard to remain shrouded in secrecy.

After those days, only the president had the power to look at anyone's tax returns. That ended after the 1921-1923 Teapot Dome scandal in Warren Harding’s administration. In the wake of Teapot Dome, congress passed legislation in 1924 that expanded the power to review tax returns to congress. That legislation reclaimed the right of congress to review private tax returns. Just as the legislative branch has the power to tax and spend, it also has the power to review personal tax returns as fully within its rights and oversight obligations.

26 USC 6103(f) is long and detailed but the first part of it reads as follows:

(f) Disclosure to Committees of Congress (1) Committee on Ways and Means, Committee on Finance, and Joint Committee on Taxation: Upon written request from the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives, the chairman of the Committee on Finance of the Senate, or the chairman of the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Secretary shall furnish such committee with any return or return information specified in such request, except that any return or return information which can be associated with, or otherwise identify, directly or indirectly, a particular taxpayer shall be furnished to such committee only when sitting in closed executive session unless such taxpayer otherwise consents in writing to such disclosure.

Other provisions include these:

(5) Disclosure by whistleblower: Any person who otherwise has or had access to any return or return information under this section may disclose such return or return information to a committee referred to in paragraph (1) or any individual authorized to receive or inspect information under paragraph (4)(A) if such person believes such return or return information may relate to possible misconduct, maladministration, or taxpayer abuse.

(h) Disclosure to certain Federal officers and employees for purposes of tax administration, etc. (h) Disclosure to certain Federal officers and employees for purposes of tax administration, etc. (1)Department of the Treasury Returns and return information shall, without written request, be open to inspection by or disclosure to officers and employees of the Department of the Treasury whose official duties require such inspection or disclosure for tax administration purposes.

(2)Department of Justice In a matter involving tax administration, a return or return information shall be open to inspection by or disclosure to officers and employees of the Department of Justice (including United States attorneys) personally and directly engaged in, and solely for their use in, any proceeding before a Federal grand jury or preparation for any proceeding (or investigation which may result in such a proceeding) before a Federal grand jury or any Federal or State court, but only if— (A) the taxpayer is or may be a party to the proceeding, or the proceeding arose out of, or in connection with, determining the taxpayer’s civil or criminal liability, or the collection of such civil liability in respect of any tax imposed under this title; (B) the treatment of an item reflected on such return is or may be related to the resolution of an issue in the proceeding or investigation; or (C) such return or return information relates or may relate to a transactional relationship between a person who is or may be a party to the proceeding and the taxpayer which affects, or may affect, the resolution of an issue in such proceeding or investigation.

At least some knowledgeable people believe that congress has legitimate power to ask for Trump's tax returns, e.g., former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and some (not all) legal scholars.

Trump's counterattack and the fallout: Trump is clear that he will resist all further inquiries into him and his administration. He will attack the law allowing congress to see his tax returns as unconstitutional, not applicable to a sitting president, not a matter of legitimate congressional inquiry, and/or whatever other defense Trump's team of attorneys will devise. Given the fact that Trump has nominated anti-democratic authoritarian federal judges to the federal bench, with Senate TTP consent, it is likely that the Supreme Court will find that one or more of Trump's attacks on 26 USC 6103(f) to be persuasive. That will allow Trump to keep his crimes and treason shrouded in secrecy. On the propaganda front, Trump will be able to employ the powerful tool the white collar criminal always uses to defend himself, plausible deniability, to its maximum extent.

That will lead to the typical response in current polarized politics. Trump supporters will see total, absolute vindication of Trump. They can go back to chants of Lock Her Up! in their enthusiastic never-ending pursuit of Hillary and her alleged crimes. Trump opponents will see the grave threat to democracy and the rule of law. Another group, maybe 4-10%, will be undecided, confused and/or apathetic. How that social stew will play out is unknowable. Maybe there will be violence and police state repression of the free press and public political protest. More likely, the remaining pro-democracy obstacles fall to the tyrant and the TTP as Levitsky and Ziblatt described in 2108.

Trump: I Can Fire Any Prosecutor I Want

Saturday, May 4, 2019

In congressional testimony a few days ago, Attorney General William Barr commented that President Trump has the power to legally fire any prosecutor he believed was investigating false charges against him. Presumably, his comments were limited to federal prosecutors, but given Trump's ongoing run for tyranny, maybe that applied to all prosecutors in his mind.

Slate writes:

That defense was shocking not simply because it had nothing to do with the legal questions of conspiracy and obstruction before Mueller and Barr, but also because it seemed to have explicitly adopted and accepted the Trumpist worldview that holds any attempt at oversight or investigation deemed by the president to be unjustified harassment is illegitimate. This is, by the way, pretty much the same legal theory being invoked this week to reject the authority of congressional oversight and subpoenas. As Steve Vladek observed this past weekend, the defense that absolutely everything is a witch hunt and thus not legitimate is not a specific constitutional claim. It is, however, a recipe for a constitutional crisis.

Then, in response to questions from Sen. Dianne Feinstein about why it was that Trump ordered former White House counsel Don McGahn to end the Mueller probe, Barr seems to have again taken the legal position that the president’s anger and frustration over press reports that he had instructed McGahn to fire Mueller somehow made this directive permissible. Barr seemed to be saying that Trump could not have committed obstruction by asking McGahn to fire Mueller, so long as he was attempting to forestall further negative press. As Barr put it: “If the president is being falsely accused, which the evidence now suggests that the accusations against him were false [which is a lie], and he knew they were false, and he felt that this investigation was unfair, propelled by his political opponents and was hampering his ability to govern, that is not a corrupt motive for replacing an independent counsel.”

That Trump is truly making a run at being a tyrant cannot be much clearer. Of course, if Trump declares martial law, shuts the “enemy of the people” press down, arrests democrats in congress, and orders the US military to machine gun protestors down in the streets, then it would be about a clear as it can get.

The question is obvious: How much clearer does this need to be for Trump supporters and the republican party (the Trump Tyrant Party, not the GOP) to see what is happening before their eyes, or do they actually want tyranny? It is hard to imagine that by now hardly any Trump opponents do not see the grave danger that American democracy and the rule of law are both in. Or, does that overstate the situation?

Book Review: On Tyranny

'People Would Revolt' if Trump is Impeached is Not His Opinion, it's an Instruction to commit violence

Historian Timothy Snyder's 2017 book, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From The Twentieth Century, is a warning aimed directly at President Trump and his now obvious political goal of establishing anti-democratic, right wing tyranny in America. There's nothing subtle about this short, easy to read book (126 pages). It gets right to the point by comparing the tactics, rhetoric and mindset of 20th century tyrants like Hitler and Stalin to what Trump is doing today in America. Each of the twenty lessons constitute a short chapter. It can be read in a several hours. What Snyder is arguing here is generally in accord with how some others, e.g., Hannah Arendt in The Origins of Totalitarianism, have described the 20th century's political monsters.

Unilateral surrender: Snyder's first lesson, do not obey in advance, makes the point that in the face of the tyrant or tyrant wannabe, many people simply let their own freedom go. Power flows from the people to the tyrant. Snyder writes: "Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. . . . . A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do." Examples include a willing transfer of power by the people to Hitler in Germany in 1932 and to the communist tyrants in Czechoslovakia in 1946.

Institutional defense: Snyder argues that democratic institutions do not defend themselves, people defend them: "We tend to assume that institutions will automatically maintain themselves against even the most direct attacks. This was the very mistake that some German Jews made about Hitler and the Nazis after they had formed a government." Snyder asserts that many Americans are making this same mistake again today. He suggests people pick an institution such as a pro-democracy law, a court, a newspaper or a labor union and defend it publicly.

It is worth noting that a court or labor union would need to be defended. Courts strike many as a rock solid and unassailable institution. However, Trump and senate republicans are packing the federal courts with radical authoritarian ideologue judges. The time is coming when more temperate courts and court decisions will be attacked and the tyrant will foment both public and executive branch resistance to those courts, judges and decisions. We are seeing the beginnings of that right now.

Also consider the proposition that, unless they are co-opted and/or corrupted, labor unions are pro-democratic institutions. Powerful, persuasive arguments by other careful observers make this case. Both Nancy MacLean in her 2017 book, Democracy In Chains: The Deep History Of The Radical Right's Stealth Plan For America, and Jane Mayer in her 2016 book, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, make it clear that a key target of anti-democratic authoritarians is labor unions. Powerful billionaires exemplified by the radical right political movement built and still funded by the Koch brothers have a raging, visceral hate of labor unions. Labor unions allow collective action, which is pro-democratic in that they represent some collective power and wealth. That literally enrages the radical libertarian, authoritarian right. Before reading Snyder on this point, the idea of labor unions being a democratic institution seemed out of synch with reality for me at least. But on reflection, Snyder makes an excellent point. He's right.

Resist toleration of violence: Some of Snyder's lessons seem far-fetched. But on consideration, maybe they are not far fetched at all. His lesson six, be wary of paramilitaries, brings this point home: "When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching with torches and pictures of a leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come. . . . . For just this reason, people and parties who wish to undermine democracy and the rule of law create and fund violent organizations that involve themselves in politics." Snyder points out that non-authoritarian governments try to hold a monopoly on violence mediated by official police, secret services and sometimes the military, but always constrained by the rule of law. Snyder defines a paramilitary broadly, and it can include an authoritarian leader's personal bodyguard. People in Germany and Austria made the grave mistake of tolerating paramilitary intimidation and violence, and many of the survivors among them came to regret it.

Snyder points to Trump as an example: "As a candidate, the president ordered a private security detail to clear opponents from rallies, but also encouraged the audience itself to remove people who expressed different opinions. . . . . . At one campaign rally [Trump] said, 'There's a remnant left over. Maybe get the remnant out. Get the remnant out." When the pro-Trump mob tried to do that, Trump was pleased, saying: "Isn't this more fun than a regular boring rally? To me, it's fun." Other recent events have made it clear that Trump is actively fomenting violence by his supporters against political opposition.

So, after announcing his candidacy for president in 2020, Joe Biden's opening attack on Trump led with "Charlottesville", referring to the fascist, white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, South Carolina, he was directly attacking a core tyrant tactic. Trump had defended the fascists by calling them 'good people'. Biden threw that directly back in Trump's face as he should have.

Snyder's book is useful to help put tyranny and Trump in better historical and current context. It makes Trump look even more threatening than viewing him without the context.

Power Is Flowing Away From Individuals

Monday, April 29, 2019


Age discrimination: A couple of changes from court decisions indicate that the long-running flow of power from individuals to businesses is continuing. Some years ago, federal courts made it more difficult to win age discrimination lawsuits against an employer. In a 2017 decision, the Supreme Court held that the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) protected only existing employees of a business, not job applicants. That greatly expanded the scope of exceptions the ADEA did not cover. When originally passed in 1967, the ADEA was supposed to protect all persons over 40 years of age. In general, the courts now tend to defer to employers, making winning an age-discrimination lawsuit a rare event. Despite the ADEA, age discrimination is in employment common. And even when the discrimination is blatant, it is usually impossible to win a lawsuit.

Class arbitration lawsuits: Earlier this month, the Supreme Court ruled in Lamps Plus, Inc. v. Varela that employees cannot file a class arbitration lawsuit against an employer who has harmed a group of employees. To be susceptible to such a lawsuit, the company must agree in writing in advance to accept such a lawsuit. The implications of that lawsuit are clear. Probably no employer has ever expressly consented in writing to any class arbitration lawsuit. And in the future, the few exceptions that may exist to that will make sure their employee agreements will remove that clause from the agreement. There are probably no exceptions.

Arbitration: The Lamps Plus lawsuit highlights the matter of forced arbitration. Forced arbitration clauses are the norm for employee agreements, credit card agreements, service agreements and essentially everything that can come under the scope of arbitration, which is essentially everything. Forced arbitration has been dominant for decades. Very few consumers and employees have the individual power to avoid forced arbitration. Arbitration clauses invariably include a requirement that decisions are to remain confidential.

The net effect of forced arbitration is a massive shift of power to companies and wealthy individuals. Companies and individuals, e.g., Trump and Trump companies, can and do act badly and if caught, they use arbitration to shield their bad acts in secrecy. The public is kept in the dark and fed nothing. In Lamps Plus, the Supreme Court argued that while arbitration has procedural advantages, which is arguably mostly a lie for consumers and employees most of the time, those advantages are absent from class lawsuits and that creates a potential for “procedural morass.”

The massive power advantage that forced arbitration affords companies and wealthy individuals and the secrecy that shields the underlying bad and illegal actions and settlements, constitutes a shadow system of law that sometimes operates outside the law without any means for society to know. For example, when a company or wealthy person has injured many people and one of them is forced into arbitration and a secret settlement arises, other injured people may never know of their injury or the amount of money the company paid. Essentially all advantage goes to the company or wealthy person.

From my point of view, forced arbitration constitutes a major assault on the rule of law. In essence, one can see forced arbitration as a powerful anti-democratic, authoritarian tool to keep the masses ignorant and in check, while the rich and powerful remain free to continue their bad and illegal acts with impunity most or nearly all of the time.

Orig B&B: 4/29/19

Proposal: An Open Primary for Everyone

Saturday, April 27, 2019

The IVN (Independent Voter Network) has long been dissatisfied with the grip on electoral power the two parties exert. A new proposal suggests a primary for independent voters in view of the failure of the existing two-party system. IVN rejects the argument that although some candidates say that if we elect them, they will unite the country and solve our problems. IVN rejects that rhetoric as empty.

The group argues that our election system incentivizes partisanship by making candidates, regardless of party, accountable to the voters in their party, not to the electorate in general. Therefore, unless a candidate intends to unrig the system, calls for unity are just empty rhetoric.

In proposing a primary for all voters, IVN points out that taxpayers, not the parties, fund primary elections. The proposal is called nonpartisan and would open voting up to any voter, regardless of party, and allow voting for any candidate.

IVN comments:

Bottom Line: Let the parties keep their own ballots. Let the parties exclude or include whoever they want. Let the parties decide their own rules of nomination. BUT, give every voter their fundamental right to participate at every stage of the taxpayer-funded public election process.