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Politics

Apple, Gizmodo & Free Press

June 16, 2010 · 3 comments in Braided Journalism,Politics,Social Media

Shortly before I decided to put book-writing aside and return to consulting, I very seriously thought of writing a book called iPhoneGate.  While the book would walk through the often unexciting saga of Gizmodo publishing unauthorized advance information on the iPhone4, I had bigger issues in mind.

First above all, was the issue of free press in the Information Age. Democracies are partly called that because it has a free press We expect a certain category of professionals to dig and bypass official government declarations and the utterances of company spokespeople to find other facts and perceptions of the truth.

History has found this to be a worthwhile protection because it has often led to freedom being protected and officials being fingered as rascals.

But the press itself has long been filled with lazy, slovenly, inaccurate bums, characterizing themselves as journalists as they report on aliens impregnating celebrities. James T Calender, who described his form of journalism as "scandal-mongering" was hired by Thomas Jefferson to assassinate the character of John Adams. William Randolph Hearst, spearheaded the Spanish-American War to sell newspapers.

So the press has never been this noble institution, of great and impartial minds who dug and risked personal freedom and safety to shed sunlight on the darkest of facts. The Woodwards and Bernsteins some of us came of age idolizing; the freelance reports on the My Lai Massacre by an unknown freelancer named Seymour Hersh, or even the remarkably well-informed essays of modern pamphleteer Izzy Stone were exceptions to what everyday reporters shoveled out during a period some people now call the Golden Age of Journalism.

In fact, throughout the history of the profession we call journalism, most of what was published was universally and indisputably crap.

That would all be beside the point. Except we are now entering a new and very complicated era. Our definition of what is the press is changing. The content is moving. The filtering systems are forever altered.

Gizmodo is part of the Gawker publishing group. Gawker likes to shock it's readers. Among its online publications is an indisputable piece of porn garbage. Everything that they have ever written about me has been unkind.

So, I am not the Gawker gang's best friend. But I believe that their rights are a gate between you, me and erosion of the freedoms that we share.

People point to this as a reason why Gizmodo should not be considered press. They talk of how the Gawker group caused a stunt, to make all CES HDTV screens go dark, allegedly because they were angry about having been scooped by a rival.

But iPhoneGate is not about Gizmodo quality. It is not about professionals acting like low-rent pranksters. It's not even about the ethical questions of paying to get a story, a practice that the New York Tines says it has sometimes used.

It is about the fact that freedom is supposed to be agnostic. Free religion is supposed to respect even those groups that you and I find offensive. Free speech protects the right to publish words and picture that we find repulsive.

It is about defending the rights of people who swim far below the ethical level where you will find Gizmodo scurrying around.

There are many unanswered questions in the iPhoneGate issue. What was Apple's role in the action of a law enforcement team they advise? What evidence did they have that the Gizmodo video could or would do immeasurable damage? If Apple already had the wayward iPhone back in it's possession and police knew who had taken it, just what evidence were police looking for? Are police still investigating? How long can they keep Jason Chen's computer equipment in a locked evidence room?

Other questions, you might consider are your rights and mine helped or hurt when Apple gets to ban a press member from a news conference, because they do not like their behavior? If Steve Jobs can do that to Gizmodo, why can't Barack Obama do that to Fox News, or for that matter, the BBC to most of the media in the world.

This is all been complicated enough. But it is more complicated now than it has ever been because media is migrating to the Web and it is more difficult than it has ever been to define who is a journalist and who is not.

No law enforcement official challenges Gizmodo is press. But what about you and me? Tom Foremski, the ex Financial Times Reporter who now writes Silicon Valley Watch keeps talking about every company being a media company. Well, that would mean that every employee is a journalist. For that matter, every customer who adds content to a compan site is too.

Where does it end? Des it end at all? Who among us is not protected by the same Shield Laws that protect Gizmodo and the New York Times/ Is that a good thing or bad?

Damned if I know.

Remembering the Iran Election

June 10, 2010 in Personal & off-the-wall,Politics,Social Media

[Neda is killed on a Tehran St., June 14, 2009. Photographer unnamed.]

This Saturday will mark the first anniversary of the controversial Iran presidential election. To me it commemorates one moment of great injustice in a world filled with such injustices. But it is perhaps the best known of such moments since China rolled tanks over its own people at Tienanmen Square in 1989.

That is because it is social media's finest moment. It was a moment where social media, particularly Twitter and YouTube showed that it can unify people and bring truth forward even when determined powers will kill, torture and imprison to suppress such truth.

On Twitter, we changed our avatars to Iranian green and we listed our locations as Iran to make it more difficult for Iranian authorities to find and abuse those who were conveying information and video such as the murder of Neda Agha-Solton, the 27-year-old student gunned down by a government sniper on a roof.

Until June 12, 2009,  Social media has not been present before when such atrocities have occurred.The government of Iran was perfectly capable of keeping paragraphs out of newspapers and footage such as the one above away from the professional newsman's lens.

Governments, like the one they have in Iran  can kick out the free press; but they cannot silence people anymore. The people on the streets understood modern technology better than the bully with shields and batons and motorcycles.

The truth got out and the world saw it was ugly.

But unfortunately, the truth did not set the people of Iran free. They remain very much unfree.

So looking back one year later, what was actually gained, other than people began to understand that social media could be used effectively for subjects of greater importance than "Six Tips on Maximizing Your SEO Results?"

In fact a great deal was accomplished. First, in Iran traditional press, hamstrung by government finally understood the power of citizen-generated social media as a legitimate news source and has begun to braid what the feet on the street can add to official government-and-company story versions.

Second, oppressive governments everywhere now understand that like it or not they are being watched. This does not mean, they will suddenly stop abuse their citizens, but it does mean they will think twice before they do it because --even in Iran--world opinion matters.

Third, and here I am guessing, Iran's stature as world leader of Islamic fundamental revolution was dealt a serious blow. Young Muslims everywhere got to see how young Muslims are treated in Iran and just maybe stopped to wonder if such governments were causes worth dying for. This may not be true, but I like to think it is.

What gives me great sorrow is that the people of Iran did not win this time. They are still oppressed and abused. Their leadership is ostracizing a country and sending it backwards in quality of life for its citizens.

Because of social media so much can be said. So much awareness can be raised. So much truth can penetrate censorship barriers. But it is still a weak counterbalance against police with guns, stansions and torture chambers.

Should Gizmodo be Shielded?

April 28, 2010 in Politics,Social Media,tech business

The story of Gizmodo and the purloined iPhone G4 has had more turns  than a James Bond movie  car chase. Since early this morning, this is my third rewrite of a blog post on certain issues of this case.

I started by taking on police for saying last night that Shield Laws do not apply. But, now police have announced they will "suspend" the investigation, because maybe those shield laws do apply.

It seems that the police, like just about everyone else have mixed views on the prevailing laws in this case. That is probably because--at least in California--the laws seem to directly conflict with each other. So do some of the relevant facts.

Probably like you, I've been following the story second-hand, from the comfort of my computer screen, so I don't know the precise sequence of events that took an iPhone G4 prototype from the pocket of an Apple Computer employee and put it into the hands of Gizmodo editor Jason Chen.

I cannot clear up conflicting reports on whether Jason Chen's door was battered down or just forced open. I don't know if he was frisked or handcuffed one report says.

I most certainly do not know what the sequence of events was after the Apple employee left a Redwood City beer garden without the G4. I cannot tell you was drunk, or whether or not Apple Computer really did refuse  an offer to return the device because they thought it was a hoax, as a British blog claims.

Furthermore, like you, I do not have a clue as to what role Apple Computer played in a judge issuing a search warrant against the Gizmodo for suspicion of receiving stolen property, a crime punishable by up to a year in the slammer. I didn't even know that a Mateo County judge could order the search of a home located outside the country. Jason Chen lives in Fremont, in Contra Costa County.

Besides,  all that stuff is, in my view, detail confetti. There are bigger issues going on here and anyone looking at it can see that laws relevant to the case conflict with each other. They are not little ordinance, but they are large with Constitutional repercussions, or so it seems to me.

This is about free speech versus protection.

Much of what I see comes from points of view that seem embedded and stilted. The Apple User Forums have likened the disassembly of the iPhone prototype to the dismemberment of a kidnap murder victim

Thereare also the entrenched Gizmodo haters. I fall short of that, but I have never been a great fan of the Gawker group's approach to journalism. I don't think the world will much suffer if Valleywag dies. I remember a stunt that got Gawker itself temprarily banned  from the CES trade show for using a hidden device that shut off  exhibitor's HDTV sets.

But like Voltaire, I am big on defending the rights of journalists--even shabby ones--to the freedom to do their jobs. I may take a dim view of bribing someone to get hold of an iPhone prototype, and question whether the world was better served by knowing that the new iPhone has an improved volume button, but I think it is terribly important that Gizmodo has that right.

Journalists in California are protected by state and Federal Shield laws that protect  journalists from revealing sources and supposedly prevent police from breaking through doors and confiscating computers, which is precisely what happened to Jason Chen last Friday night.

That's probably why  the the New York Times, chief counsel, stating that the venerable paper, the original publisher of the stolen Pentagon Papers, would have published the iPhone G4 video and pictures as well.

What stop this from being a slam dunk no-brainer is that there are also laws that make receiving stolen property a crime. One states, in part:
One who finds lost property under circumstances which give him knowledge of or means of inquiry as to the true owner, and who appropriates such property to his own use, or to the use of another person not entitled thereto, without first making reasonable and just efforts to find the owner and to restore the property to him, is guilty of theft.

Based on that paragraph, you can reasonable see why the judge and  police did what they did. This was not an example of the Gestapo coming in the night and anyone who owns property has the right to expect police to investigate the unlawful abuse of that property.

Like I said, this is a complex situation. It's free speech versus the right of property and if police decide to resume the investigation and prosecution, it very well may become a Supreme Court issue.

Martha Coakley, Scott Brown & Conversing with Constituents

January 22, 2010 · 1 comment in Politics,Social Media

Author Diane Danielson has an excellent post on the role that social media played in Scott Brown's victory over Martha Coakley for the Massachusetts Senate seat. It reminded me of when I was asked for some social media thoughts on the California presidential primary by some of Hillary Clinton's pols.

Those talks were filled with a certain smugness on their part, that the California primary was in the bag and their interest in social media was how it could be used to get the word out and contributions in. They looked amused when I used such Gumbaya terminology as "listening to the voters," demonstrating that you care about what they care about."

One of them quipped, "Yeah, we'll just have Hillary sit down an email every Democrat in the state."

I think Coakley's loss reflects a certain smugness on her campaign's part. They presumed they were the heir apparent to the Kennedy throne. They didn't think Coakley needed to go out and ask the voters what was on their mind. They didn't need to do what we want people in power to do more than anything else: Listen to us. Stop talking and start listening.

Coakley started later than Scott Brown on Twitter and ended up with fewer than one-fourth of his followers. Brown was more conversational. Whoever was tweeting on his behalf really sounded like him. Whether true or not, he used social media to demonstrate a thread of sharing experience with working class people,with people facing struggles in tough times.

I don't think this election was won or lost in Twitterville any more than I believe that it was a referendum on Obama or health care. In fact, Massachusetts has the closest thing to universal health care that we have in the US.

Elections are often more complex, more layered and nuanced than pollsters and newsrooms portray them. Sure their are polarized loyalists to one party or another, but increasingly, we vote for people; people we can relate to, people who may see the issues from a similar perspective or with a similar ethic set as we do.

Scott Brown seems to have come across as a more human and accessible candidate, in my view from 3000 miles away. He used social media--along with many other channels-- to portray himself that way. Social media did not make the difference but I'm pretty sure it made a difference.

These days, politicians need to be on social media for the same reason that they go to the funerals of famous people. That where the voters are. That's how they show a human side. That's where people have access to those who are elected to serve them.

This is a global phenomenon. Elected officials are joining Twitter, not just in the US but in the UK and most recently in Japan. Why? because voters are there in increasing numbers. You can reach more of them faster and at lower cost, but more, much more than that, you can find out what is on their mind.

You can listen and respond and that is really what we want from ut elected officials.

My view on Detroit terror attempt

January 2, 2010 · 5 comments in Personal & off-the-wall,Politics,Travel

On Christmas Day 2009, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, a son of one of Nigeria's richest families was preparing to board a flight to Detroit from Schiphol Airport, in Amsterdam one of the world's busiest. He probably slipped into a restroom, where he taped a large quantity of PEDT to the inside front of his underwear.

PEDT is a chemical explosive, and this was a new strain of it, designed to get past airport security. It worked, and simultaneously airport security failed. Umar was on an international terror watch list and he was holding a one-way ticket to the US.

As Northwest Air Flight 258 began it's descent into Detroit, Umar took out a syringe containing clear liquid. Lots of people carry syringes containing clear liquid onto planes. We are diabetics. Umar's however, contained a chemical accelerant that was supposed to make the PEDT blow a huge hole into the planes said and thus kill 278 people.

Instead, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab succeeded only in incinerating his own penis. If he had died and been rewarded his 100 virgins, as his Al Qaeda mentors may have promised, that would have been a very big loss for him.

Security learned that the bad guys had a new form of explosive and they would have to adjust yet again. It's a tough job, in my view. On one hand we just hate the scrutiny as they queue into airport lines. On the other hand we demand that this system of screening millions of people per hour all over the world be absolutely foolproof.

The fact of the matter is that it is very difficult to catch a criminal who is willing and often motivated to die to reach his or her goal. It is difficult and painful to stave off a culture who raises children to be suicide bombers. It is very hard to tell the difference between a student and a terrorist posing as a student.

So do we want security to do really? Do we now think airport security agents should pat everyone's crotches before they are allowed to fly? How about diabetics with insulin and syringes? No, we cannot put it in checked luggage for a few reasons. We can get doctor notes, but so can the terrorists.

President Obama is right that we just had a "systemic failure." A known bad guy got  onto a plane. But those who pay attention to system failures will tell you that nearly all large scale complex systems fail, sooner or later, particularly when something new and unanticipated gets inserted into the system.

Yet, right now, everyone is freaking out. TSA, the US airline security people tried to subpoena bloggers; Obama is taking his eye off of healthcare to address public concerns over security. Taiwan Air has unilaterally tightened security on flights into the US.

And so it goes.

I see what just happened from a different perspective than from most of those who I've heard or read. I look back to Sept. 11, 2001, and remember a spectacular horror. One that required coordination and collaboration between more than 100 people at least. One that required financial resources and talent.

On 9/11 the whole world was terrorized. In the following months we shuddered when people dear to us flew, or drive over bridges or go to an event attended by many people. We feared for our children and our landmarks.

Al Qaeda had made its signature large and spectacular acts of terrorism. Multiple coordinated assaults killing large numbers of people. Coordinated bombs in US embassies; hitting the USS Cole bombing a disco in Bali.

This is the way to foment terror. Hit anywhere at anytime. Kill people randomly and in big numbers. Make huge craters where building used to stand.

Compare that with a disturbed young man burning his penis off over Detroit.

It isn't that I don't take this event seriously, because I do. But I wonder if the world has not already seen Al Qaeda's best shot and we have survived and retaliated.

Look at a couple of other facts:

  • After 9/11, Osama bin Laden, taunted the Western World on a video tape. He appeared healthy and happy. Now, if he's alive at all, he is living a miserable life in dank  mountain caves. Even the Taliban who embraced them have stepped back. Being friends with Al Qaeda is just too much trouble.

  • The Islamic Republic of Iran in 2001 was the inspiration for the future of  fundamentalism. They financed and inspired young Muslim schools where suicides for Allah were seeded into young trusting minds. Now young Muslims are seeing what we see in Islam, a gaggle of old men willing to kill their nations students so that they can hold power in the name f Allah over a nation that wishes them to be gone.

I think it will be a long, long time before there is no need for a war on terrorism. I also think it is important to realize that it seems to be on the wane right now and its strength is waning from inside its ranks as well as from Western efforts to contain and destroy it.

But the purpose of terrorist acts is to provoke terror in those who survive the actual act. Let us not be more terrified than the fcts merit we should be.

I

Forgiving Colin Powell

October 23, 2008 · 10 comments in Politics

I have had my head down for a couple of days working on something important on short deadline so I'm a little bit late to the conversation. But I think I can add a few relevant new thoughts. First, if you have not actually watched the video, please take seven minutes to watch this study in clear thinking and candor.


I am a Democrat, but a fairly moderate one. In the course of voting, I have occasionally crossed the aisle for the right guy. This includes Arnold Schwarzenegger in California, for example. In my life, however, I have only seriously considered voting for two Republicans. The first was John McCain in 2000 and the second was Colin Powell who never came close to getting the nomination of his party. I always thought he would be the first Afro American to be nominated by a major party.

How ironic to watch Powell give the most articulate endorsement for a presidential candidate I have ever heard. Like me, Powell has been a longtime admirer of McCain and like me, the guy who's running for president does not appear to be the McCain we both admired.

But for me, there is more to this story. Colin Powell, was the reasonable voice in the first Bush administration. At a time, when day-after-day, some of us who consider ourselves moderate in politics discovered the member-after-member of the first Bush administration was far to the right of moderate in their ideology; that we learned that the president's vows to be the education president turned out to be a fabrication, when we learned that their was nothing compassionate about Bush's conservatism, Powell seemed to represent the voice of reason, the thoughtful guy, who caught insert some sense in this regime.

But sometimes the best of people steer those who trust them in the wrong direction. When the Iraq issue took America by surprise. Powell was the voice that sold the moderate Americans on the war. When he stood before the United Nations and showed what appeared to be compelling evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and were preparing to use them, I was among those who for a brief period of time that I will always regret followed Powell's argument into supporting this obscenity of a war.

I never forgave Powell for that.  Not until I watch that video. I forgive him because this time I am certain he is leading people in the right direction.  What was so compelling to me was that he just quietly told the truth and once again, I not only believe his words, I believe in him and I forgive him for what was a most egregious error on his part.