Howdy, Pardner!

There's a new sheriff in town, and he ain't gonna take no guff from the likes 'a you!

According to the recently retired CIA Director, the internet is the new Wild West, and the 'gummint' needs to ride on in an settle things down. I guess folks out here's gittin' a mite too ornery for the administration's likin'.

...but ultimately the Wild West must give way to governance and control.
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The Internet represents a potential Achilles' heel for our financial stability and physical security if the networks we are creating are not protected.
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Access to networks like the World Wide Web might need to be limited to those who can show they take security seriously.

- George Tenet, former Bush Administration CIA Director

The Frame
That the benevolent sheriff must protect us from the hooligans that threaten our national infrastructure and that the best way to do that is to restrict internet access in the US.

The Reality
Political Oppressors 'R' Us.

Cutting off internet access for US citizens is a means of preventing information from flowing freely outside of government controlled channels.

If the concern were really people hacking into and crippling our infrastructure, it would make sense to either block the access of the people who pose the threat, or isolate the vulnerable segments of the network from the rest of the internet. Neither of those things will be accomplished by clamping down on internet access by US citizens. But, in classic Bush administration style, the statement of the actual problem is just a smoke screen, and fixing the problem is out of the question. Instead, they'll just remove a little bit more freedom from us, while claiming that it makes us safer.

In 1999, China did the same thing, using pretty much the same "protecting the infrastructure" excuse. They even had a way cool name for the state organization in charge of preventing information flow, "State Information Security Appraisal and Identification Management Committee:"

China has announced that it is setting up a new body to guard security on the Internet.

China's official news agency said the newly-established committee would protect confidential government and commercial files as well as individual users and would have the ability to identify any Net user.

It said the aim was to keep national secrets from being stolen.

...

BBC Beijing Correspondent Duncan Hewitt says that concern about the risk to businesses has been heightened after a recent survey which pointed to poor security controls in the computer systems of many companies.

Of course, since the report was about China and not the US, the press actually covered the story for what it was - political oppression:

China is clamping down on the Internet, but new regulations governing online news and chat rooms reveal a country caught between the desire to foster e-commerce and the need to prevent political dissension.

In the bombastic style that old-line Communists learn from the crib, Beijing has deemed it illegal for any online forum to contain dialogue that "leaks state secrets," "offends the national honor," or advocates "evil cults" (a euphemism for outlawed political parties).

They even reported on interesting twists in the political censorship story:

The Chinese government is up to its same old tricks, this time censoring the Internet and, of course, jailing political dissenters.

Ironically, Chinese officials are being aided and abetted in their repressive policies by the country that worships free speech, or at least by some of its companies. The London Observer has reported that Amnesty International identified Microsoft as one of the major companies in the West helping to further "the dramatic rise in the number of people detained or sentenced for Internet-related offenses."

Nowadays, China's extending their crackdowns, shuttering internet cafes, charging huge fines, and imprisoning people. The Chinese Oppression flavor-of-the-month is morality - the government must protect the people from the pornography, gambling, and violence:.

The ministry said porn, gambling and violence have adversely affected the healthy development of the internet in China.

Isn't that special!?

So first China used the need to protect the infrastructure from bad guys as their cover for political oppression, now they've moved on to safeguarding morality as their cover.

Looks like maybe the Bush administration has been not only reading, but memorizing China's "Little Handbook of Political Oppression."

So how is the US press reporting the suggestion that the government needs to protect us from free information flow on the internet?

Mostly, they're not, because, at Tenet's request, the press wasn't invited to the speech, though excerpts were leaked to UPI by a program participant:

The national media, including United Press International, were excluded from the event at Tenet's request, organizers said, but UPI was given an account of the speech by a member of the audience. The quotes were verified by a source close to the former director.

But, hey, really, it's for our own good. Just stand back folks, the sheriff's saddlin' up his white horse, puttin' on his white hat, and readyin' to ride into town to fix everything.

Yeah, that's the ticket!

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Agendas

The right is very fond of the word "agenda."

Agenda: A list or program of things to be done or considered.

Every time some neo-con on the right dislikes the facts provided by someone on the left, they attempt to discount the facts by claiming the other person has an agenda.

For example, the office of U.S. Representative Henry Waxman of California issued a report on the state of Abstinence-only sex education in this country. Most surprisingly, the report didn't just find that programs that teach only abstinence fail to lower the teen pregnancy and STD rates, it showed that such programs are riddled with misleading and inaccurate information. One program actually taught teenagers that masturbation causes pregnancy. If you don't know why that's not possible, buy Our Bodies, Ourselves for a detailed description of the process.

When faced with the facts, rather than admit that the programs should be re-evaluated for effectiveness and accuracy, Genevieve Wood, a republican political strategist, just stated over and over that Waxman had an agenda. Here's one excerpt from CNN's Crossfire on Thursday, December 2, 2004:

CARVILLE: Can we agree that masturbation does not cause pregnancy, just -- it's simple enough. Yes or no?

WOOD: I'm not going to debate that thing -- no, I'm not talking going to talk -- that's not what this is about.

CARVILLE: Well, can you...

WOOD: That's not what this is about. What this is about is a political agenda.

The Frame
The implication is that the facts are false or irrelevant because the author of the report has an agenda.

The other implication is that the speaker doesn't have an agenda.

The Reality
Well, guess what? Everyone has an agenda.

When you say or write something, you do it for some purpose. If you say "Hi" to a co-worker, your agenda is to communicate welcome. If you write a "thank you" note to a friend, your agenda is to make sure your friend knows you appreciate whatever you're thanking them for.

If you write a report, your agenda (the thing you want considered) is the result of that report. If the report happens to indicate that a program funded by taxpayer money is (a) having no effect whatsoever and (b) teaching lies to our children, then your agenda is to change the program, so (a) fewer tax dollars will be wasted and (b) our children will learn the truth not lies.

And of course, Ms. Wood has her own agenda: imposing her personal views on the lives of our children, regardless of the cost in terms of pregnancy and disease.

This study dealt specifically with the content of the textbooks vs. scientific fact. The textbooks from 11 of the 13 abstinence-only programs that are used nationwide contain scientifically inaccurate or misleading information.

Additionally, the study reviewed the scientific literature on the effectiveness of abstinence-only education. Those studies showed that there's no statistically significant difference in teen pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease rates between students participating in abstinence-only programs and students who did not participate in any program. That is: these programs are as effective as no program at all.

The most effective programs in the US:

Combine abstinence education with medically accurate information on a variety of sexuality-related issues, including contraception, safer sex, and the risks of unprotected intercourse and how to avoid them, as well as the development of communication, negotiation, and refusal skills. Such programs have been shown to delay the onset of sexual initiation among younger adolescents by as much as 15 percent and to increase contraceptive use among older adolescents by as much as 22 percent (Brindis, 1999; Frost & Forrest, 1995).

The most effective program in the world is in the Netherlands:

Where sexuality education begins in preschool and is integrated into all levels and subjects of schooling, boasts the lowest teen birth rate in the world — 6.9 per 1,000 women aged 15–19 — a rate almost eight times lower than that of the U. S. [emphasis added] Likewise, the Dutch teenage abortion rate is more than three times lower than that of the U.S., and its overall AIDS case rate is more than eight times lower.

Why does the accuracy of the data matter if the kids aren't supposed to be fooling around anyway? Well here's an example. One of the programs, which seems to be trying to scare kids into skipping sex, teaches that condoms won't prevent the transmission of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. It claims that the virus will pass through the condom because the virus is smaller than sperm, which is what condoms are designed to stop. Of course that's false - the pores in a condom are so small the virus cannot pass through. However, since that fact doesn't forward the neo-con "no condom" agenda, it's conveniently ignored.

So what? Why is that a big deal?

It's a big deal because kids who learn this lie will not consider using a condom when they do become sexually active. Those kids will be at greater risk of AIDS, not to mention the other diseases blocked by condoms. In one study of 15,000 cases of intercourse using condoms, between HIV-positive people and their HIV-negative partners, not a single case of HIV transmission occured. That's 0 for 15,000. I'd say that's pretty darned effective.

Is sexual activity in a teenager really worthy of a death sentence? If not, then why keep this life-saving fact from them?

Pregnancy, HPV, gonorrhea, HIV, and syphilis are much more desirable than unpunished "sin" in the neo-con extremist agenda. In their world-view, it's what your kid deserves for daring to have sex.

Personally, I prefer Representative Waxman's agenda of compassion for our children.

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