When Feudal Fealty Meets Democracy

Quick question.  Who remembers who Eric Shinseki was?

(. . .pause. . .)

Anyone?

(. . .longer pause. . .)

Really? Nobody? *sigh*

Okay, quick recap. Shinseki was an Army general who served from the mid-1960s until 2003.  He had a fairly distinguished career - three Bronze Stars, a pair of Purple Hearts, a handful of combat tours, along with the prerequisites needed to attain the rank of four-star General - but I'm bringing him up because of something that happened at the tail end of his career.

See, Shinseki's final assignment before he retired was Chief of Staff of the Army. For those not familiar with the military's organizational structure, that made him the Army's representative on the Joint Chiefs - which means Shinseki had a fair amount of interaction with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Secretary of Defense, and the President.  And for the back half of Shinseki's term as Chief of Staff, those three individuals were Richard Myers, Donald Rumsfeld, and George W Bush.

Shinseki and Rumsfeld had a disagreement over a little event known as Operation Iraqi Freedom. Specifically, the number of troops that should have comprised the initial invasion force. Rumsfeld thought it should have been between 100K - 150K troops, while Shinseki believed the mission would require several hundred thousand troops.  History eventually vindicated Shinseki, but contradicting Rumsfeld (before Congress, no less) ended up putting him on Rumsfeld's bad side: from then onward, Shinseki was persona non grata with Rumsfeld and the cabal within the Bush Administration who were eager to invade Iraq. Besides making Shinseki a "lame duck," Rumsfeld's very public rebuke had the effect of cowing other senior officers who might have disagreed with one of Rumsfeld's policies, or have given him advice he didn't want to hear.

Okay, you all still with me? You in the back: wake up!

Questions? Oh, you want to know why I'm bringing all this up.  Right, I was just getting to that.

I brought that incident up for two reasons.  First, to illustrate the consequences of politicizing the military.  By undercutting Shinseki, Rumsfeld made it more likely that people would give him advice he wanted to hear, rather than what they believed would work. Look at what happened as a result: the U.S. invaded Iraq with far fewer troops than necessary.  Combined with a handful of other bad decisions, such as bypassing weapons caches and ignoring widespread looting, this meant that the United States lost control of the situation very early on.  Had Rumsfeld gone with Shinseki's recommended troop levels, the U.S. could have had enough personnel to prevent many foreign insurgents from sneaking across the border or maintain civil order.  Now, it's not certain that the additional troops Shinseki recommended would have been enough to contain Iraq, but those troops would have made success more likely. Yet Rumsfeld rejected Shinseki's advice, and that decision came back to haunt the military throughout OIF.  Thousands of people died as a result.

The second reason I brought this up was to tie it to a recent event that probably hasn't gotten as much attention as it deserved.  In the aftermath of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher's court martial for murdering a civilian (quick recap of those events here), President Trump announced on Twitter that he would be instructing the Secretary of the Navy to rescind Navy Achievement Medals for two Navy JAG officers who prosecuted Gallagher's case.

(Quick tangent: before I get to my main point, I want to detour briefly for reasons that will become obvious very quickly.  It looked pretty clear to me that Gallagher used excessive force against an unarmed noncombatant - if I were a juror, I would've voted to convict him - but here's the important part: I think the rumors of excessive force swirling around the case were what caught Trump's attention.  I'm speculating, but based on Trump's past behavior, I think he heard about the case and thought, "That's how we need to start treating enemy combatants. None of this PC, Geneva Conventions bullshit. Brutalize them, kill them, torture them - they're subhuman anyway!")

[Reminder: This is what I think Trump believes. Definitely NOT what I believe.  For an interesting piece on the thought process of people like Trump, click here.]

Okay, now to my main point.  I hope you're all still with me.

It is wildly inappropriate for the president to involve himself with this case, especially by directing the Secretary of the Navy to rescind the prosecutors' awards, which were likely earned for something unrelated to the Gallagher case.  Besides the very blatant micromanaging and flagrant pettiness, it sends a signal to the armed forces: "You get your awards thanks to my generosity.  Make me unhappy, and I'll take them away."

What's that? You think I'm reading too much into this?

I don't think so.  Consider the following:

• Trump's meeting just a few months after his term began, in which the members of his cabinet took turns praising him
• He has a habit of firing any appointee who disagrees with him (Dan Coats) or makes him look bad (Ryan Zinke)
• He's expressed the belief that the heads of government agencies - most notably the Attorney General - exist to serve him, not the country or the agency they oversee
• The USS John McCain incident 

So, if Trump can get away with revoking the awards of someone who displeases him, what's to stop him from doing the same with a promotion or a career-boosting assignment? What's to stop him from meddling with official doctrine or overruling a commander's battlefield decision? What about adding his name to the oath of enlistment, right after the "bear true faith and allegiance to" section?

Trump is under the impression that the armed forces belong to him, not the country or the office of the president.  He's thought so for a long time, and while there's nothing wrong with thinking that, his recent actions subtly bring that thought closer to reality.  It's another tiny crack he's made in the country's democratic foundation - namely, that the military belongs to the office, not to the person occupying it.

So to sum up: yes, I think Trump is gradually trying to make the military loyal to him and him alone. No, I don't think that's a fringe idea anymore.

Class dismissed.

American Values in the Trump Era

I saw a Facebook post over the weekend, containing the line "What the fuck happened, America?" The post's author didn't specifically state what it was written in response to, but it's not hard to guess.  Over the weekend, the story broke that the Trump administration had directed Customs and Border Patrol to specifically begin splitting up families that cross into America's southern border.  The children are housed in Spartan detention camps, while the parents are presumably deported.

Read that again.  The Trump administration ordered CBP to split up families who cross into the United States from the south.  CBP went right along with it, without hesitation.  And many of his followers rationalized what the administration was doing.  Some even cheered.

"What the fuck happened," indeed.

This policy (it is absolutely NOT a law, and don't believe otherwise) is intentionally cruel and appalling; and if you're not shocked by it, you need to recalibrate your moral compass.  But the truth is, it didn't just come out of nowhere - in more ways than one.  First, the United States government has been party to other inhumane practices, both large and small throughout its history.  You probably know of some of the bigger ones: slavery, the Tuskeegee Experiments, interning Japanese-American citizens in WWII, and the Trail of Tears, to name a few.  As for the smaller ones, the ones that immediately come to mind tend to be more recent.  Camp X-Ray, rendition, and "enhanced interrogation" (AKA torture) desensitized us to the government treating non-Americans cruelly.  The TSA enacted increasingly invasive and unnecessary security measures while providing no mechanisms for recourse or accountability for abuses of authority, and many people shrugged their shoulders and accepted its infringements on all of our rights.  Ditto with the NSA and its bulk data collection.  We largely ignored the Pentagon's 1033 Program, which supplied surplus military hardware to police forces across the nation; and just as the old saying about "when all you have is a hammer..." goes, those police units began adopting more aggressive attitudes and tactics.

The CBP's separation of families is a convergence of all the things I just described: the TSA's lack of accountability, police forces' aggressive posture, and Camp X-Ray's barbaric treatment of non-Americans.  And we - American citizens - kind of let it happen by abandoning our civic responsibilities.  The more often we turned a blind eye, or halfheartedly protested, the more these practices became entrenched.  Acceptable.  Widespread.

But that's only part of it.  Another huge factor, as I'm sure you can guess, is President Trump.  The Trump administration's policy of separating families should not be a surprise, if you paid attention to what Trump said and who he surrounded himself with on the campaign trail.  Remember when Trump referred to Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists? That was almost three years ago to the day.  Trump has never bothered to hide his hatred for Latino immigrants or his racism, and now he's pushing policy in line with his attitudes.


As much as Trump is at the center of this, it's not just about him, though.  The family separation policy may have been in the planning for a while, but it was only rolled out recently.  Did you notice how quickly CBP fell in line, though? I don't see many people talking about that, except tangentially.  I've seen a few articles about how indifferent, even cruel, the CBP officers have acted toward the detained children, but AFAIK nobody has asked how they got that way.  Institutional cultures don't shift so radically in such a short time, which means that the CBP behavior we're seeing has been there for a while, just below the surface.  Trump's policies may have drawn that cruelty out, but it didn't create it from scratch.  Regardless, curbing the CBP excesses will be one of many problems this country faces after Trump leaves office.

I often claim that Trump unleashed this country's ugly side.  All the racism, the misogyny, the anti-intellectualism, the corruption and the lying, the obnoxious boasting, and the "burn it all down" style of governing - it didn't originate with Trump.  Like the CBP agents, there were a lot of shitbags who Trump has emboldened.  They will still be here after Trump is gone, and they won't go quietly. The fallout from the Trump administration will shape politics for decades.

Because this is about a lot more than the family separation policy.  It's about Trump's entire worldview, something that informs everything he thinks, says, and does.  Think back to Trump's comments about immigrants being criminals and rapists, and how those comments relate to this current family separation policy.  Now think about other things Trump said during his campaign.  Remember all of his racist and misogynist dog whistles? Remember when he said he'd only acknowledge the election results if he won? Or how he popularized a slogan calling for a political rival to be jailed - and still uses it at rallies and speeches?

Does this mean I think we're on the march toward genocide or a dictatorship? That Trump's going to seize control of the government and declare himself emperor or something, or that we'll be herding immigrants, Muslims, and who knows who else into camps? I honestly don't know, but I'm giving both non-zero possibilities at this point.  I may very well be overreacting, and there's certainly a significant chance I'm wrong.  However, there have been a lot of indicators that Trump wants to do so.  He's installed family members in key posts, centralized the decision-making process, made targeting minorities and other protected classes a common theme of his policies, and fawned over more than one totalitarian despot.  At the same time, the institutional checks meant to keep a president from seizing power are weakened.  The GOP-controlled congress won't stand up to him, because of either cowardice or opportunism - I can't figure out which; and the Democrats suck as an opposition party, because they won't come up with a coherent platform.

They need to, quickly; and they need to fight to win with everything they've got. (Everything legal, of course.) Because if the Trump administration is separating immigrant families today, what will it be doing tomorrow? Will it move on to some other group next after it's done with immigrants, Muslims, or transgender people? As I already said, I don't know.  Nobody can predict the future.  But that's why it's important to smack down any authoritarian policies early, because by the time people are getting marched to the gas chambers, it's too late.

This isn't a debate about policy any more, it's about morality.  Right and wrong.  Trump, the members of his administration, his Republican enablers in Congress, and his supporters - they're all embracing a very immoral and un-American set of values.  History will someday judge them as villains - IF the rest of us do something about it.  Vote, protest, call your elected reps.  Do what you can to render the Party of Trump ineffective as a political movement.  There should be no place for their ideas and policies in American society.

Because history will judge you too.

The Times, They Are A'Changing. . .

I want to start this post with a simple thought experiment, but before I do that, I want to mention an article I read earlier that inspired this post. This morning, I stumbled across an opinion piece by Leonard Pitts Jr articulating the direction he thinks the Democratic Party should take in response to  Donald Trump and the modern GOP.  That direction, in Pitts' opinion, should be a hard left.  I would probably mangle Pitts' main point if I tried paraphrasing it, so I will just quote directly from the article:

"What if Democrats were as bold and definitive as he, but for universal healthcare, sane immigration reform, a living wage, fixing the broken justice system, jobs training and day care for families on public assistance, addressing climate change, and not blowing up the world in manhood-measuring contests with Asian dictators? What if they were pugnacious and uncompromising in the service of simple decency? Of inclusion and compassion? Of just treating people right?"

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article178599721.html#storylink=cpy

Sounds more than a bit Bernie Sanders-ish, doesn't it? I'll come back to the quote later; now, let's perform that thought experiment.  Ask yourself a question: what do you think the founding fathers would do if we were somehow able to bring them to the present and give them the task of redesigning the government they had built? Do you think the government they would come up with would resemble the one they originally created? If so, how? Assume that we were somehow able to bring them up to date on the important events and advances that had happened in the roughly 250 years since they had founded the United States: the Civil War, the moon landing, the Great Depression, both World Wars, the Industrial Revolution, the Atomic Age, 9/11, the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, airplanes, the internet, radio and television, automobiles, antibiotics, the interstate highway system, and indoor plumbing. Those are the major ones I could remember off the top of my head.  I'm sure there are many others.

They say a picture is worth 1000 words, so let me also illustrate my point visually.  Here is the USS Constellation. The one on the left was commissioned in 1855; it still exists as a tourist attraction in Baltimore's Inner Harbor.  The one on the right was commissioned approximately 100 years later, and was retired in 2003.
 

Quite a difference a century (give or take a few years) makes, wouldn't you say? Circling back to my thought experiment, what do you think the founders would think if they saw this side-by-side comparison? This image is a microcosm of how the United States, and also a great part of the world, has changed since the day that the ink on the Constitution dried.

And that is the heart of the issue, right there. The founders championed the concept of small government, as one way of safeguarding individual liberty (another principle they championed quite heavily). Here are a couple quotes to reinforce that point.

"I own I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive." – Thomas Jefferson, Letter to James Madison, 1787

"Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood." – John Adams, 1765

The logic went that a small government would consist of fewer laws and regulations to stifle its citizens, and also lack the means to impose its will on them. There is certainly something to be said in support of that reasoning.  Let's use the National Security Agency as an example, because it's an obvious and important one. We all know from the Snowden documents that the NSA has been collecting and storing virtually all of our digital communications: phone calls, text messages, emails, social media posts - basically everything it could get its hands on. The NSA is "big government" in terms of its mission and capabilities, not really its size (it *probably* has fewer employees than the IRS, but more than the EPA), because its ability to access our digital communications is a very potent capability. Now, is the NSA a tool of oppression? As it stands now, not really. Five minutes ago, I Googled "How many employees does the NSA have?" so I could include a specific number in this blog post, before I decided I didn't need to. I'm not going to have some secret police agents show up at midnight because of that Google search, and to my knowledge no other American citizen has either. However, it's not difficult to imagine that it could happen some day (if you don't think it could, read up on Germany's history from 1920 to 1945), which is why the founders thought it was a good idea to remove the potential for such abuses of power, by keeping government small and also crafting a set of protections against oppressive government.

Now let's look at a more mundane category of big government: arbitrary and excessive regulations.  I've linked to a couple examples here, here, here, here, and here.  There are probably hundreds more out there.  Everybody has a story or a hundred about some frustrating and ridiculous government regulation in our everyday lives.  Want to start your own business? You'll probably need to get a few permits.  Want to build a garage on your property? You'll need permits for that too.  They rob us of hard-earned money and time, and the implication is often that we're not competent enough to run our own lives.  And more than that, they inhibit economic growth in a variety of ways.  Big government is also a self-reinforcing problem, since government agencies constantly look for ways to maintain and expand their mandates, so they can get bigger budgets year after year. And then, there's taxes, which are another source of irritation for a lot of people. (That's nothing new, remember the Boston Tea Party?)

So yes, a big, bloated government gets a lot of flack - which it deserves.  But here's the other side of it. Remember that picture of the two ships? Small governments don't build ships like that aircraft carrier. Small governments don't build cross-country interstates, air traffic control networks, university networks, or other things that help a country flourish. The concept of small government as it existed 200-some years ago is obsolete. No country that tried to operate that way would do well - there have been far too many significant technological changes.

In addition to technology, there's another key factor: population.  See the graph right above this? There are now approximately 320 million people in the United States. What do we do with them all? Those people need certain necessities to live: food & water, shelter, medicine, clothing. Forget everything else: cars, TVs, higher education (in fact, I'd like to see fewer people go to college; but that's another post in itself). People need the absolute basics so that they're not dying in the streets.  It's not just "unicorns and rainbows" generosity, either.  When enough people start having to go without, especially when they can remember better economic times, social unrest is just around the corner. There's a saying I've heard a few times that captures the concept pretty well: "Any society is only three meals away from revolution." So at minimum, the population needs to have safety nets in place to catch people who hit on hard times; and that falls on the government, since absolutely no other part of society has the resources or the responsibility to perform this task.  And if a country wants to do more than just get by, it needs to make investments in its citizens: quality education, health & disease prevention programs, environmental safety, and so on.

Of course, there are legitimate questions about limited resources and long-term costs. If the population keeps growing like it has, eventually it will break the bank or use up all the resources. It has to hit a peak sometime, because nothing can continue indefinitely. Then we're really in a bad spot. Certainly, we'll have to make some hard decisions in the future (maybe even the near future.)  But right now, I've got good reason to be skeptical of politicians raising those questions, because nearly all of them are not being honest about it.  The ACA, for example, was attacked because of its massive cost (among other reasons), but so far, efforts to dismantle or undo it have been shown to cost more than leaving it alone would have.  Also, recent proposed legislation included provisions that would have slashed tax revenue or tacked on billions in additional spending.  I have also heard very little about halting production on the F-35 program. These inconvenient facts make me question the urgency of "starving the beast." Maybe they're right, though. But I have trouble believing them when their priorities are so warped.

To circle back to my thought experiment from the beginning, I don't presume to know what the founding fathers would have done, because I could point to many primary sources that support my claim just as someone else could point to ones that refute it.  There are a lot of areas where big government has grown out of control, in potentially dangerous ways like the NSA's mass surveillance program, and in irritating ways like overzealous regulators and nonsensical rules.  But despite these drawbacks, Americans are still free in more ways than they are not, and the benefits we receive outweigh the costs.  Leonard Pitts' vision for the Democrats seems like a good one, one that will help America flourish.

DACA, Congress, and Separation of Powers

I knew I'd eventually write something that would infuriate my (very small) audience, and based on the posts I'm seeing in my Facebook feed, this post could very well be the one that does it.  Don't worry, I've picked a last meal and I've got a cigarette and a blindfold - just in case.

Okay, so DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals).  That's the current Divisive Issue of the Week.  I'll start with a little quick-and-dirty history on DACA before I discuss the recent developments.  DACA was President Obama's 2012 executive action on immigration, which partly resulted from repeated Congressional failures to pass its own piece of immigration reform, known as the DREAM Act.  Remember, executive action.  That will become important later.  I'm not sure how DACA meshes with the proposed DREAM Act, or with Congress' 2013 immigration reform act (S.744), and that's further down the rabbit hole than I plan to go.

That's DACA in a nutshell.  Now, as anyone who has followed the news recently knows, President Trump announced that he plans to roll back DACA, along with a complementary program called DAPA (Deferred Action for Parents of Americans).  His reversal will be delayed for six months, to give Congress time to act (presumably to craft its own legislation).  Okay, unpopular opinion time. . . Constitutionally, Trump is doing the right thing here.  Congress is the lawmaking branch of government, and it has the duty to come up with immigration laws.  Yes, Obama faced an extremely stubborn and unruly Congress (it absolutely lived up to it's nickname of "The Party of No"), but that's how the framework of government is structured.  The Founders assigned lawmaking authority to Congress; that duty was never granted to the President/Executive Branch.  I can understand Obama's frustration and desire to get something done - Congress was doing its best to block him at every turn, and nobody would stand for that.  It's human nature to push back against another person or group of people preventing you from accomplishing anything.  Maybe one person in 1,000 could resist that urge.  But the president was (is) supposed to resist that urge.  It's one of the core principles of the federal government - the president does not craft legislation.  There's no "except if Congress won't cooperate" loophole.

Not that Congress is blameless.  I'm not giving Obama a pass, but I understand why he acted the way he did.  He stepped in to fill a vacuum that Congress created, and he saw the obstructionist Congress as an obstacle to overcome.  It had six years and change to craft decent legislation, but instead it grandstanded with stunts like trying to repeal the ACA over fifty times - a task Congressional Republicans knew they couldn't achieve, but did anyway to keep their voters energized - and when the GOP gained a unified government in the 2016 elections, it had nothing prepared.  The GOP railed against the ACA for six years, and evidently put zero effort into writing a better piece of legislation.  Congress didn't govern, it obstructed and it abandoned its responsibility.

Now, the immigration issue is back in Congress' court, where it should be according to the legislative process.  Well, the CATO Institute predicts that rolling back DACA & DAPA will have a high economic cost:

"We estimate that the fiscal cost of immediately deporting the approximately 750,000 people currently in the DACA program would be over $60 billion to the federal government along with a $280 billion reduction in economic growth over the next decade."

Those are massive economic consequences, and if Congress was smart, it would vote to keep DACA in place, or at least craft some nearly-identical legislation.  This should be an easy decision.  However, Trump is still popular with the GOP base, and they want to see DACA repealed, in addition to being anti-immigrant.  One of Trump's key campaign promises was stricter immigration reform; and while he's a terrible statesman, he knows how to court public opinion.  Basically, Congressional Republicans are in a bind: rescind DACA and take a huge economic hit or preserve it somehow and enrage their base.  I predict Congress will let DACA lapse, because the Trump cabinet confirmation hearings and the ACA/BCRA fiasco showed that many Congressional Republicans will still vote along party lines, even if that vote carries serious economic consequences.  I do not trust Congress to make the smart decision here.

Even though I think Congress would be making a huge mistake by reversing DACA, it is Congress' mistake to make.  Trump is actually doing the right thing by rolling back an executive order and putting the responsibility on Congress.  Is repealing DACA cruel, foolish, and petty? Absolutely.  But we have to see beyond the immediate policy outcome we want and look at the long game.  No single official or branch of government should have too much power, and there is a convincing argument that the Executive has concentrated too much power over the past few decades.  Curbing that power will cause pain sooner or later - if not DACA, it will be something else.  But it needs to be done.

A few additional links:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/16/us/us-to-stop-deporting-some-illegal-immigrants.html?pagewanted=all
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/349148-daca-debate-turns-toward-congress
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/03/trump-dreamers-immigration-daca-immigrants-242301

Batman, Captain America, and the War on Terror

Art and life mirror each other all the time.  Fictional "technology" has inspired a number of scientists, entrepreneurs, and inventors; and countless works of fiction have been based on actual historical events.  This blog entry will focus on one ongoing event that has exerted significant influence on American policies since 2001.  That event, obviously, is the War on Terror; and two movies which incorporated aspects of the War on Terror in their plots are The Dark Knight and Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

First, let's look at The Dark Knight.  There are two parts of the movie that resemble American war-fighting methods.  Toward the middle of the movie, Batman abducts Lau, a criminal organization's accountant, from Hong Kong.  (Side note: Batman escapes using a CIA-designed personnel recovery system.)  Batman's escape strategy is bolder and more dramatic, but it is virtually identical to a controversial (and in many countries, illegal) counter-terrorism tactic called extraordinary rendition.  The big difference is that instead of being dragged back to Gotham, the prisoner gets delivered to a secret prison in a country where cruel treatment is acceptable. 

The next incident in The Dark Knight that parallels the War on Terror occurs toward the film's end.  Batman uses his corporation's resources to access every cell phone in Gotham, in order to find the Joker.  This also resembled an American government tactic for fighting the War on Terror, although the general public wouldn't learn about the government's mass surveillance programs until about five years after The Dark Knight premiered.

Now, let's look at Captain America.  The central conflict is that Hydra (doesn't that just sound like an evil organization?) has infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D and plans to use its helicarriers (which make AC-130s look like BB guns) to eliminate Hydra's adversaries.  A Hydra scientist invented a mathematical equation that could identify which people might oppose Hydra; while the helicarriers acted as a high-altitude sniper rifle, and had the advantage of being out of range of antiaircraft weapons.  In many ways, Hydra's master plan is like America's criteria for deciding who ends up on the receiving end of a drone strike.  It's called a "signature strike", and here's a good definition courtesy of Foreign Policy magazine's Dan DeLuce and Paul McLeary:

"Signature strikes were first used during George W. Bush’s administration, and the name refers to the fact that the targets — by virtue of their ages, actions, and locations inside countries known to house terrorist operatives — bear the “signature” of militant activity. U.S. intelligence and defense officials believe the strikes have inflicted heavy damage on al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. But critics say the rules for the drone strikes against large numbers of military-age men are too vague and carry an unacceptably high risk of killing innocent civilians who have no connection to any terrorist plot."

I want to bring up one other point to tie this back to political theory.  Both movies hint at the moral and philosophical conflict of freedom vs security.  That dilemma is something else that comes up a lot in real life.  The Founding Fathers leaned heavily toward the "freedom" side of the scale, especially when it came to restricting government power, and it's pretty noticeable in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, as well as writings many of them left behind.  The back-and-forth debate between security and liberty still goes on, and probably will continue for many decades.  And the secretive organization that promotes iron-fisted control is usually the villain in both works of fiction (SPECTRE, The Galactic Empire, Cobra, Hydra) and in the history books (the Gestapo, the KGB, just about any secret police force).