WiserBlog

Paying Attensity

What is the Carlyle Group?
Who are the people behind the name?
And how much power does Carlyle have?

Most WiserBlog readers know the disquieting answers to these questions about the private equity group,   posed at the website hosting the 48-minute documentary,"Exposed: The Carlyle Group".  Watch the film anyway. (It was broadcast on VPRO Netherlands TV, so, the first two minutes are in Dutch)

And once you have, consider one of the latest  innovations from "Attensity" funded by In-Q-Tel, aka the C.I.A.'s "investment arm," aka the Carlyle Group. 

Attensity, based in Palo Alto, Calif., has developed a way to turn voluminous electronic content--like say e-mail messages, call logs, memos and instant messages--into data that is "relevant and usable."  Ordinarily you need a database or some kind of structure in order to search for data.  That's no fun because as technology analyst Nick Patience notes, only 20% of  people in business or in public service keep their information in formal databases. The rest is in files, emails, inter-office memos...

So, what the Attensity software can do is allow "people" to "start using this tremendous amount of intelligence which has gone untapped." As Attensity's co-founder, David L. Bean, told the New York Times, "the software helps federal researchers look for clues to terrorist and criminal activities in 'the text from the dispatches from around the world, the field reports, the newspaper articles and the chat rooms.' "

There are other, more limited versions of this kind of software in existence.  For example, large law firms use similar software to sift through the thousands of pages of documents they collect during discovery.  But Attensity is far more powerful and is not limited to an individual computer or network.  How long will it be before every word that is typed or uttered is recorded, tagged and logged?  I suppose it goes without saying that I find this worrisome... especially when you have the likes of the Caryle Group involved.

Last month, the Carlyle Group released a summary of its investment activities for 2004 and wouldn't you know, lucky investors reaped $5.3 billion, more than twice the $2.1 billion they scored the previous year.  Indeed, said William Conway Jr., Carlyle's co-founder and managing director "It was our best year ever." Carlyle raised $7.8 billion and invested $2.7 billion. Ain't life in the military-industrial complex grand?

"This is not Mayberry."

First they chipped the "foreigners"... (US-VISIT)
and I didn't care because
how else are you going to know which ones are terrorists?

Then they chipped the small children (anti-kidnapping gadgetry)
and I didn't care because
how can you expect parents to watch their own children?

Then they chipped the older children (school IDs)
and I didn't care because
you can't trust kids nowadays

Then they chipped consenting adults (medical records, Registered Traveler, passports)
and I didn't care because
it was voluntary after all

Then they developed more and more uses for the chip
and I didn't care because
hey, you can't stop progress

Then they told me everyone else had a chip
and I didn't care because
I didn't want one

Then they wanted to know why I didn't want one
and I cared because
it didn't sound voluntary anymore.

Then they told me that it wasn't...

My apologies to Pastor Niemoller for the clumsy adaptation of his quote, but it was difficult to resist. Readers of WiserBlog know that this is something I find quite disturbing--the lack of oversight in the development and use of radio frequency identification (RFID) chips. The chips were recently cleared by the FDA for "sudermal" use; but whether they are being injected into human triceps or “only” embedded in identification cards, people ought to be paying closer attention to their use.

Last week, amid parental protests, a California public school, Brittan Elementary School, implemented use of RFID chips on school grounds to identify and track children. This is not the first time that the chips have been used in school IDs here in the United States.  In 2003, the Enterprise Charter School in Buffalo, New York implemented use of chip-embedded badges for their students and staff. And last  November, the Spring Independent School District (TX) equipped 28,000 students with similar ID badges to read when they get on and off school buses.

However, in light of House passage of H.R. 418 (REAL ID Act of 2005) (also last week), the issue of mandatory identification cards takes on new significance.  It is my hope that it will trigger closer scrutiny as well. Certainly there ought to be some public debate.—of course the same can be said of H.R. 418 itself.

Brittan Elementary students, like the kids in New York and Texas, will be wearing their chip-embedded badges around their necks on lanyards. While I believe that they may substitute their school-issued lanyards with ones bearing the image of Spongebob or Spiderman, the badge wearing is as compulsory as their attendance.  Earnie Graham, who serves as the school's Principal and Superintendent, has made it clear that students could be disciplined if they refuse to wear the badges.

The Brittan badges were developed by InCom Corp., which paid the school to use the badges. The school will also receive royalties from sales if other schools adopt the system.  And why not?  Isn't that how it works for The Carlyle Group (they have their own RFID contracts with the military through subsidiary Matrics (now Symbol))? Industrial-complexes should not just be for the big guns... we really should nurture such entrepreneurial ventures. 

Meanwhile, as for the objections to the RFID badges? Says Superintendent Graham, "You know what it comes down to? I believe junior high students want to be stylish. [The badges are] not stylish."

If Principal Graham believes that that is all ‘it comes down

The New York Times: "All the news that fits the print"

New York Times reports on Greg Palast's three-year-old Enron story

"In one January 2001 telephone tape of an Enron trader, the public utility identified as Bill Williams and a Las Vegas energy official identified only as Rich, an agreement was made to shut down a power plant providing energy to California. The shutdown was set for an afternoon of peak energy demand. 'This is going to be a word-of-mouth kind of thing, Mr. Williams says on the tape.  'We want you guys to get a little creative and come up with a reason to go down.' After agreeing to take the plant down, the Nevada official questioned the reason. 'O.K., so we're just coming down for some maintenance, like a forced outage type of thing?' Rich asks. 'And that's cool?' 'Hopefully,' Mr. Williams says, before both men laugh. The next day, Jan. 17, 2001, as the plant was taken out of service, the State of California called a power emergency, and rolling blackouts hit up to a half-million consumers, according to daily logs of the western power grid."
--New York Times, February 4, 2005.

"Merely by holding back the power from a single generator, the power merchants could make the electricity from their other plants worth more than gold. In a report for California's purchasing agency, Dr. Anjali Sheffrin had evidence that California power companies used "physical withholding" and "economic withholding" to create false shortages in California 98 percent of the time between May and November 2000. Three giant companies (for which I have, frustratingly, only code names A1, A4 and A5) didn't put in a single honest bid in those months. Add in "false congestion," "false scheduling" and "megawatt laundering," and the overcharges add up, conservatively, to $6.2 billion in a single year."
--From Greg Palast's The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. The American version was first published in 2002.

But then, Greg Palast has a multi-million dollar investigative news operation... and is not constrained by the modest resources that the New York Times has.

No Debate. No Dissent. No Problem.

"As to the executive, when I shall see the effects of that power bent on the promotion of the comfort, the happiness, and accommodation of the people, that executive shall have my zealous and uniform support.  But, whenever I shall, on the part of the executive, see every consideration of public welfare swallowed up in a continual grasp for power, in an unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, or selfish avarice; when I shall behold men of real merit daily turned out of office for no other cause but independency of sentiment; when I shall see men of firmness, merit, years, abilities, and experience, discarded in their applications for office, for fear they possess that independence, "and men of meanness preferred, for the ease with which they can take up and advocate opinions, the consequences of which they know but little of; when I shall see the sacred name of religion employed as a state engine, to make mankind hate and persecute one another, I shall not be their humble advocate." [Emphasis added]
-- Congressman Matthew Lyon (VT), 1789  (these words earned Lyon  conviction and  imprisonment for "sedition")

Any current member of Congress might have made that speech about any political appointee George Bush has submitted for confirmation over the last several weeks.  Of course none did.  With the exception of Barbara Boxer's attempts to force debate, few of our representatives have had much to say about the Bush appointments that has been of any consequence.  Or about anything else for that matter.

It's a sad state of affairs when the unapologetic liar and lying apologist are confirmed, respectively, as Secretary of State and Attorney General, without any real challenge?  When what should be viewed as necessary, appropriate debate about voting irregularities becomes legend as the "Boxer Rebellion" and inspires death threats? When the President of the United States can claim that G-d told him that it is his presidential mission to turn this nation back into the theocracy it (never) was and no one bats an eye?  And when...  well, the examples are too numerous to list here. You can just about pick your favorite example of the one-party system's efficient machinery at work.  No debate.  No dissent.  No problem.

So, I have been thinking lately about Mr. Lyon.  It's not just hard to imagine a Congressperson risking his political career or even a campaign contribution--let alone jail time--to speak truth to power. It's impossible.