Anarchy, Democracy, and Privacy

Posted on by under anarchism, Big Data, book announcement, book review, General announcements, liberty and the left, Ukraine

A trio of announcements on, yes, anarchy, democracy, and privacy:   

(1) PoT’s Roderick Long has a review in Reason of Jesse Spafford’s new book, Social Anarchism and the Rejection of Moral Tyranny (Cambridge, 2023). Despite his reservations with some of Spafford’s arguments, Roderick says, 

…this is an intelligently argued book that deserves careful reading and discussion—particularly among market libertarians, since it offers ingenious and powerful arguments, from premises many libertarians will find appealing, to conclusions that most libertarians will be eager to avoid. That’s the sort of challenge that libertarians need to take seriously.

Judging from the review, I’m inclined to think that Spafford’s discussion of the Lockean Proviso is worth further discussion. I’m hoping we can have some of that here, possibly with Spafford’s input.

(2) PoT’s John Davenport tells me that he’s been winning friends and influencing people–in the halls of Congress, no less. In other words, he’s been selling the thesis of his book The Democracy Amendments (blogged about here) to staffers in the offices of Senators Joe Manchin and Cory Booker. I’m hoping he’ll tell us how that went, and elaborate a bit on where he sees it going. 

(3) Finally, the Spring 2024 issue of Reason Papers is out, featuring (among other things) a symposium on Firmin DeBrabander’s Life After Privacy: Reclaiming Democracy in a Surveillance Society (Cambridge, 2020). Paul Showler and I have critical essays on the book, with a response by the author. (Links below the text.)

The symposium began life as an Author-Meets-Critics session at the Central Division meeting of the APA last year in Denver; I blogged about it here in late 2022 and early 2023, as well. My thanks to Celeste Harvey for organizing and chairing the session, and to the North American Society for Social Philosophy for sponsoring it. Thanks also to Shawn Klein for agreeing to run the symposium in Reason Papers, and for all the work he put into editing it. 

I can’t help mentioning that footnote 17 of my paper (p. 14) went through multiple iterations, as the number of hacks mentioned in it kept increasing across the span of the editorial process, starting at “three,” then moving to “four” and so on, until I had to treat this version as final and commit to it:  

Since I first presented an earlier version of this essay, six of my company’s hospital clients have been hit by major computer hacks, leading in at least two cases to extended suspensions on hospital admissions.

No sooner was that version finalized, but the Change Healthcare hack hit the entire US healthcare system, with (largely invisible but still) devastating consequences, eclipsing all of the piddling hacks I’d been referring to in the note. I don’t think the average American has any idea what the Change hack involves or implies. What it involves is a (so far) months-long disabling of a large part of the American health care system. What it implies is that hackers can attack that system at its most vulnerable points, and wreck it at will. Who knew? A lot of us did. 

Largely hidden from view (perhaps deliberately so) is the fact that the Change hack was originally described as a state-sponsored Russian one, possibly as retaliation for US intervention in Ukraine. Change originally described the attack as “state sponsored”–indeed, asserted that the hackers represented themselves that way–but has quietly changed its story over the past few weeks. The official line, now parroted everywhere, is that the hack is the work of a “Russian-speaking extortion gang,” BlackCat, to which Moscow “turns a blind eye,” as opposed to being the work of the Russian state apparatus as such. The absurdity, of course, is that Change is itself an outsourcing company, an “EDI clearinghouse,” to use insider jargon, owned by United Healthcare. To distinguish BlackCat from the Russian state is like distinguishing Change from United Healthcare. Pedantry aside, the distinction doesn’t mean much. But cling to it if you feel the need. 

I predicted a hack like this at least four times on this blog in the last two years, largely to pooh-poohing and dismissal from people convinced that the romance of US intervention in Ukraine would do more for our national security than the pedestrian task of working to secure our health care system. Y’all might want to re-think that: if you’re inclined to minimize the importance of the Change hack, you probably don’t grasp its importance. As someone who deals with its ramifications every day, I can’t help noticing it, and can’t help wondering when it will be resolved, and at what cost. “When is this thing going to end?” one of my co-workers exclaimed today in exasperation. What thing, I wanted to ask. 

Put it this way: One or two more hacks like this, and Americans might begin to understand in a first-hand way what it’s like when a hostile entity targets your healthcare system with the intention of taking it out. Once that happens, every patient in the ER, ICU, OR, and Cath Lab becomes “collateral damage” of the Grand Strategy of the United States. Not a pleasant prospect, and for most patients, not an expected one. But the genie’s out of the bottle now. Don’t say you didn’t know. 

ISSUE 44, NO. 1 – SPRING 2024 (FULL ISSUE)

Symposium: Firmin DeBrabander’s Life After Privacy: Reclaiming Democracy in a Surveillance Society

Discussion Notes

Review Essays

Book Review

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