April 15, 2019--Post Privacy

On Sunday, the New York Times devoted all of the Sunday Review to the effective end of privacy. Here is my take, written some months ago--

More than usual people are concerned about privacy. This the result of the news that Facebook did not prevent the sharing of very personal information about 87 million of us. In fact, they sold it to Cambridge Analytica, which, in turn may or may not have used that data in shady ways to support Donald Trump's run for the presidency.

What did people addicted to Facebook (me included) think they were doing with all the data about our intimate selves we so casually handed over to them? 

Facebook makes billions every month but doesn't charge users to use their "platform." What was Facebook's business model that yielded so much money? If we had paused for a minute to think about how Instagram's and Google's and Snapchat's and YouTube's and Twitter's business models make a fortune but do not charge users we would have realized they made their money by selling us out to marketers and political consultants. 

So all the outrage directed toward Facebook sounds a little self-serving and inauthentic. My bet is that hardly anyone will as a result stop using Facebook or the others.

And, it seems to me, that very few people care profoundly about this. I want my Facebook; I don't want to pay to use it; and I don't care very much, perhaps not at all, about losing my privacy.

After all, don't the social network platforms depend upon us eagerly wanting to surrender our privacy? Aren't they ultimately narcissistic-enabling vehicles for us to let it all, or much of it, hang out for "friends" and friends of friends and friends of friends' friends? Isn't the dream of much of this to have one's postings widely shared, go viral? How else can that happen unless we put it all out there to be probed and passed around?

Years ago I had early glimpses of how people were moving to sacrifice privacy for the sake of convenience, expediency, and fun. Though at the time I really didn't get it.

About two decades ago I was "online at Citibank" (not on-line, but on-line) waiting to deposit a check. This in the days before there were ATMs. Ahead of me were two women who were talking at full volume. One was worried about her daughter, "I'm afraid she's becoming addicted to cocaine," she said loud enough for everyone on line to hear. "I don't know what to do with her. I can't afford to pay for a recovery program. I suppose I just have to hope for the best."  

Her friend put an arm around her and, changing the subject, began to talk, equally audibly, about her boyfriend, "He punched me the other day. We were having an argument and he got violent. Slapped my face hard enough that I think he loosened a couple of my molars." She opened her mouth wide and showed her friend the two teeth that were effected. Her friend leaned closer to examine her molars.

Thankfully, they soon got to the head of the line and were summoned by one of the tellers. The memory is still vivid for me.

A few years later, walking home on Broadway, there was a young woman who appeared to be talking to herself in a very loud voice. Another crazy person, I thought. So young to be talking to herself, I thought. But as I moved quickly to pass her, I realized she was speaking to someone on her cell phone, talking into the wire attached to the phone on which there was a small microphone. Again, without needing to strain to pay attention I could hear every word she said. They were talking about meeting that evening at a local restaurant. All very benign, but evidence that the culture was shifting. I realized we would soon have no need for those phone booths with accordion doors that were still common on urban streets.

Some time after that I was in Washington for a meeting with Alaska Senator Ted ("Uncle Ted") Stevens. He was the chairman of the all-powerful Appropriations Committee and I was, I confess, seeking his support for a $20 million earmark for a promising public school reform project that, to lubricate the process of seeking his help, we were more than willing to bring to his state.

He was about to be term-limited out of the chairmanship so the timing was urgent. 

We spoke about the project (which he later arranged to be funded) and then told me that as a consolation for losing the Appropriations chair, he was to become the hear of the Senate Commerce Committee. He wasn't, to tell the truth, happy about this. It was a much less powerful position.

"One thing I'm concerned about," he said, "is the responsibility for protecting internet security. Really, privacy. And to be honest with you, I'm 82 years old, and don't know anything about the internet or, for the matter, computers."

"So, what are you going to do?" I asked.

"I'll tell you what I already did," he said, smiling, "I asked my youngest staffers to do a little looking around and see what they could learn about me on the internet. You know, when and where I was born, where I live, who I'm married to. Things of that sort. I told them to get back to me in a week or so and they said no problem."

"I think I know where this is going," I said.

"Well, later in the day, the same day, they appeared in my doorway holding stacks and stakes of paper. 'What's all that?' I asked them. They told me it was what they had already come up with on the internet. You wouldn't believe what they found in just a few hours."

"I would," I whispered. He was on a roll and I didn't want to interrupt him.

"You know I have six kids. Well, not only did they find out everything about Cathy-Ann and me but also about them. Where they were born, how old they are, where they went to school, what they studied, and what they did after college. Also, where they live, and if they owned a house how much they paid for it. They even knew about their student loans and the mortgages on their properties."

He shrugged his shoulders, "And that's just the tip of the iceberg. It's enough to say that everything's out there to be found by anyone who knows how to do that. And my staffers told me how easy that is. From what they explained to me I understood why it only took a couple of hours to gather all that information."

"This is terrible," I said, "And so as the about-to-be chair of the Commerce Committee what are you thinking about doing?"

He stared off into space, "Probably nothing."

"Nothing?" I was incredulous. Remember, it was years ago. For most of us knowing about the power of the internet was rather new.

"It's too late," he said, "No one in Congress cares anything about this. They think it's good for business. No one gives a rat's ass about privacy. As I said, it's all over."

This was 2005 and from an 82-year-old senator from Alaska who never turned on a computer. He was still able to see the future.

"It's over. It's all over," he said as I thanked him and turned to leave.

July 7, 2017--"To Make Enhancements to Your Citibank Banking Experienece"

There was a letter from Citibank and another from American Express.

The letter from Citibank said that "to make enhancements to your Citibank banking experience" they are shutting down our local branch and since that is where we have our safe deposit box, we need to find a new location for that. There were no suggestions regarding where to look and so later in the day I called my local branch with two questions--

First, how was closing my local branch an "enhancement"? The woman who answered the phone said I needed to talk with the manager and she put me on hold for that. After 10 minutes of waiting I was disconnected.

I called again and the same person answered. When she heard my voice, she hung up. A third call went unanswered.

Wish us luck in finding a bank with a vault. We live in Manhattan and pretty much every piece of commercial real estate is either a pharmacy, restaurant, or bank. But banks with no safety deposit boxes.

Rona said, "I guess this means we'll have to hide our stuff under the mattress."

"Including our deeds, will, my mother's wedding ring, and my Uncle Ben's Patek Philippe watch?"

The other letter from American Express Rona opened on the way home from the New Harbor post office. I could hear her muttering to herself.

"What does it say?" I asked, sensing nothing good.

"Why don't you wait to get home. No need to get upset while driving."

"I can handle it. Please, tell me what it says."

"It's just a form letter about changes in your account terms."

"If it's no big deal why were you muttering and thinking it would upset me?  I'll pull over so you can tell me what they're up to."

"Whatever you say," she said as I pulled off the road.

"Each month you always pay the full amount so the changes don't affect you."

"Who do they affect?"

"People who have their so-called 'Pay Over Time' feature."

"What's that?"

"If you don't pay the full monthly amount they charge interest. The letter is about changes in the APR rate."

"APR?"

"The annual percentage rate."

"Which is?"

"The amount of interest they charge if you make partial payments."

"I don't do that."

"That's why I said it doesn't apply to you."

"But you were muttering."

"Because people with more modest incomes pay over time and the new rate for them is $29.99%"

"What?" I was happy not to be driving. I would have crashed the car. "Isn't that usury? Aren't there laws about that?"

Rona said, "Not in Donald Trump's America."

"Thirty percent. Loan sharks charge less."

"Not 30 percent."

"You just said . . ."

"29.99 percent."

"A bargain."

January 15, 2016--TRUMP's "New York Values"

Ted Cruz doesn't handle criticism very well.

Donald TRUMP's public ruminating about Cruz's eligibility for the presidency--he was born in Canada to an American mother and held joint citizenship until a few months ago--is clearly getting under the very junior senator's skin.

Interviewed the other day on the Howie Carr Radio Show, he snapped that TRUMP should stop playing "Born in the USA" at his rallies, a clear swipe at Cruz, and suggested he should "shift in his new rallies to playing 'New York, New York' because Donald comes from New York and he embodies New York values."

TRUMP responded immediately, counter-intuitively embracing rather than denying those values. When has it ever been good for a Republican to say anything good about the Big Satan, a favorite conservative slur about the Big Apple?

Passionately, with his New York accent dialed up, TRUMP said that he does in fact embrace those values and feels proud to do so. Also to Carr, in his words, he said--

One thing it means is energy. You know, when the World Trade Center got hit, we rebuilt that World Trade Center and we got through and very few places in this world could have gotten through what we went through. I mean, I was so proud of New York, the World Trade Center, these two massive, 110 story buildings came down. Thousands of people killed. I've never seen anything like it in my life.

He added--"Anyone who attacks New York City will have to go through me."

If TRUMP and others, including some constitutional scholars such as Lawrence Tribe, are discombobulating Cruz by questioning if he is a "natural born citizen," how will he explain away yesterday's reports in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal that he failed to report more than a million dollars in very-low-interest loans to his 2012 senatorial campaign, loans from Citibank and Goldman Sachs where his wife, Heidi, at the latter is a managing director after serving on the National Security Council under Condi Rice?

Failure to report loans of this kind, not incidentally, are not just careless mistakes, as Cruz claims, but violate federal law.

And it will not be so easy for the Princeton and Harvard-educated Supreme Court clerk Ted Cruz to point fingers at the establishment of which he and his wife have been such comfortable members.

It will also not be easy to counter his former Harvard Law School professor, Laurence Tribe, who in an op ed piece in The Boston Globe, "Under Ted Cruz's Own Logic, He's Ineligible for the White House," wrote that maybe, in spite of Cruz's assertion that his eligibility is "settled law," that it may not be after all.

Nor will it be easy for Cruz to explain why he jettisoned his Latino name, Raphael, for the more waspy Ted.

Above all, will it be hypocrisy for Cruz to continue to slip into New York City as frequently as in the past unless he learns the words to "New York, New York"?