Body Cameras

There has recently been some suspicious killings of unarmed black men that has brought up the question of whether or not our police force should be wearing body cameras. Regardless of whether or not police were at fault in these killings I think that body cameras would benefit both our citizens and police force. The main reason that we are having so many protests and riots is because there is a large part of our population that does not trust our police force. If officer interactions were recorded and made available to the public it could go a long way towards rebuilding that trust. It could also make an officers job much easier. They will have to let people know that they are being recorded which could alter the behavior of the people the police interact with. They know that they are on camera so interactions with officers could be more cordial or even prevent  assaults on officers. The videos can also be used to train new officers. While there are many benefits to using cameras there are many questions about how they will be used. For instance, there is some concern about some of the more sensitive aspects of an officers jobs such as: informing family members of a death or rape victim testimonies. It may be  required for  officers to turn off their cameras or at least have the footage erased. There is  also a concern about which video’s would be allowed to be released to the public. This ones easy because  there are already precedents set for what information is considered public knowledge.  There is software available to censor any material that can’t be released. Another question is how long the video is kept before it is deleted. All of these questions are important but can easily be taken care of by legislators. There doesn't seem to be any downside to having our police wear  body cameras.

The NSA

In her blog Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, Katherine Miller explains why she believes that we don’t have to worry about the NSA monitoring our communications. She believes that it is protecting us from future attacks. She doesn't think it will affect anyone as long as they don’t have anything to hide.  There is no point in trying to stop it because the government has always spied and the information has to be stored in order to transmit it, so someone will have access to our information anyway. Last she points out that if you don’t want the NSA to read something you just can’t send it via electronic communication.

The NSA’s ability to monitor all of our electronic communications is not protecting America. Anyone attempting to attack us knows just as well as we do that their communications are being monitored and will find a way around it. Everyone has something to hide. It might not be that they’re terrorists but everyone has private information. That is why we are protected from illegal searches and seizures. Which, when we get right down to it , is a right that the NSA is taking away from us. We would not let the police go through our mail, why should we let the NSA go through our email. It is true that we can avoid giving  private information via electronic communication but its not easy to do. In today's society we use electronic communication for everything including: where we are , what  we are doing and who we are with. That’s a lot of information for a government to have on its citizenry and we have no guarantees on exactly how they are going to use it. Its also true that this information has to be stored but we originally had rights protecting us from people using that information. Now we don’t.

The NSA’s ability to monitor all of our communications is ineffective, it takes away the rights of american citizens and gives the government way too much power.

 

Corporate Personhood

In 1871 the Dictionary Act was passed. This act made it so that in any legislation “the word person may extend and be applied to bodies politic and corporate.” In 1984 this act was reworded. It says  that in any legislation  “the words “person” and “whoever” include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals.” This means that since 1871 businesses are considered people with all the rights, liberties and responsibilities that entails. This a ridiculous policy that is not only impractical , it can  be harmful.

It is an impractical policy because of the basic fact that businesses are not actually people. They have no physical body and are not capable of making decisions. Without these how is business supposed to exercise their rights For example how would Wendy’s use “her” right to bear arms? Is she allowed to install guns on her property? Another example of impracticality would be Microsoft using “his” right  to vote. Is “he” old enough to vote? What about signing up for the draft? How do we tell if a corporation is male or female? Who would be sent to war if there was a draft? Clearly businesses are not people. It can be argued that they are a group of people capable of accepting at least some rights and responsibilities of corporate person hood. A company is comprised of shareholders, board members, employees and customers. So out of this massive group of people who exactly gets these rights and responsibilities and what limits do they have? For the most part this question has gone unanswered and the answers we have gotten have made an impractical policy a harmful one.

One of the main problems with considering businesses to be people is accountability.  When a company commits a crime who is held responsible? This is a complicated question. We can say that whoever initiated the crime is responsible. For example say a manager tells his employees not to report a specific type of income. Well we could say that just that manager is responsible. The problems arise when we consider whether that managers boss knew about the crime or even pressured the manager to do it. What about the lower level employees? Even though they were doing what they were told that does not mean that they are allowed to commit a  crime.  Prosecutors often charge the corporation itself because of the complicated relationships of a business. The problem is that you can not imprison a business. Instead the punishment comes in the form of fines. These fines are not paid by the people responsible for the crime but by the company as a whole. This means that whoever was responsible will not have any consequences. Another problem stems for the fact that businesses have free speech. This right has been used to speak out on controversial issues. We need to keep in mind how many different people t make up a business and  that they are not allowed to discriminate. It then becomes apparent that there is no possible way for a company to have only one opinion on an issue. So what gives the CEO or majority shareholder or whoever it is the right to say that that company as a whole has a specific opinion?  Also, what happens if that opinion has negative consequence for certain members of the business. For example,  a company says that it is against same sex marriage.  It is then boycotted for that statement, is it fair for employees to be laid off, when they were not consulted about this statement and may have a different opinion? The same issues apply when a business says it is part of a specific religion. Who gets to decide that religion and why are they the ones who  get to decide? If the business is following the law and not discriminating, then there is going to be someone in the company of a different faith. Even worse is when the company uses this religion to impose their own guidelines about what can and can not happen within the company. The recent hobby lobby case is a perfect example. Someone within the company decided that the entire company was Christian and that contraception and abortion is against their religion. These beliefs are not representative of everyone within the company but they are now exempt from a federal law that requires businesses to provide insurance that includes contraceptive and abortion care. Recent legislation in Indiana has also made it so that business can refuse to serve certain customers based on the companies religious view. Religion is an extremely personal concept, so something that is not a person can’t have one.

America has been dealing with this impractical and harmful policy for 144 years. Among  these problems I have not seen how this benefits anyone. It seems clear that we need to change the definition of a person to the actual dictionary definition. A person is “a human being regarded as an individual.”

Email "Scandal"

Terry Newell is a former Air Force Officer, Director of Training for the U.S. Department of Education, and Dean of Faculty of the Federal Executive Institute. He currently runs a firm called Leadership for a Responsible Society and is an author of several books on the ethics of government. On March 12th he wrote an opinion piece for the liberal blog the Huffington Post. Assuming that his audience already knew about his topic he didn't provide that much background information,so here is what happened.

While Hillary Clinton was serving as secretary of state she decided to use her personal email for both her personal and business email. There wasn't a rule against using personal email but it was required that she document and preserve all emails related related to agency business. If she would have used a government issued email for business it would have made these records automatically. In 2014 the State Department sent a request for her emails. Hillary sent them 55,000 pages worth of emails but had deleted any emails she considered personal.

Terry Newell argues that the way Hillary Clinton handled her emails was unethical. He believes that it came down to a choice between convenience and transparency. The ethical decision would have to have two email addresses because the public demands transparency of elected officials. She failed to be transparent again when she deleted her personal emails. He also thinks that she is failing to address the problem properly because she hasn't acknowledged that her character has come into question. instead she has focused on the fact that she hasn't technically broken any laws.

I completely agree with  Terry Newell's argument. I just wonder how important this issue actually is. It seems like the only reason the nation is even paying attention to this is because republicans are trying to sabotage her campaign for presidency. They don’t seem to be concerned with transparency and Hillary Clinton doesn't seem to be trying to hide anything.

          The Keystone Pipeline  

   

The Keystone Pipeline would transport crude oil from Canada down to the Gulf Coast.

For the past 7 years Transcanada has been trying to get government approval to build. Its construction has generated a lot of controversy. On February 19th the senate approved the Keystone construction but President Obama vetoed it. In a USA Today's editorial opinions article they discuss why  Transcanada should get their approval. The president claims that this legislation evades the process needed to properly evaluate the project. I highly doubt that after 7 years that this project hasn't been properly evaluated. The Keystone Pipeline is just one out of thousands of pipelines in America. During its construction it will create 42,000 jobs but only 50 of them will be permanent. Most importantly the oil that would be transported on the pipeline is currently being shipped by train. This method is extremely dangerous. The containers that hold the oil are inadequate to prevent spilling. There has also been several incidences when trains have derailed spilling gallons of oil into the environment or even creating explosions. Railroad also tend to go through towns and cities putting a lot of people in danger. 

I agree that the pipeline is a better alternative and that the presidents reasons for the veto aren't valid but I don't think it would be a good idea to allow the Keystone Pipelines construction. America should be working on dismantling our fossil fuel infrastructure, not building it. It is a known fact that Global Climate Change is happening and can have some devastating effects on humanity. It is also a well-known fact that increased carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels is the cause of climate change. Even if that weren't the case, fossil fuels are limited. We will eventually need alternative energy sources. Building up our infrastructure only makes us more dependent on fossil fuels. Which will make climate change that much worse and/or that much harder on us when we run out. Something needs to be done about transporting oil in trains but it is not building the Keystone Pipeline.

                     Net Neutrality 

         On February 26th there will be a vote that could change the internet forever. Recently, major phone and cable companies have been trying to change how they provide and charge for internet services. This change  would allow wealthy customers access to better internet services than their poorer clients. This has caused a major public out cry. 
        In this segment of Democracy Now they talk about the steps the FCC is taking to protect consumers from this type of discrimination. They also discuss how  public opinion is  influencing  the decision making process. 
        It is important for Americans to pay attention to the issue of Net Neutrality for two reasons. One is the impact  on the average citizen if net neutrality is not protected. The other is to understand how the average citizen can effect the policies made in Washington D.C.


To get a better understanding you can also watch these short videos  

CNN 

Hank Green