DOUBLE SPEAK AND UNCLE SAM

 

            Many years ago George Orwell predicted that governments would get more and more control over the thought of the people.  That day is here now.  The gravity of the situation is embraced in this statement by Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York when he was campaigning for president.  When he was asked to explain his position on the Vietnam War, he said:

 

            My position on Vietnam is very simple. And I feel this way.  I haven't spoken on it because I haven't felt there was any major contribution that I had to make at the time.  I think our concepts as a nation and that our actions have not kept pace with the changing conditions. And therefore our actions are not completely relevant today to the realities of the magnitude and the complexity of the problems that we face in this conflict.

 

            Now what does that mean?  You've got me, but it sure sounds impressive. Nowadays doublespeak is so common that we expect it.  One of our best double speakers was Ronald Reagan. When he was asked if he could agree with the terms of the American hostages in Iran he said:

 

            If what I understand, if it is true, that I was told what I understood, yes, I thought that made sense.

 

            And we made this guy president?

 

            Good Ole' George Bush is also a master of Doublespeak. When he was asked what he thought about selling arms to Iran, he said:

 

            I think it's debatable, and I think on the surface you can make a case that it is wrong.  Having said that, when you look at the whole policy and look at Iran's geographic standing and look at the problems facing them, if a small shipment establishes contact with moderate elements, and if it results down the line in a solution to the Iran-Iraq war, I think we can argue that it was right. On the surface, selling arms to a country that state-sponsors terrorism, of course, clearly, you'd have to argue it's wrong, but it's the exception sometimes that proves the rule.

 

 

            The messages in political advertising are also tainted with Doublespeak.  For example when Bush was running for President, he used a commercial entitled "Presidential Temperament," The commercial contained Bush's best comments and Senator Dole's worst comments. Bush's words were framed in blue and Dole's were framed in black.  The people in Bush's pictures were dressed in colorful clothes.  The individuals in Dole's picture were washed out looking.  TV techniques can make sure hair is never out of place and can even erase a bald spot or change the shape of a candidate's nose.

 

            And of course, our favorite Agency, the IRS is famous for doublespeak.  The IRS stands for Internal Revenue Service.  Just what or who does the IRS Service?  Why us of course!  Remember when President Reagan said he wouldn't raise taxes and then he spoke about taxing the social security benefits of the wealthy?  The politicians referred to the issue as a "recapture of benefits" The White House called it a "replacement of revenues."  The favorite Doublespeak term for tax increase is "revenue enhancement." How about words such as "tax base broadening,"  "tax base erosion control," A gasoline tax is a "user's fee," or "increased receipts," and "offsetting collections," Are these an increase in tax?

 

            The Tax Reform Act of 1986 made things worse. For example it calls chicken coops and pigpens "single purpose agricultural structures," and gives farmers a special depreciation deduction that others don't get.  There were hundreds of deceptive passages written into the act to give special benefits to certain influential and wealthy individuals.  Take the following example:

 

            In the case of a partnership with a taxable year beginning May 1, 1986, if such partnership realized net capital gain during the period beginning on the first day of such taxable year and ending on May 29, 1986, then such partnership may elect to treat each asset to which such net capital gain relates as having been distributed to the partners of such partnership in proportion to their distributive share of the capital gain or loss realized by the partnership with respect to each asset.

 

            The above Doublespeak was written to apply to partners of a wall-street company that has influence in congress.

 

            And as we all know in the Freedom Movement, the IRS refers to the income tax as a "voluntary tax system," and yet prosecutes individuals under 27 USC 7203 for not volunteering.  The IRS Privacy Act Notice states that "you must file a return for any tax you are liable for," but it doesn't state which Code Sections make you liable." Furthermore the Notice purports to command the filing of a return and then inserts a "Miranda" type of warning telling individuals that any information they give to the IRS can be given to the Department of Justice.  The IRS purports to require the filing of a return through their Privacy Act Notice without ever saying that individuals must file returns.  If course they must keep the ambiguity so that the public doesn't catch on.  After all, the IRS can't tell the public that they are required to waive their Fifth Amendment Rights!

 

            Let's take other examples: Remember when President Reagan referred to the illegal guerrillas of Nicaragua as "Freedom Fighters!"  and claimed that he was providing "Humanitarian Assistance."

 

            The United States has long supported the use of military oppression and death squads in its client states in Central America.  To smooth over the situation, the State Department doesn't use the word "killing."  They say that the actions caused: "unlawful or arbitrary deprivation of life."

 

            The Supreme Court is even guilty.  In 1987, in United States v. Salerno, No. 86-87, the Noble Court ruled the constitutionality of the Bail Reform Act, which allows jailing persons who have been accused but not convicted of crimes.  Chief Justice William Rehnquist engaged in doublespeak to justify detention without trial.  He stated that the Excessive Bail Clause of the Eighth Amendment "says nothing about whether bail shall be available at all."  (The Eighth Amendment says that excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.")  Rehnquist said that preventive detention is not punishment but "regulatory" because  "the mere fact that a person is detained does not lead to the conclusion that the government has imposed punishment...To determine whether a restriction on liberty constitutes impermissible punishment or permissible regulation, we first look to legislative intent."  He then found that "The legislative history of the Bail Reform Act clearly indicates that Congress did not formulate the pretrial detention provisions as punishment..." Thus, imprisonment without trial becomes "regulatory" and not "punishment" simply because Congress intended it that way. Rehnquist also stated that a person who is accused of a crime and denied bail is a "putative offender."  Therefore, now someone who is accused of a crime is now presumed guilty until proven innocent and he can be held in jail because of the "likelihood of future dangerousness."

 

            Isn't that incredible!

 

            And we can't forget the CIA.  Killing a double agent is known as "Elimination with extreme prejudice."  Latin American mercenaries are referred to as "unilaterally controlled Latino assets."  A report that is classified is called a "Secret Noforn Nocontract Orcon," which means that you have to have permission of the writer of the report to see the report.  Departments in charge of overthrowing foreign governments illegally are called  "Department of International Affairs."  Spying is called "intelligence gathering."  The CIA also has a quality control program which wiretaps and surveys its employees to make sure they are good little boys and girls.

 

            Of course we can go on and on, but I think you get the point!

 

 

CYBERPRIVACY

 

 

            Remember when George Orwell wrote his stuff about the future of government and how government would have incredible power over all of us at some point because of computer power? Well, the fact is that good old George didn't consider every possible advance in technology.  It is possible now that we have created a situation that will give us back the privacy that the Supreme Court has taken away.

 

            Let me explain.  As soon as telephones were invented, the government invented wiretaps.  Anybody could just listen in and the privacy issue was litigated in the court. However, now data is different.  Data can now be transformed by encryption so that a wire-tapper can't understand the 1s and 0s that he picks up off his tap.

 

            Now, millions of individuals have available to them very powerful encoding tools that cannot be busted by the government.  Several years ago there was a guy named William Steen in California who was busted for sending pornography pictures. However, he kept all his pictures and correspondence on his computer encrypted by a program called Pretty Good Privacy. The cops couldn't bust his files.  The National Security Agency was asked by the local cops to help but they wouldn't help.  They couldn't do the job.

 

            Clinton was worried about this privacy thing because government's biggest fear is the privacy of its people.  This is why the Supreme Court, over the years, has constantly eroded the privacy rights of Americans.  So Clinton and his buddies wanted to do something to keep privacy away from Americans.  They proposed a Clipper Chip that will allow the government to get in with a court order and decode the data of anyone they want to spy on.

 

            The great thing about the Clipper issue is that the hackers who want privacy could set up super-encryption.  This means they could encrypt the files before they get to the Clipper.  It is possible that the government try as it might, will not be able to do anything about the coming privacy boon.  Encryption has the potential to "nuke" the tax base.  How is the IRS going to spy on everyone if they can't make hide or hair out of the data they steal?  There is NO doubt that encryption decreases the power of government to monitor us.  It is a technological advance that is taking us back to the Supreme Court case of Boyd v. United States that private papers are off-limits to legal opponents, even government prosecutors.  Of course, the Supreme Court has long since wasted the Boyd case.  But in the future are prosecutors going to be able to force a defendant to relinquish a mental key?  And what if the defendant says: "I forgot."

 

 

            I think that Orwell was right that the government would monitor our every move.  He was wrong, however, because he didn't know that the cyber-privacy dudes would keep ahead of the fascists; so maybe the future will be more fun after all!