Shaping Opinion

Mike Davis joins Tim to talk about the current debate over whether or not to expand the size of the U.S. Supreme Court, otherwise known as “court packing.” Mike is president of the Article 3 Project. That’s an organization that focuses on the U.S. Constitution and the judicial branch of government. Mike explains how important it is to preserve the apolitical nature of the judicial branch of government, and the U.S. Supreme Court, in particular.

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The U.S. Supreme Court is as old as the country itself. The Court was established by the United States Constitution with the passage of the Judiciary Act of 1789. It first assembled in 1790.

The U.S. Supreme Court is the highest court in the court system, representing the judiciary branch of the nation.

The judiciary is one of three branches of government. The other two are the executive branch, headed by the president, and the legislative branch, which represents both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

When the Supreme Court was established back in 1789, it had six Justices.

Since then, the number of justices on the court has changed a few times.  John Adams, when he was president, passed the Judiciary Act of 1801, which reduced the Court to five justices. This was an attempt to limit how many appointments the next president – Thomas Jefferson – could appoint to the bench.

Once Jefferson got into office, he and his party repealed the act and went back to having six justices on the high court. Then, in 1807, Jefferson and Congress decided to add a seventh justice when it added a seventh federal circuit.

Andrew Jackson was the next president to change the number of justices on the Supreme Court. In 1837, he added two more justices to the high court after Congress expanded the number of federal circuit court districts.

The next time there was a change to that number was for a short time during the Civil War. In 1863, Congress created a 10th federal circuit, and so the country had a 10th Supreme Court Justice.

Once the war was over, Congress passed legislation in 1866 to reduce the Court to seven justices. That lasted for two years. In 1869, a new Judiciary Act established the number of nine justices on the U.S. Supreme Court.

That was the last time there was a change to the number of justices on the Supreme Court. 1869.

The last time there was any serious consideration to changing the number was a failed attempt by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1937. His motives were political. He wanted a majority of Democrat-leaning justices to help advance his agenda. So, his idea was to add as many as six new members to the Supreme Court.

The effort failed when two respected members of the Court at that time, decided to oppose the effort – Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes and Justice Louis Brandeis.

Mike Davis has spent much of his career focused on the justice system, and the U.S. Constitution. He’s had a special focus on the judiciary and the Supreme Court.

Links

* The Article 3 Project, website

* Internet Accountability Project, website

* Court-packing Isn't Just a Bad Idea, It's Downright Unconstitutional, New York Post

* Mike Davis: Packing the Court is a Radical Assault on Judicial Independence, The Epoch Times

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Kelley Vlahos joins Tim to talk about how big tech companies are starting to use your data to grade you in ways that may surprise and shock you. The focus of our discussion is your Social Credit Score and how China may be illustrating just how alarming its applications can be. Kelley is a senior advisor at the Quincy Institute and editorial director at Responsible Statecraft. She’s written about this population monitoring tool that before now was unthinkable in America. That’s the focus of this episode.

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Anyone who buys a car or a house or wants a new credit card is familiar with the financial credit process. You have to build up a track record of paying off your debts in order to obtain good financial credit. Financial credit enables you to borrow money.

A bad financial credit rating can be used by banks and lenders to deny you a loan, which means you can’t buy that house, that car, or get that credit card.

Until now, that was the only credit rating you needed to worry about. But in subtle ways, another credit rating may be creeping into your daily life you may not be so aware of.

It’s called a Social Credit Score. It’s essentially a profile that rates people for better or worse based on everything they do. Every place they go, every rideshare they take, every destination they travel to, every book they buy, every membership, every donation, everything they post online, and, of course, their Internet search history.

Here are a couple simple examples. Every time you take an Uber rideshare, your driver rates you according to a star system. If the driver likes you, you get more stars. If the driver doesn’t like you, you get fewer stars. What you have to do to be liked is up to the driver, not you.

On social media, you learn what information you’re allowed to share and that information – even if it’s legal and non-offensive - that will get you suspended or banned.

Links

* Kelley Beaucar Vlahos (website)

* George Orwell's Dystopian Nightmare in China, by Kelley Vlahos, American Conservative

* The Invisible Shackles of America's Social Credit System, Human Events

* Social Credit Scores are Already Here, The Last American (blog)

* China has Started Ranking Citizens with a Creepy 'Social Credit' System, Business Insider

About this Episode’s Guest Kelley Vlahos

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos comes to QI from The American Conservative, where for the last three years she served as the magazine’s executive editor and co-host of the Empire Has No Clothes podcast. Before joining TAC in 2017,  Vlahos served as a contributing editor to the magazine, reporting and publishing regular articles on U.S. war policy, civil liberties, foreign policy, veterans, and Washington politics since 2007. She also organized the magazine’s major annual foreign policy conference for the last three years. Prior to that, Vlahos was director of social media and a digital editor at WTOP News in Washington, D.C. from 2013 to 2017.

She spent 15 years as an online political reporter for FOX News at the channel’s Washington D.C. bureau, as well as Washington correspondent for Homeland Security Today magazine. She is on the board of PublicSquare.net, a non-profit media project promoting informed Left-Right...

Fred Cate joins Tim to talk about how big tech companies could use your personal data without your knowledge or explicit consent and some of the legal issues involved. Fred is vice president for research, a distinguished professor of law and a senior fellow at Indiana University’s Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research.

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Earlier this month, Alaska was the latest state to take up the issue of consumer data privacy when the state’s governor introduced bills in both legislative chambers.

The two bills – Senate Bill 116 and House Bill 159 – are both called the Consumer Data Privacy Act. They are designed to give individuals the right to know what personal information is being collected about them and request its deletion.

If the bills become law, consumers would be able to opt out of the sale of their personal information. They would be able to learn whether their information has been sold or shared with third parties.

Why is this important?

You know when you log onto your computer or use your smart phone someone is watching. So what? Right?

We all know our data is out there, but just where is there? And who is there?

But, did you ever wonder what is actually happening with your data?

And by data, I don’t just mean your financial transactions, your texts, your tweets, your pictures and your posts. I mean everything.

Not only is your smart phone and your computer tracking you, but it’s making decisions about you, it’s inferring things about you.

It’s judging you. And it could be sharing its conclusions about you with someone else who wants to sell to you. Or sell access to you to yet someone else.

And that’s where it starts to get really interesting. Someone may want you to buy something, or go somewhere, or donate to something, or protest against something, or boycott something, and they may try to maneuver you into doing just that. All without your even realizing it.

Professor Fred Cate of Indiana University is one of the foremost experts on cybersecurity and he specializes in information privacy and the law.

Links

* Professor Fred Cate, Indiana University Webpage

* Fred Cate, Information Policy Center

* Privacy and Freedom, Dr. Alan Westin (Barnes & Noble)

* Alaska Governor Introduces Consumer Data Privacy Bill, Law Street

* California Consumer Privacy Act, State of California

About this Episode’s Guest Fred Cate

Professor Fred Cate specializes in information privacy and security law issues. He has testified before numerous congressional committees and speaks frequently before professional, industry, and government groups.

In addition to his appointment in the Law School and as Vice President for Research, he is an Adjunct Professor of Informatics and Computing at Indiana University. From 2003 to 2014, he served as the founding director of IU’s Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research, a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Research and Information Assurance Education, where he is now a senior fellow.

Professor Cate currently chairs the National Academies’ study on Law Enforcement and Intelligence Access to Encr...

Josh Hammer joins Tim to talk about one of the hottest debates over the future of the Internet, the fate of Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which is credited with creating the Internet as we know it today and giving Big Tech almost unbridled power. Has that little provision outlived its purpose? We explore. Josh is opinion editor of Newsweek magazine. He’s a research fellow with the Edmund Burke Foundation. He’s counsel and policy advisor for the Internet Accountability Project, and he’s a syndicated columnist.

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It’s 1996. Bill Clinton is president. The Oscar winning movie for the year is Braveheart. Nintendo introduces its Nintendo 64 gaming system. And there’s this thing that computer geeks are getting all excited about. It’s called the World Wide Web, the Internet. But even more than that, the Internet is starting to spread across the country to regular computer users.

Think about it. Until now, that computer on your desk was exactly that. Just a machine on your desk. It was connected to nothing. You had to insert a floppy disk into a drive, download some data onto it, remove it and physically take it to another place to transfer or deliver the data. The only places where you had access to computer networks were those big computer systems at your office or in government, universities or news rooms.

But now there was this thing called the Internet. Google was just being started. No one even knew about the company or why it would even be needed. Certainly, there was no Twitter, no Facebook, no Instagram, no YouTube. Social media as we know it would come much later.

For now, the novelty of the Internet was to learn how to get used to the very notion of connectedness. Being connected with someone else virtually. Chat boards. This was a totally new thing.

On the media front, if you wanted information, you’d have to get that from TV, mostly one of the three major networks or CNN on cable. Or your daily newspaper, or the radio. That was it. The editors and producers in those newsrooms held all the cards. They decided what you would know … or not know… about what was happening in the world on any given day. They would get to decide what opinions, theories, conspiracy or not, you’d get to hear about. No one else. They were the gatekeepers, and they liked it.

But it’s 1996, and all of that is about to change.

Two congressional representatives would get together to write something called Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. California Republican Chris Cox joined with Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden to author Section 230. It states:

“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provide by another information content provider.”

26 words. As they say, “the 26 words that created the Internet” as we know it today. Little did anyone know in 1996 what was in store for the world thanks to that Internet. And thanks to those 26 words.

Thanks to those words, the Internet would become the wild west of communications. No more gatekeepers. No one to tell us what we can know or what we can’t know. We can talk to each other without anyone interfering. Those who helped usher in the Internet age called it the “democratization of communication.”

Thanks to those words and a generation of innovators, companies, technologies and platforms, the world would become a smaller place. The legacy media would lose its stranglehold over mass communication, and the world would be forever changed, for better, and for worse.

The Internet is now the world’s new town square.

Links

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Nadine Strossen joins Tim to talk about how to fight “hate speech” or harmful speech without censorship. She’s a best-selling author and a Professor of Constitutional Law at New York Law School. She’s also the first woman national President of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).  In this episode, she talks about private company censorship, the challenges, some solutions and all of it as addressed in her book “Hate: Why we should resist it with free speech, not censorship.

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Free speech isn’t just an American issue, and it’s not just a First Amendment issue. Though it is important to note that the right of freedom of expression is the cornerstone to the First Amendment for a reason.

The founders believed that certain rights come from God. Even if you don’t believe in God, and that is your right as protected by the First Amendment, the founders would tell you that your rights are natural rights, not man-made rights. They are innate desires and drives for every human being on earth and that it’s not for man to deny them to others.

The right to express yourself without punishment is one of the most important rights they cited. The right to gather in groups peacefully together without penalty. The right to worship your God without coercion or punishment. The right of a free press to report news and information without government control.

History is ripe with examples of cases where these rights were used to spread hateful thoughts and ideas. At the same time, our country’s short history is also full of cases where courts decided that the price for our First Amendment freedoms is tolerance for the spread of ideas that some may see as harmful, hateful or irresponsible.

The principle is this. We must be willing to tolerate speech we don’t like in exchange for the right to deliver speech that others may not like.

In recent years, there has been a movement to try to control, prevent or stop the spread of speech and information some may feel are harmful. Their solution is to stifle the speech, de-platform the messenger. Or even de-platform the platform. Remove any opportunity for others to communicate if that communication does not meet accepted narratives. In other words, censorship.

This has been the focus of Nadine Strossen’s professional life. And with a resume that includes serving as the first woman national President of the ACLU, she has solid credentials on the issue of free speech and the battle against censorship, she has found allies from conservatives to progressives as well, making this an increasingly nonpartisan issue.

Links

* Nadine Strossen Bio, New York Law School

* Hate: Why we should resist it with free speech, not censorship, by Nadine Strossen (Barnes & Noble)

* The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, by Soshana Zuboff (Barnes & Noble)

* Communications Decency Act of 1996 (in full, including Section 230), Columbia University PDF

About this Episode’s Guest Nadine Strossen

Nadine Strossen has written, taught, and advocated extensively in the areas of constitutional law and civil liberties, including through frequent media interviews. From 1991 to 2008, she served as President of the American Civil Liberties Union, the first woman to head the nation’s largest and oldest civil liberties organization.

Legendary sports photographer Walter Iooss joins Tim to talk about his life and career that has spanned decades. His work has appeared in Sports Illustrated and in many major media outlets and in unforgettable marketing campaigns. If you were to think of an iconic photo from any major American sport from over the past 50 years, there’s a decent chance Walter is the one who captured that image. Walter talks about his life behind the lens, a lens that has captured household names, helped make a few athletes become household names, and even at times when people in his photos were not famous, the image was still…iconic.

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There is a photo from 1988 of Michael Jorden in his red Chicago Bulls uniform that makes it look like he’s defying gravity. Like he’s flying, basketball in hand, somewhere between the foul line and the hoop, ready to slam that ball through the net. If a picture tells 1,000 stories, this one tells 1,001. Did he really take off at the foul line and make it to the hoop in one jump? What does it take to do that? The image is iconic.

There’s another photo from years earlier when New York Jets celebrity quarterback Joe Namath was preparing for the Super Bowl. And by preparing, I mean lounging next to a swimming pool, getting some sun, surrounded by a fans and reporters. Broadway Joe, in swimming trunks, flashing his million-dollar smile. Iconic.

Then there’s that one from the NFC Championship game in January 1982. That’s where Joe Montana tossed the winning pass to Dwight Clark to send the San Francisco 49ers to the Super Bowl. The photo features the exact moment where Clark is at the high point of his jump, catching the football barely in his fingertips, to bring it down with a championship. The photo and the moment have been dubbed, “The Catch.” Iconic.

Those are three iconic images of many that have one thing in common. Walter Iooss. He’s the photographer who sometimes captures iconic moments, and other times, through this artistic eye, he creates them.

Walter has shot photos for Time, Newsweek, New York and People magazines.  He’s done advertising work for brands like Adidas, Pepsi, Gatorade, Fuji and Eastman Kodak.

He’s published many books of his work, but the major constant in his career has been his work for Sports Illustrated. A magazine he started working for in the 1960s, and one he still works for today.

Over the years, he’s shot images for more than 300 of the magazine’s covers.

Links

* Walter Iooss, Jr., Website

* Christie's Puts Sports Photography GOAT Walter Iooss Jr. On the Auction Block, Forbes

* Walter Iooss: Sports Photography Legend, Shutterbug.com

* G.O.A.T.S.: Greatest of All Time, with  Photographer Walter Iooss, ESPN Documentary

* Walter Iooss Jr.'s Best Super Bowl Photos, Sports Illustrated

About this Episode’s Guest Walter Iooss Jr.

Widely viewed as one of the greatest sports photographers of our time and called “the poet laureate of sports,” Walter Iooss, Jr.’s photographs have graced the pages of Sports Illustrated, including more than 300 covers, for 58 years. Since the age of 17,

Antitrust expert Bill Baer joins Tim to talk about the growing interest in antitrust and efforts to rein in Big Tech. Bill is a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, and has a unique view of all of this. He was Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, and before that he had served as Director of the Bureau of Competition at the Federal Trade Commission. In this episode, Bill explains how antitrust reform, particularly for Big Tech, has already begun to take shape.

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In a normal year, words like “antitrust” don’t come up much, unless you’re in a courtroom or legal office. But this is not a normal year.

Big Tech has never been more powerful. Companies like Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Twitter, have unprecedent influence on the way Americans work, spend, invest, socialize, stay informed and above all, communicate.

The amount of power wielded by such a small group of companies and powerful people hasn’t been seen since the turn of the last century.

While Big Tech has made news for its bold efforts to influence the national dialogue in recent months, many have said that because they are private companies, technology platforms are not subject to First Amendment law.

What many of those same people may not realize is that the issues at play may have as much to do with antitrust and competition as they do with communication.

In Washington, D.C. there are bipartisan efforts to take a serious look at antitrust reform. The people behind the movement say that antitrust law hasn’t kept up with the pace of change in technology and its impact on society.

Senator Amy Klobuchar, the Democrat senator from Minnesota, is the new chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Antitrust Subcommittee. That committee introduced sweeping legislation to update the U.S. antitrust law.

Republican Congressman Ken Buck from Colorado, has taken up the issue in the House. He’s on the House Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law, and helping to lead the charge, with Democrats, to revisit the laws that govern monopolies. This is a nonpartisan issue.

Both the Senate and the House are looking closely at how those laws may need to be changed to ensure that big technology firms do not get the kind of power that could cripple some segments of society if misused.

Links

* Bill Baer Bio, The Brookings Institution

* How Senator Klobuchar's Proposals will Move the Antitrust Debate Forward, Brookings Blog

* Testimony of Bill Baer before U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law, October 1, 2020

* Colorado's Congressional Odd Couple, Buck and Neguse, is Taking on Big Tech, The Denver Post

* Acting FTC Chair Calls for 'Bold Action' to Rein in Tech, Other Monopolies, MarketWatch

About this Episode’s Guest Bill Baer

Antitrust has been the principal focus of Bill’s career. On three different occasions, he served in the U.S. antitrust enforcement agencies: from 1975 to 1980 in various positions at the Federal Trade Commission; f...

Princeton professor and author Keith Whittington joins Tim to talk about the current state of free speech, or not-so-free-speech on the American college campus. Keith has a long resume of accomplishments, including the authoring of the award-winning book, “Speak Freely: Why Universities Must Defend Free Speech.” But in this episode, we talk about Keith’s role in the formation of a new and already growing organization that champions freedom of speech called the Academic Freedom Alliance (AFA).

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There is a growing fear on college campuses among professors and instructors that they could say or do the smallest thing and it could ruin their careers. They could be canceled for using the wrong story or word to illustrate a point while teaching a class.

Something they say or do could be perceived by some students as a triggering factor – something that could trigger some negative emotion that hinders learning.

If you follow the news, or just do a quick Google search, you’ll find stories where educators, or the colleges themselves, were called out by students for perceived lack of sensitivity to certain issues.

It’s stories like those that have created a growing concern among educators that something has to be done to turn the tide. They’re concerned that students and others may have the wrong idea about what a college education is supposed to be about. That college is a place to challenge yourself and be challenged. To investigate, analyze and expose yourself to different ways of thinking, diverse schools of thought. And above all, not to fear such exposure or see it as something to be protected from.

It’s with this in mind, that Professor Keith Whittington of Princeton, and more than 200 other scholars from across America decided to form the AFA.  Keith says the AFA is dedicated to helping college educators, quote - “speak, instruct, and publish without fear of sanction, bullying, punishment or persecution.”

Links

* Keith Whittington's Princeton Home Page

* The Academic Freedom Alliance: A Q&A with Keith Whittington, Academe Blog

* Speak Freely: Why Universities Must Defend Free Speech, by Keith Whittington (Barnes & Noble)

* Fresh Hope for Campus Free Speech, New York Post/AP

About this Episode’s Guest Keith Whittington

Keith E. Whittington is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics at Princeton University, and Chair of the Academic Committee of the Academic Freedom Alliance. He writes about American constitutional law, politics and history and American political thought. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Texas School of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, and Harvard Law School and is a member of the American Academy of the Arts and Sciences.

He serves on the Board of Directors for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. His work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Atlantic, among other outlets, and he is a regular contributor to the Volokh Conspiracy blog. He is the author of several books, including Speak Freely: Why Universities Must Defend Free Speech and Repugnant Laws: Judicial Review of Acts of Congress from the Founding to the Present. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Texas at Austin and completed his Ph.D. in political science at Yale University.

The man behind one of the hottest comedy Twitter accounts, Ricky Cobb, joins Tim to talk about his creation called Super 70s Sports. It’s a Twitter account about sports and pop culture from the ‘70s through the ‘80s, which has built a huge following, including many celebrities. Super 70s Sports is a tongue-in-cheek and irreverent tribute to one of the craziest eras in sports and pop culture history.

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The 1970s. Astroturf. Leisure suits. Disco music. Bell bottoms, mustaches, long hair, short shorts and so much more.

In sports it was the Pittsburgh Steelers or the Dallas Cowboys. In baseball, it was double-knit uniforms and Astroturf.

If you were into rock, it was Kansas, David Bowie or the Rolling Stones. If you wanted to dance, maybe the Bee Gees, Donna Summer or Earth, Wind and Fire.

Reggie Jackson was Mister October. Jack Nicklaus was the Golden Bear. And Evil Knievel was lord of the motorcycle jump.

Elvis was, well, Elvis, thank you very much.

And Ricky Cobb… he’s our guest. He’s decided to pay homage to all of it through a comedic tribute to the 1970s on Twitter, and now through an online store and a podcast. It’s called Super 70s Sports.

Links

* The Official Twitter Account of Super 70s Sports (Twitter)

* Super 70s Sports Store, online merchandise (Official)

* Meet the Chicago Area Man Behind the Hilarious Super 70s Sports Twitter Account, Chicago Tribune

* Meet the Man Behind Twitter's Most Hilarious Sports Account, New York Post

About this Episode's Guest Ricky Cobb

Ricky Cobb is a college professor by day and the creator of the Super 70s Sports Twitter account and comedy empire by night and weekends.

Biographer Carol Felsenthal joins Tim to tell the story of one of the most talked about members of a first family in 100 years. Alice Roosevelt Longworth was Teddy Roosevelt’s daughter who was well ahead of her time for her wildness, her outspokenness and her ability to make headlines. And long after Teddy died, Alice continued as force of nature for anyone who was anyone in Washington, D.C. throughout the 20th Century until her death at 96 years old in 1980.

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Theodore Roosevelt, better known as Teddy Roosevelt was the nation’s 26th president. He had a colorful history in government and in the army. He was colonel of the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry that was better known as the “Rough Riders.”

As president of the United States, he was no less tenacious. He was once shot by a would-be assassin while giving a speech, and he continued to deliver the speech to its end without quitting.

So, it may not come as a surprise that Teddy would have a daughter with an equally indomitable spirit.

Alice Roosevelt Longworth was born on February 12th, 1884. She grew up with five half-siblings and during her younger years, lived wherever her father’s jobs took the family.

From Washington, D.C., to New York City.

Historians have described Alice as intelligent, stubborn, and strong-willed.

When her father Teddy became President of the United States in 1901, Alice would soon find herself in the spotlight – though some would say, she actually stole the limelight from her larger-than-life father.

As First Daughter, Alice was a celebrity and the stories are many. Like the time she was found smoking on the White House roof. Or, carrying a snake in her purse. Or betting on horse races.

The public loved her.  And since Teddy was a smart politician, he knew not to get between the public and someone they adored.

She traveled the world as a member of the first family and served its goodwill ambassador. But it didn’t stop there.

She would marry congressional representative Nicholas Longworth in 1906 and soon become one of the leading socialites in Washington society for the better part of the 20th Century until her death in 1980.

Anyone who was anyone in Washington wanted to know her, and wanted to stay on her good side.

She knew a lot of people and had a sharp wit. One of her most famous sayings is when she said: “If you don’t have anything good to say about someone, come here and sit next to me.”

Carol Felsenthal is an author of numerous biographies, and she found the story of Alice Roosevelt Longworth just too good to pass up.

Links

* Alice Roosevelt Longworth: The Original White House Wild Child, All That's Interesting

* At 90, Alice Roosevelt Longworth Didn't Care Who She Offended in this Mean, Funny 1974 Interview, Washington Post

* Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Theodore Roosevelt Center

* Princess Alice: The Life and Times of Alice Roosevelt Longworth, by Carol Felsenthal (Amazon)

About this Episode's Guest Carol Felsenthal

Carol Felsenthal is the author of unauthorized biograp...