The National (In)Security Agency

Updates

  1. Apparently this post went live long before it was complete, June 26, 2019, 8:29 am. I don’t understand what happened here.
  2. June 26, 9:18 pm:
    • The union representing U.S. asylum officers filed a friend of the court briefing in support of the American Civil Liberties Union suit against the Trump administration’s program to send asylum-seekers to Mexico while their claims are adjudicated.[1]
    • I will not be watching the neoliberal party debate.

National Insecurity

Dustin Volz, “NSA Improperly Collected U.S. Phone Records a Second Time,” Wall Street Journal, June 26, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/nsa-improperly-collected-u-s-phone-records-a-second-time-11561541520


Census

Michael Wines, “Reopened Legal Challenge to Census Citizenship Question Throws Case Into Chaos,” New York Times, June 25, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/25/us/census-citizenship-question.html


Iran

Karen DeYoung, “As insults fly, options for avoiding conflict between the U.S. and Iran narrow,” Washington Post, June 25, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/as-insults-fly-options-for-avoiding-conflict-between-the-us-and-iran-narrow/2019/06/25/17ab47bc-9770-11e9-830a-21b9b36b64ad_story.html


Israel

Ruth Eglash, “Netanyahu reportedly trying to undo Israel’s election redo,” Washington Post, June 26, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/netanyahu-reportedly-trying-to-undo-israels-election-redo/2019/06/26/e2742366-97f1-11e9-830a-21b9b36b64ad_story.html


Advanced placement

The following is substantially the same as I posted as a comment in response to the article. I am identified there by my Twitter handle, n4rky:

The keywords here are ‘experiment’ and ‘blind,’[2] the latter being a term used in experiments to ensure that treatment and control groups are ignorant as to which group they’re in. (“Double blind” means that both research assistants administering the treatment and control and subjects are kept in the dark as to which is which and is considered a gold standard for this type of experiment; that does not appear to have been the design here.)

The principal claims she didn’t know that “a new Advanced Placement Seminar course”—and the test—were for college credit. A majority of students received a ‘placebo’ (control) test largely because neither the school nor the school district could afford to administer the real test to all the students.[3]

All this strains credulity and the local newspaper is far too lenient in its treatment here. Even if true, the principal should have known this was for college credit and has no excuse for not knowing. ‘Research’ subjects in this ‘experiment’ were not protected from harm and did not give informed consent.

Cassidy Alexander, “‘Placebo’ test means no college credit for 336 Mainland AP students,” Daytona Beach News-Journal, June 25, 2019, https://www.news-journalonline.com/news/20190625/placebo-test-means-no-college-credit-for-336-mainland-ap-students


Migration

Maria Sacchetti, “U. S. asylum officers say Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy is threatening migrants’ lives, ask federal court to end it,” Washington Post, June 26, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/u-s-asylum-officers-say-trumps-remain-in-mexico-policy-is-threatening-migrants-lives-ask-federal-court-to-end-it/2019/06/26/863e9e9e-9852-11e9-8d0a-5edd7e2025b1_story.html


  1. [1]Maria Sacchetti, “U. S. asylum officers say Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy is threatening migrants’ lives, ask federal court to end it,” Washington Post, June 26, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/u-s-asylum-officers-say-trumps-remain-in-mexico-policy-is-threatening-migrants-lives-ask-federal-court-to-end-it/2019/06/26/863e9e9e-9852-11e9-8d0a-5edd7e2025b1_story.html
  2. [2]Cassidy Alexander, “‘Placebo’ test means no college credit for 336 Mainland AP students,” Daytona Beach News-Journal, June 25, 2019, https://www.news-journalonline.com/news/20190625/placebo-test-means-no-college-credit-for-336-mainland-ap-students
  3. [3]Cassidy Alexander, “‘Placebo’ test means no college credit for 336 Mainland AP students,” Daytona Beach News-Journal, June 25, 2019, https://www.news-journalonline.com/news/20190625/placebo-test-means-no-college-credit-for-336-mainland-ap-students

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