"Phishy" Feud Blocks Net Fraud Protection

We have all received them: emails allegedly from Bank of America, or Citibank, or any of a host of financial institutions warning you to update your account information at their web sites or risk losing access to those accounts. These emails, of course, contain instructions for “updating” your account information; simply click on the link in the email and your account log in screen will appear. Hopefully by now most people are aware that these emails are an insidious and all too common fraud scheme labeled “Phishing,” and what the cyber criminals are “phishing” for are user ids and passwords to your accounts.

The link in the email takes you to sites that look identical to your bank or credit union or credit card log in screens, but in reality are sophisticated imitations whose sole purpose is to capture your user ids and passwords as you enter them. Cyber criminals receive your information in real time and weeks later, when you review your credit card or bank statements, you will be shocked to discover unauthorized credit card charges and that your bank accounts have been methodically siphoned of your hard earned money.

The technology exists to eliminate these fake web sites, and would be relatively easy to implement, saving victims of this crime from the stress, time, and often money involved in restoring their accounts and eventually their identities. What is holding up the implementation of Phishing prevention on the Internet? According to a UPI report by Shaun Watterman, international distrust of the U.S. Government and global envy of its strong position to control much of the Internet’s infrastructure are the culprits, and online consumers are paying the price, literally, for the petty political spat.

The www Web addresses we are all familiar with actually represent Internet Protocol (IP) numbers that serve to direct Internet traffic to the corresponding web page requested. Faking or “spoofing” these Web addresses and IP numbers is fairly simple. I learned how to do it in minutes in a government training course years ago. The security problem that makes these fraudulent web sites possible is a lack of digital authentication that would direct traffic only to real sites.

When you manually visit your bank’s web site (not following any links to it), you can rest assured that you are visiting the authentic site. However, there is currently no system in place that prevents Phishers from using the real site IP address in the links they email to potential victims while the link actually leads to an imitation web page. As reported by UPI, the U.S. Government has funded a program to authenticate all web domain names (www Web addresses) and establishing “keys” that identify whether you are visiting the bank’s real or fake web site.

Unfortunately, the question of who will hold the keys to the authentication system is hampering the progress of this important consumer protection measure. Some concern has been raised by international Internet organizations and some governments that whoever holds the digital keys would be the lone entity in the world capable of spoofing IP addresses and domain names, without explaining why they are worried about the U.S. government doing so. This is where the anti-American sentiment comes into play, as the U.S. already controls the “Root Zone” that controls .com, .org, and other large top level domains. The U.S. proposal for global authentication does not assert that the U.S. should hold sole control of the authentication keys, and even leaves the door open for a trusted contractor to manage the Root Zone. Foreign governments, though, distrust the U.S. enough to block this important development, apparently being more concerned with obtaining a piece of the pie than with consumer protection.

It is unclear whether the international Internet organizations will ever come to an agreement over who will ultimately control the authentication keys, thus placing the implementation of such a system in jeopardy. Fortunately, the U.S. government is prepared to act unilaterally to impose Root Zone authentication on the domains under its control: .gov; .com; .org; and .us. One thing for certain is that under no circumstances will the Root Zone key be given to any Nigerian, Russian, or former Soviet state government agency or contractor, as the vast majority of these Phishing and similar identity theft related scams currently emanate from those areas.

Thankfully, as a consumer you have the power to manually authenticate the Internet sites you visit by inputting the www Web names or following links created by you or someone you trust. Keep in mind that no financial institution ever calls you by phone or sends you email requesting information they already have, such as your name, Social Security Number, account number or PIN, etc. If you receive such a phone call, capture the caller id if possible, refuse to provide any information, and report the incident to your financial institution and to the Internet Fraud Complaint Center. If you receive an email, identify it as spam to your ISP and future emails should go straight to your “junk” or “bulk” folders. Report the incident to the IFCC, linked above. Many products on the market, such as Norton Internet Security 2007, Earthlink Protection Center, and most popular newer web browsers offer built-in scam blocking or Phishing detection features that are quite effective.

When it comes to Phishing and online fraud, private sector companies such as Symantec are light years ahead of governments in the effort to provide immediate prevention tools to consumers. While Internet-wide site authentication would be a tremendous boon to Internet security and commerce, it may be years in coming due to international wrangling over the “keys.” Teenage siblings arguing over car keys seem only slightly less juvenile.

Robin Hood Was No Socialist!

Social Security; Medicare; Medicaid; low income housing subsidies; food stamps; government welfare; all of these could be discontinued and the needs of former recipients of government largess will still be met, if research conducted at a California university is put into practice. Of course, that is not the conclusion that the academicians involved in the study reached, but the researchers may have inadvertently provided support to conservatives who favor lower taxes and more involvement by private and religious charitable organizations in caring for America’s poor.

CNN (Reuters) reported last night that a computer lab research project involving 120 students at UC-Davis demonstrated a “Robin Hood” impulse shared by the majority of participants that produced interesting results. According to the CNN piece:

The experiment was carried out last year using 120 paid student volunteers at a computer lab on the campus of the University of California at Davis.

The volunteers sat at computer terminals, and a computer would assign them into groups of four. Once placed into a group, each person was assigned an amount of money and was told how much money the other three members were given.

The players then had the chance to spend some of their own money in order to increase or decrease the amount the others possessed, but their actions provided no financial gain for themselves.

They played the game five times, but never with anyone from a previous group. This was to eliminate the possibility of players trying to establish a reputation for themselves or taking revenge on others who might have taken money from them.

Equalizing income
About 70 percent of participants at some point reduced or added to another person's money, most often by taking from the richest players or by donating to the poorest players, the study found.

These actions had the collective effect of equalizing income among the players -- with participants spending their own money to achieve the goal.
The researchers said even players whose own loot had been pilfered in previous rounds were willing to take steps to redistribute the money in an egalitarian manner.

The term “Robin Hood impulse”, used by Professor James Fowler to describe his findings, is only partially correct. When the players took money from the wealthiest players and gave it to the poorest players, they were exhibiting “Robin Hood” tendencies. However, when players spent their own money to equalize resources among the other players, they were acting charitably. The difference between the two motives is significant and should not be excluded from the reported findings.

The key aspect of these findings is that the players voluntarily spent their own money to help strangers who were struggling financially, out of a sense of egalitarianism. The game, designed to test egalitarianism and its role in human interaction, demonstrated that players consistently sought to share resources even when they did not stand to benefit from that action. There is another term for that, charity, but given the religious implications of that word, academia apparently shied away from applying it to the behavior exhibited by these students.

It is interesting to note that President Bush’s Faith Based Initiatives, which allow the government to “outsource” charitable services to religious organizations already engaged in providing aid to their communities, are roundly criticized on the left for relying too heavily on human charity to care for the poor. These critics are averse to any diversion of taxpayer money away from established bureaucracies. The argument from these critics is that people are selfish and will not redistribute their resources voluntarily to help the poor in their communities, thus the government must take that money by force and give it to the needy or they will not survive. Private or religious charities are never given a fair chance to demonstrate that citizens, out of the same sense of egalitarianism displayed in the UC-Davis study, will rise to the occasion and ensure that the needy among them are cared for.

Instead, government demonstrates in impulse that is much more “Prince John” than “Robin Hood”, in that it forcibly takes an ever-increasing percentage of income from the “rich” and instead of immediately redistributing it to the poor, often hoards it, earns interest dividends from it, and eventually reassigns it to other pressing budgetary concerns. Americans generally are imbued with a sense of fair play, and in that regard possess a “Robin Hood” impulse: we want to voluntarily give our money to charities rather than to greedy government officials who hoard it like the Sheriff of Nottingham.

It should be remembered that Robin Hood was not a socialist. He was not stealing from the rich to give to the poor in a classic redistribution of wealth (at least in the wildly entertaining Disney version). He was actually recovering the people’s money from the government, which had overtaxed them so severely that they could no longer care for the needy among them through their own charitable acts. In essence he was putting taxpayer money back in taxpayer pockets, perhaps a medieval "compassionate conservative." Who among us has not looked at the amount of taxes withheld from a paycheck and felt as pained as Disney’s Robin Hood character whose leg cast was thumped and searched for hidden money by the Sheriff of Nottingham? In that sense, Robin Hood was an egalitarian motivated by charity, who clearly felt that the poor were better cared for by their neighbors and communities than by a distant government unfamiliar with local circumstances.

The fact that 70% of the college students in this study, who have not yet entered the real world of supporting a middle class family on a tight budget and have not yet learned to appreciate how wrong it is to forcibly take money from some to give to others, robbed from the rich to give to the poor, is not particularly surprising. Yet even these students dipped into their own pockets (figuratively) to help level the economic playing field. Private and religious charitable organizations should be given more opportunities to demonstrate that through citizen generosity the needy in local communities can be provided for with less government involvement and state controlled redistribution of income. Likewise, America’s workers should be allowed to keep more of their income, which, as this study illustrated, would result in more donations to local charities.

The “Robin Hood” impulse appears to manifest itself, if unimpeded by the government, in actions that look, to the discomfort of secular academia, like charity. Government assistance programs are the antithesis of charity, for the giver is forced and the recipient is deprived of recognizing the loving sacrifice behind a voluntary donation. Robin Hood risked his life to help the poor, and charitable Americans would willingly do likewise if government loosened its stranglehold on public assistance programs. After all, there is a little of Robin Hood and a divine spark in each of us.

Reid & Pelosi Ignore Allies on Timetable

The irony of the day award belongs to Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Congressional Democrats who refuse to meet with President Bush to discuss the Iraq War funding bill. The irony lies in the fact that the Democrats have thus far refused to present President Bush with a “clean bill” that does not set a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. Troops from Iraq, while at the same time the heads of state in Iraq and Jordan are urging the U.S. not to abandon Iraq prematurely or set timetables for withdrawal. Apparently the Democrats' "alternative foreign policy" mandates that traveling to and counseling with Syria and Iran (terror sponsors extraordinaire) is good, but listening to Jordan (an ally) and Iraq (democratically elected Prime Minister and ally) is bad.

President Bush is often vilified by the left for his “unilateral” decision to invade Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein, and for ignoring French and German leaders who opposed military action in Iraq. This “cowboy diplomacy,” the left claims, hurt America’s image among Europeans and, to use a Kerry-ism, made America “an international pariah.” In an effort to address this criticism of his political personality, President Bush has frequently engaged Iraqi leaders and solicited their opinions as well as those of regional heads of state (except for Syria and Iran, who are waging war on the U.S. within Iraq). In these open discussions with world leaders, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has a much better view of what is occurring in his country than Democratic Congressmen, has advised President Bush since last October not to set timetables for withdrawal.

The King of Jordan, Abdullah II, echoed this sentiment, warning America that early withdrawal from Iraq and setting timetables “without preparing the necessary conditions that would ensure a strong central government able to run the affairs of the state and an Iraqi force able to ensure security and stability, may only worsen the problem and contribute to increasing violence and conflict among Iraqis.”

Prime Minister al-Maliki, clearly frustrated by the timetable issue, stated that a timetable was not necessary because his government “is working as fast as we can.” The impatience for Iraqi progress displayed by the Democratic Congress has been shameful. In reality, the Democrats are attempting to set a timetable for a sovereign foreign democracy that we have committed to preserving until its government can fully defend itself to achieve self-reliance.

The timetable issue is a prime example of President Bush being “darned if he does and darned if he doesn’t” when it comes to counseling with world leaders. When he counseled too little with Europe before Operation Iraqi Freedom, he was roundly criticized as a “cowboy.” When he counsels now with Middle Eastern leaders who oppose a timetable, Harry Reid and Congressional Democrats refuse to meet with him unless he accepts their imposed timetable regardless of the fact that Iraqi and Jordanian leaders advise against it.

As Americans, our commitment to defending democracies should be open-ended. It has been with Israel, another Middle Eastern democracy, so why are the Democrats so eager to shorten or completely end our commitment to Iraq? Is it because it is a Muslim democracy and Democrats do not believe Muslims capable of living within a democratic society? If it is not the soft bigotry of low expectations, what fuels the maniacal timetable frenzy? We committed to defending European democracies imperiled by Nazi fascists in WWII, but for some reason Democrats refuse to commit to defending a Muslim democracy from Islamic Fascists sworn to quench the flame of freedom in the Middle East.

Imagine if after Hurricane Katrina a foreign nation provided thousands of men and heavy machinery to rebuild the city along with New Orleans residents, but after a few years the foreign nation’s leaders decided that since the local residents were not rebuilding fast enough, the reconstruction was no longer worthwhile and imposed a timetable on the storm ravaged citizens of New Orleans or help would be withdrawn because of the high violent crime rate. What was once a compassionate and generous offer of mutual assistance would have become the stick in a carrot and stick approach to diplomacy. Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi have been holding that proverbial stick over free Iraqis for selfish personal political motives.

The mixed messages sent by Democrats on this issue would confuse any president. Should he listen to the counsel of world leaders or not? The President is right to reject any attempt to include a timetable for withdrawal in the war funding bill. Perhaps if Speaker “For Assad’s House” Pelosi visits the Middle East again, she should take Senator Reid along and together they could look Prime Minister al-Maliki in the eye and tell him they just do not believe Iraqis will ever be capable of sustaining a democracy and are thus not worth defending. Then they could jet to Amman and explain to King Abdullah II that they know better than he does and he is wrong about timetables and their influence on a war being waged across his border.

The left claims that President Bush is arrogant, but the Democrats’ efforts to micromanage the war, impatiently criticize Iraq’s courageous and fledgling government, and conduct their own foreign policy have set a new standard of arrogance.

CNN: Bitter Dems Target Electoral College

On Monday, a reader submitted a comment on my post “Electoral College in Crosshairs of 39 States,” in which the reader disagreed with my assertion that the impetus behind the current push to abolish the Electoral College was President Bush’s controversial victory over Al Gore despite Gore’s winning the popular vote. I wrote that liberal bitterness over that incident was driving the current movement.

Last night, CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider published an article on this issue, and although writing for a liberal-biased network, he acknowledged that Democrats are championing the Electoral College’s demise and recognized that while the movement did not begin with the 2000 election, that event created a sense of urgency that generated action. He also supported the conclusion that the current movement as described in my Monday post is in fact a legislative method to avoid amending the U.S. Constitution. Schneider wrote:

Those states would agree to appoint presidential electors who would vote for the winner of the national popular vote, no matter who wins the vote in each state. It would be a way to turn presidential elections into a nationwide popular vote without having to amend the Constitution. . . .

The problem is what happened in 2000. George W. Bush got elected by winning the Electoral College, even though Al Gore got more votes. That's happened four times in the country's history.(Watch Schneider talk about the Maryland law )

In our current system, the president is elected by the Electoral College and not directly by the people. The number of electoral votes each state receives depends on its population and representatives are chosen to vote on behalf of the people in the state. To win, a candidate has to win 270 electoral votes, which is a majority. If neither candidate gets that, Congress determines who wins. A few times, the American people's choice for president hasn't actually moved into the White House.

It's mostly Democrats who are behind this move. They're still angry over how Bush got elected, even though in 2004, a shift of about 60 thousand votes in Ohio would have elected John Kerry despite Bush's popular vote margin of over three million.

While there may be a need to engage in national discussion and debate over this issue of a national popular vote, that debate should occur BEFORE states act to circumvent the Constitution because “their man” did not win in 2000. The debate should focus on the merits of the Electoral College and if the support for a national popular vote is as broad as its proponents claim, then advocates should initiate the Constitutional amendment process.

The fact that they are quietly passing state legislative bills to avoid amending the Constitution should be a warning flag that the anti-Electoral College movement is pushing for something not explicitly approved of by a majority of Americans. If it were popular and much needed, a Constitutional amendment would pass smoothly. Advocates are avoiding that process because most Americans do not want to abandon a system established by the Founding Fathers at the request of smaller states to make sure their interests were not completely negated by the largest population centers.

The arguments that a national popular vote would improve campaigns because candidates would be forced to spend more time in “safe” cities and states, are specious at best. The idea of Democrat candidates campaigning hard in liberal Philadelphia to increase their margins of victory to offset losses in the popular vote elsewhere, is as ludicrous as the old “margin of victory” formula used by the BCS in college football. Teams like Florida State would post 77-0 victories over small patsies offering no competition because it was safe, and then BCS poll voters would be impressed by the margin of victory and boost a team’s rankings. A national popular vote would create a BCS system for electing U.S. presidents, a system in which 6-7 large metropolitan areas would determine a winner (just like the self-proclaimed 6 “major” college football conferences dictate participation in the BCS), and smaller states and cities would have little to no influence on national policies that directly affect them (just like the “mid-major” conferences have no opportunity to play in the BCS championship game).

Fortunately for America, the Founder’s wisdom foresaw the need to protect rural and suburban communities from being swallowed by the political domination of a few large cities concentrated in certain regions. The Electoral College assures that Philadelphians, who through no fault of their own know nothing about the needs of ranchers in the west or farmers in the Midwest, are not selecting our president simply because they outnumber the residents in less densely populated areas. A national popular vote would concentrate power too narrowly, and like the BCS, once power is obtained, it is stingily, if at all, shared.

Despite token BCS appearances by the University of Utah and Boise State (both resounding victories for the "mid-major"), the current BCS system still assures that no team outside of the 6 self-proclaimed "major" conferences will ever receive enough votes to play in the BCS "Championship" Game. It is not difficult to predict that America's 6-7 largest cities would operate in a similar fashion, choosing election participants and eventual winners with no regard to the needs or preferences of "mid-major" states and regions. We can do better than a BCS or American Idol popularity contest. The stakes are too high for such sophomoric and cavalier selection processes.

If you missed Monday’s post on this topic and the reader comments, I encourage you to take the time to examine the issue and make your voice heard by your local legislators. With 39 states debating bills similar to Maryland’s, chances are high that your legislators may be pondering an end run around the Constitution. We have a Constitutional amendment process for a reason. I urge readers to make your local representatives adhere to it.

From War to Warming: Senators Seek to Divert Attention

One of the left’s sharpest criticisms of President Bush’s handling of the War on Terror has been the argument that after routing the Taliban in Afghanistan, he turned his focus away from Bin Laden and al Qaeda in that region in favor of waging war on Saddam Hussein. The needless war in Iraq, liberals and Richard Clarke claim, shifted resources and priorities away from pursuing Bin Laden and the Taliban further, and this stretched our military too thin to effectively achieve its missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Additionally, the 9/11 Commission determined that our intelligence agencies possessed thousands of seized terrorism related Arabic documents yet to be translated and analyzed due to inadequate budgets and staffing. The burdens of a War on Terror, the President’s critics claim, are too heavy for our military and intelligence agencies to bear.

Now global warming hysteria has moved members of Congress to propose a bill that would tie a millstone to the neck of our military and intelligence agencies by diverting their attention further from the War on Terror and sink them in a quagmire of studies, strategic planning, and war games to prepare for, drum roll please: global warming. That’s right, a normal cyclical global weather pattern is in line for being awarded status as a “national defense issue,” if a bill cosponsored by Sen. Chuck (Cut and Run) Hagel, R-NE, and Sen. Dick (our troops in Guantanamo act like Nazis) Durbin, D-IL, passes in Congress. The Boston Globe reported that the bill would order the National Intelligence Director to conduct a “National Intelligence Estimate” on global warming, and would likewise order the Pentagon to engage in war games exploring possible national security scenarios that could allegedly result from extreme weather.

Apparently some members of Congress, with the urging of the National Academy of Sciences, have become so spooked by wildly exaggerated films such as “The Day After Tomorrow” and “An Inconvenient Truth,” that they determined global warming poses a danger to national security so grave that it warrants their recommending that the military divert its attention away from the War on Terror to focus on hurricanes and climate change. I find it ironic that the President’s critics feel that diverting military and intelligence attention from the War on Terror is acceptable for global warming, but it was not acceptable in the case of deposing a dictator who had used chemical weapons on his own people and failed to comply with 14 UN resolutions demanding WMD inspections.

When I go to sleep at night, I am far more worried about a rogue nation in possession of WMDs than I am of a cyclical and temporary melting of polar ice fields. Severe weather was such a threat to national defense in 2006 that we had 0 (none, zero) hurricanes make landfall in the U.S.

The motive behind the bill is more insidious. The White House has apparently not embraced the questionable science behind the global warming frenzy, and this has frustrated those who have staked their professional reputations on the issue. Consider this excerpt from the Boston Globe’s coverage of the proposed bill:

"If you get the intelligence community to apply some of its analytic capabilities to this issue, it could be compelling to whoever is sitting in the White House," said Anne Harrington , director of the committee on international security at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington. "If the White House does not absorb the independent scientific expertise, then maybe something from the intelligence community might have more weight."

Will this be the new trend, to declare every pet issue a “national defense” issue because the White House is more likely to read and take action on military and intelligence reports than climate change “science?” Like the boy who cried wolf’s exaggerated warnings, the more causes that are given national defense status, the more difficult it will become to properly assign highest priority to those that pose the greatest immediate threat. Worse, diverting resources from military and intelligence operations to alleged global warming while we are fighting a real War on Terror and Operation Iraqi Freedom, is a shoddy approach to national defense that reeks of political opportunism.

Senators Hagel and Durbin should cut out some of that shameful pork attached to the armed service appropriation bill drafts and divert it to hire more translators and intelligence staff to sift through the mountain of documents seized in Afghanistan and Iraq instead of demanding national intelligence estimates on global warming. We need better intelligence on Iran more than we need intelligence estimates on severe weather. We can assert far more control over one than the other.

Will Iran Have Bomb in Months?

My, how things change in a week! One week ago, I wrote about reports that U.S. intelligence analysts had revised their estimates for the earliest date by which Iran could develop a nuclear bomb from the year 2015 to 2009. Now, a scant 7 days later, World Net Daily is reporting that after yesterday’s “nuclear day” announcement by Iranian President Ahmadinejad, intelligence analysts have again revised their estimates of Iran’s capabilities and warn that Iran could potentially produce sufficient weapons-grade Uranium in a matter of months. This would change the estimated target date from sometime in 2009 to late 2007-mid 2008. Maybe moving up the dates of all those big state primaries was a good idea after all, as the candidates may be forced to directly state what they would do about Iran even as Iran’s WMD program reaches critical mass.

According to WND, analysts were taken by surprise by yesterday’s announcement that Iran had successfully constructed and placed in operation 3,000 centrifuges, ten times the number of centrifuges previously known, at the underground Natanz facility. The Chief of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization stated after yesterday’s announcement that within the next 20 days, Iran will announce the number of centrifuges injected with uranium at Natanz.

Because Iran has prevented IAEA inspectors access to the Natanz facility and other less publicized sites, it is currently unknown how many centrifuges are operational throughout Iran or what improvements have been made on the original centrifuge technology Iran acquired from Pakistani scientist Abdul Kahn.

In one week, intelligence analysts shaved 7-8 years off of their estimates of Iran’s nuclear weapons program capabilities. The only surprise involved in Iran’s announcement yesterday is that analysts were taken by surprise. On January 24, I wrote the following paragraphs in a post here at Spy The News!, which in light of yesterday’s announcement and analysts’ reactions, seems prescient:

One wonders, given this incredible underestimation of China, a nation we know much more about and can monitor more closely than Iran, how accurate are analysts’ assessments that Iran will not have nuclear weapon capabilities until 2015? That estimate was made after a “major US intelligence review” in 2005, and analysts concluded that Iran was 10 years away from possessing the capability to produce a nuclear bomb.

These analysts were wrong about North Korea, wrong about China’s space weaponry, and it is prudent for current and future administrations to assume that the 10 year prediction for Iran is another dangerous underestimation. Ahmadinejad refuses to allow IAEA inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities, and he openly challenges America, the only obstacle to the goal of Iranian nuclear weaponry, to try to stop him. With the technological assistance of North Korea and the UN Security Council vetoes of China and Russia confidently in pocket, Iran will surely produce a deployable nuclear weapon much sooner than analysts predict.

Revising a WMD estimate from years to months is a significant act in the intelligence community. At least we know one thing for certain: Ahmadinejad does not yet have a nuclear bomb. We know this because no mushroom clouds have appeared over Israel yet. Hopefully our intelligence on Iran will improve so that that will not be our first official notification of Iran’s capabilities. While it is true that leaders such as Ahamdinejad often employ bluster as a propaganda tool, it has become clear that there is significant technology and determination operating behind the bombast. Iran is perilously close to bringing online sufficient enrichment capabilities to produce weapons grade uranium and is daring the UN and particularly the U.S. to intervene.

Electoral College in Crosshairs of 39 States

Is your state legislature quietly working to discard an important Constitutional provision established by the Founding Fathers? It may be, but it is hoping you will not notice until it’s too late. Several state legislatures have already done so and 38 states at last count were considering passage of legislation to destroy the work of the Founding Fathers with no fanfare and minimal public outcry or even awareness. What is this pressing issue that states are moving rapidly to address, and in many cases embrace? Eliminating the Electoral College and our republican form of government currently in place in favor of a winner by popular vote democracy.

The provision gradually being voted out of existence is important, as it balances power between large and small states in national elections and limits the influence that one highly populated region can wield in determining who will be President of the United States. The Constitutional provision is commonly misunderstood, as most voters never take the time to read Article V of the Constitution, and is thus easily misrepresented in the media by groups who favor eliminating the Electoral College. These groups cite arguments for the change that are disingenuous statistically and historically, yet they rely on voter ignorance to achieve their goal.

Americans should always be wary of any movement that claims the Founding Fathers could not have envisioned a particular circumstance and thus the Constitution must be altered to reflect “reality” or “modern developments.” In the case of the movement to abolish the Electoral College, the motive of the movement’s ardent supporters should be closely evaluated. In sound bites and news articles, the leaders of this movement claim to be fighting for minorities, for “making votes count,” and for the winner of the popular vote to automatically be elected. What is the reason for this renewed any rapidly advancing campaign to eliminate the Electoral College and republican system? Why, George W. Bush, of course.

Four times in American electoral history, the winner of the popular vote did not win the Electoral College and was denied the presidency, in 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000. While some dissatisfaction with the Electoral College system arose from the first three of these occurrences, the 2000 election which denied Al Gore of victory generated multiple recounts, court decisions, and accusations of dishonesty unparalleled in U.S. history. No president since Abraham Lincoln took office with more animosity and bitter division confronting him than George W. Bush. Opponents immediately declared his presidency to be illegitimate because “the people” had chosen Al Gore. The rancor this electoral environment produced has hampered the Bush administration and has given added impetus to the current drive to abolish the Electoral College. Although that movement disguises itself as an innocent lamb Constitutional improvement, it is in reality a dangerous wolf counting on Anti-Bush sentiment to assure the desired change.

Maryland’s legislature recently approved a measure that will guarantee its Electoral College votes will automatically be given to the winner of the popular vote. Some Maryland legislators questioned the wisdom of giving away the state’s 10 Electoral College votes to a candidate the majority of its own voters may not have chosen, but the anti-Bush hotheads succeeded in passing the measure. State legislators have cleverly understood that changing the U.S. Constitution to abolish the Electoral College is a very lengthy and difficult process, while changing their own state constitutions can achieve the same end by simpler means. By automatically assigning a state’s Electoral College votes to the popular vote winner, the Electoral College would no longer have the ability to serve the purpose for which it was created: balancing power between large (highly populated) and smaller states. The Electors’ votes would be meaningless.

The recent World Net Daily article about this issue refers to two groups: one, National Popular Vote, is spearheading the drive to abolish the Electoral College. The other, Wallbuilders, is advocating against the change and for preservation of our government as a republic rather than a true democracy. The Wallbuilders Internet site offers historical explanations for the origins of the Electoral College, and detailed counterarguments to the claims that the Electoral College is undemocratic, outdated, unfair, discriminatory, or ineffective in balancing power. It is worth reviewing, as this movement to destroy our republican form of government appears to be gaining momentum.

Of equal importance, Wallbuilders also debunks the dangerously false assertion that the Founding Fathers would embrace the proposed change to a virtual democracy rather than a republic. Those who argue that the Founders never intended for a popular vote winner to lose an election have clearly never read, or are choosing to ignore, both Article V of the Constitution and the Federalist Papers, both of which strenuously work to convince Americans to avoid a popular democracy. The founders, in fact, mandated that all state governments also be republics rather than democracies. The following quotes from Founders illustrate that they knew the difference between a republic and a democracy and wisely chose a republic, courtesy of Wallbuilders:

[D]emocracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. James Madison

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. John Adams

A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way. The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness [excessive license] which the ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be, liberty. Fisher Ames, a framer of the bill of rights

We have seen the tumults of democracy terminate . . . as [it has] everywhere terminated, in despotism. . . . Democracy! savage and wild. Thou who wouldst bring down the virtuous and wise to thy level of folly and guilt. Gouverneur Morris, signer and penman of the constitution

[T]he experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating, and short-lived. John Quincy Adams

A simple democracy . . . is one of the greatest of evils. Benjamin Rush, signer of the declaration

In democracy . . . there are commonly tumults and disorders. . . . Therefore a pure democracy is generally a very bad government. It is often the most tyrannical government on earth. Noah Webster, responsible for article i, section i, ¶ 8 of the constitution

Pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state — it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage. John Witherspoon, signer of the declaration

The desire for large, densely populated states to wield more influence on elections has not changed since the days of the Founders. One need only look at the recent decisions by California, Florida, and several other large states to move their election year primaries to February to see why small states need protection. Why was this done? Simply, large states felt that smaller, insignificant (in their view) small states like Iowa and New Hampshire were having too much influence on national elections through their early primaries and caucuses. These same large states are also championing the back door approach to abolishing the Electoral College by passing state legislation dictating that Electoral votes are given to the popular winner nationwide.

If you are unsure whether you reside in a state that is acting behind the scenes to eliminate the Electoral College, contact your state legislators and voice your opinion. While it is true Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000, President Bush carried 2436 counties nationwide as opposed to only 676 for Gore. Gore’s support was concentrated in a few densely populated cities on the East and West Coasts. President Bush’s appeal was truly national in scope, indicating that the majority of localities felt he best represented their interests and values. Spy The News! encourages voters to educate themselves about this issue and why the Founders established the Electoral College. Readers should work to prevent state legislatures from destroying a measure the Founders applied as a cement to hold the large and small states together despite population concentrations or popular trends.

British Crew Sells Stories (and credibility?) to Media

As a brief follow-up to my post Friday about the "psychologically pressured" British crew recently held captive in Iran, their actions since being released have only provided further evidence of their softness compared with past generations who suffered in POW camps in other wars.

This morning, SkyNews reported that some crew members have been selling their stories to the eager media, ensuring their instant celebrity status and fattening their wallets. British Ministry of Defense officials are now scrambling, attempting to determine what, if anything, can be done to restrict military personnel from selling their stories to the media and personally benefiting financially while remaining in military service. The decision was made in this case to allow the crew to sell their stories because of the "exceptional circumstances" they endured.

Critics of the Ministry's decision to allow the sale of the crew's stories rightly argue that stories sold for money are likely to be exaggerated in order to make the ordeal sound more "newsworthy."

The precedent set by the released crew is a dangerous one, as it is clear that Iran will be emboldened by Britain's lack of substantive response to the kidnapping and holding of its military personnel, as I described in Friday's post. One wonders how many war veterans who truly suffered as POWs never benefited even one penny from their ordeals, and more importantly, never expected such compensation.

From a propaganda perspective, the international community will find it increasingly difficult to condemn Iran for its actions when the kidnapped crew appears to be in many respects better off for their experience as hostages. Iran appears to have won the military and propaganda campaigns in this confrontation with Britain, and Britain's national security may be the ultimate loser as a result. The hostages, all smiles for the cameras, shook Ahmadinejad's hand and depositing royalty checks into their bank accounts for describing their ordeals encountered while performing military service. No punishment for Ahmadinejad and Iran, and no restraint on the returned hostages.

The contrast between the British crew and Douglas Bader and Admiral Stockdale is stark indeed.