VOTE 2016 - The Fear Mongers

"The history of politicians going way beyond the facts to court fear" PBS NewsHour 7/4/2016

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SUMMARY:  Political candidates’ rhetoric often gets heated, even inflammatory on the campaign trail.  But when does it cross the line into the offensive or fear-mongering? Hari Sreenivasan gets a historical perspective from presidential historian Michael Beschloss and Beverly Gage of Yale University.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  Candidates’ speeches on the campaign trail can at times get inflammatory with little regard for accuracy.  That’s not new.  But this election season has been marked by divisive language that some find hateful.

So, what is the line to be looking for?  And what lessons of the past can help guide us?

Joining me now to dissect the rhetoric on the campaign trail is presidential historian Michael Beschloss, and Beverly Gage, professor of American history at Yale.

Thank you both for joining us.

So, I want to ask.  I guess the first question is, when free speech intersects with fear-mongering, Michael Beschloss, how much is too much?  How do we figure out where that line is?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, Presidential Historian:  Well, I think the one certain line is when you have a presidential candidate, especially of a major party, criticizing groups within American society.

That has happened in history.  You had, for instance, the candidate of the Know-Nothings, 1856, Millard Fillmore, a former President, who said if you allow people of Irish origin and others to run rampant in American society — he was also anti-Catholic — this will be a danger to America.

But I think most nominees of major parties through at least our modern history realize that this is a country that depends on all sorts of people living together under one umbrella, and they also realize that if you want to win, usually, that happens by not alienating groups, but by trying to bring them together.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Beverly Gage, is it easy to find that line?

BEVERLY GAGE, Yale University:  I think it’s not always so easy to find it, but it’s the sort of thing where people tend to know it when they see it.

And one basic measure is whether or not someone is telling the factual truth.  We would like to think that is sort of a baseline.  People don’t, of course, always adhere to that.

But I agree with Michael that one of the other lines that we are really talking about is vilifying whole swathes of people, creating a kind of conspiratorial language, a discourse that is about guilt by association.  Those can be very, very dangerous things, but they have been around a long time.

REFUGEES - Plight and Misconceptions

"Taking on the plight of refugees — and the misperceptions" PBS NewsHour 6/30/2016

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SUMMARY:  Samantha Power, the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, says the tens of millions of refugees around the world should be embraced, not feared.  But she also said it's important for screening systems to be in place.  She notes that more than 800,000 refugees have been taken in by the U.S. since the 9/11 attacks and none has been involved in domestic terrorism.  Judy Woodruff sits down with Power.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Now to my interview with the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power.

She was here in Washington yesterday to speak on the plight of refugees, now a record 65 million worldwide.  I spoke with her yesterday afternoon at the State Department.

Ambassador Susan Power, thank you very much for talking with us.

SAMANTHA POWER, U.S. Ambassador to the UN:  Great to be here.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  You are calling this situation right now the greatest refugee crisis the world has known since World War II.  And yet you see this rising, enormous backlash in Europe, in the United States.  It says that a lot of people, maybe most people, don't share your view about what to do.  How do you deal with that?

SAMANTHA POWER:  Well, I think there's a lot of latent public opinion that also doesn't necessarily get airtime during presidential elections, for instance.

But there are fears.  I think those fears are stoked.  We have seen those in history at different times, whether it's on whether we let in Jewish refugees during the Second World War or Vietnamese refugees after the Vietnam War.

So there's nothing new in that set of fears.  I think some of the fears are warranted.  People are wondering, could ISIL potentially sneak through?  And we have to answer those fears.  And I think we have by putting in place these incredibly strenuous vetting processes that have the FBI and the Center for Counterterrorism and the Department of Homeland Security at the table vetting the time it takes.

But we also need to do a better job lifting up, I think, the voices of those people who, again, aren't necessarily running for office, but who have welcomed refugees into their homes, into their communities, or giving small amounts of money, donating toys.  And I see that all over the place in going to meet with refugees around the country, is just how much generosity there is at the same time.

FEAR MONGERING - The Privacy Issue

"The privacy vs. security battle, reignited" PBS NewsHour 2/24/2016

I will say again, and again, NO ONE has the right to Obstruct Justice by refusing a legally obtained warrant, nor use the excuse of 'privacy' to hid criminal activity.

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SUMMARY:  As Apple’s standoff with federal courts reignites the debate over privacy versus security, some may wonder just how much American intelligence policies have changed since Sept. 11.  Hari Sreenivasan talks with former CIA Director Michael Hayden about the constitutional cost of national security, the efficacy of drone strikes and the human element within the Central Intelligence Agency.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  We move now from defense to intelligence, and how the country has changed since the attacks of September 11.

The privacy vs. security debate has surfaced again in the wake of the FBI’s appeal to tech giant Apple to unlock an iPhone that belonged to one of the San Bernardino shootings.  And there is renewed campaign debate over torture.

Hari Sreenivasan has our conversation with one man who was at the center of U.S. intelligence policy.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  Retired Air Force General Michael Hayden is the only person to ever serve as both the director of the CIA and the head of the National Security Agency.  His tenure at both agencies came during a critical period, as the U.S. launched and prosecuted the global war on terror.

He’s just written a book about his time in government called “Playing to the Edge.”

He joins me now.

Thanks for joining us.

GEN. MICHAEL HAYDEN (RET.), Author, “Playing to the Edge”:  Thank you, Hari.
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HARI SREENIVASAN:  The other big story right now is obviously this tension between Apple and the government.  In this conversation, you have said that you come down on the side of Apple more often than not.  In this specific case, with this specific device, you are on the side of the government in trying to open it up.  This is the phone, of course, that was used by the attacker in San Bernardino.

You know, one of Apple’s arguments has been, listen, this will set a precedent, it will create a back door.  And, sure enough, there’s at least nine or 10 other cases where Apple is being asked to open up that phone.

GEN. MICHAEL HAYDEN:  Absolutely.

And the U.S. attorney in Manhattan says he has got 175 of these instruments sitting in a room that he wants to be reopened.  So, in this particular case, the original ask from the FBI, going back months now, was some sort of universal back door that would allow them to get into Apple and other companies’ encrypted devices.

Frankly, Hari, I think American safety, American security — put the privacy argument aside, which is quite powerful.  But I’m a security guy.  I think American security is better served with end-to-end unbreakable encryption.

And I recognize that makes the life of the FBI more difficult, may even make the life of my old agency more difficult.