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Sunday, June 30, 2013

Charity and Influence

Our chapter on interest groups explains that corporations gain influence not only through direct lobbying and campaign contributions but also through donations to politicians' favored causes.  The Sacramento Bee offers an example:
Over the past 18 months, retail giant Wal-Mart and a charity funded by the company's founding family have poured contributions into nonprofit organizations affiliated with Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson and Councilman Jay Schenirer at unprecedented levels.

The Sacramento City Council has at the same time been weighing whether to relax restrictions on big-box stores, a move that would greatly benefit retail chains such as Wal-Mart. Schenirer solicited the contributions even as he backed the big-box changes, which are expected to be adopted by the council next month. Johnson has stayed silent but is considered pro-business and a likely yes vote.

The Wal-Mart donations are part of a wave of charitable contributions, known as "behests," made to causes championed by members of the City Council. Not long ago, these donations were relatively modest, but they have jumped since Johnson's election in 2008.

Saturday, June 29, 2013

National Pride

A recent post mentioned a poll on national pride by the Public Religion Research Institute.  Here is the full release:
As the nation prepares to celebrate the July 4th holiday, a vast majority (82 percent) of Americans say they are generally proud to be an American, citing a range of reasons for their feelings of pride, a survey finds. Roughly less than one-third (31 percent) of Americans say there has ever been a time when they were not proud to be an American. The survey also finds that more than half of Americans (53 percent) plan to attend a July 4th celebration this year.
The new PRRI/RNS Religion News Survey, conducted by Public Religion Research Institute in partnership with Religion News Service, finds that about eight-in-ten Americans report that they are extremely (51 percent) or very (31 percent) proud to be American. Republicans (68 percent) are more likely to report being extremely proud than Democrats (49 percent) or independents (47 percent), though majorities of all political groups say they are extremely or very proud.
“America’s military achievements and the willingness of Americans to serve their country in the military stand out as a source of pride for many Americans,” said Dr. Robert P. Jones, CEO of Public Religion Research Institute. “But among those who report ever feeling not proud to be an American, military actions and wars, particularly those in Vietnam and Iraq, were also the most frequently mentioned events.”
The most frequently cited reasons cited for being proud to be an American are military service and achievements (17 percent), the response to the September
By contrast, the most frequently cited reasons for ever not being proud to be an American are wars such as Vietnam and Iraq (29 percent) and the treatment of minority groups or racism (14 percent).
“American patriotism is particularly evident in the way Americans compare themselves to the rest of the world,” said Daniel Cox, PRRI Research Director. “Most Americans believe that the world would be better off if America could export its values and way of life to other countries. However, strong religious divisions exist, with three-quarters of white evangelicals and Catholics embracing this notion, compared to less than half of religiously unaffiliated Americans.”
Americans hold strongly positive views about America’s role in history and in the world today. Nearly 8-in-10 (79 percent) say America has always been a force for good in the world, and almost two-thirds believe God has granted America a special role in human history (64 percent) and that the world would be much better off if more countries adopted America’s values and way of life (63 percent). Conservatives are more likely than liberals to believe the world would be better off if more countries adopted America’s values and way of life (74 percent vs. 52 percent).
Among the Findings:
Eight-in-ten Americans report that they are extremely (51 percent) or very (31 percent) proud to be American. Roughly 1-in-10 (12 percent) say they are moderately proud, and 4 percent say they are only a little proud or not proud.
  • Republicans (68 percent) are also more likely to report being extremely proud than Democrats (49 percent) or independents (47 percent), though majorities of all political groups say they are extremely or very proud.
  • White evangelicals also report stronger feelings of pride than other religious groups. More than two-thirds (68 percent) of white evangelicals say they are extremely proud to be American, compared to 56 percent of white mainline Protestants, 49 percent of minority Christians, 48 percent of Catholics, and 39 percent of religiously unaffiliated Americans.
  • Nearly two-thirds of seniors (age 65 and over) report being extremely proud to be American, compared to 39 percent of younger adults (age 18 to 29).
Americans give a wide range of reasons for their feelings of pride about America. Roughly 1-in-5 (17 percent) say their military service or American military achievements — including the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden — have made them most proud to be American. Fourteen percent cite the response to the September 11th terrorist attacks, and 12 percent cite freedom in American society as things about which they feel most proud. Smaller numbers mention humanitarian assistance and disaster response (8 percent), personal experience or success (7 percent), the values of equality and opportunity (6 percent), Obama’s election (6 percent), or the moon landing (5 percent) as things that make them most proud to be an American.
  • Democrats and Republicans differ significantly in the reasons they provide for being proud to be an American. Democrats are more likely than Republicans to cite Obama’s election (15 percent vs. 1 percent) or the values of equality and opportunity (9 percent vs. 1 percent).
  • Republicans are more likely than Democrats to cite American symbols such as the Constitution or major political figures such as Ronald Reagan (9 percent vs. 0 percent).
  • Republicans and Democrats are about equally as likely to cite freedom as the thing that makes them most proud to be American (13 percent vs. 17 percent).
Roughly one-third (31 percent) of Americans say there has been a time when they were not proud to be an American.
  • Democrats (36 percent) and independents (30 percent) are more likely than Republicans (23 percent) to report that there was a time when they were not proud to be an American.
Americans who say there was a time when they were not proud to be American also cite a wide range of reasons. The most frequently mentioned reasons for not being proud to be an American are the wars in Iraq and Vietnam (29 percent) and the treatment of minority groups or racism (14 percent). Roughly 1-in-10 Americans cite some aspect of American culture (e.g. gun violence, the acceptance of gay and lesbian rights) (11 percent), the election of Barack Obama (11 percent), the election of George W. Bush (10 percent), or the role of America in the world (9 percent) as reasons they do not feel proud to be an American.
A majority of Americans report they are very likely to engage in the following activities related to patriotism: thanking members of the military for their service (81 percent), singing the national anthem (69 percent), displaying an American flag at their home or on their car (59 percent), attending a July 4th celebration this year (53 percent), or making a special effort to buy American-made products (50 percent).
  • Republicans are significantly more likely than Democrats to report engaging in a range of patriotic activities, including singing the national anthem (83 percent of Republicans vs. 66 percent of Democrats), displaying an American flag at their home or car (76 percent of Republicans vs. 48 percent of Democrats), or making a special effort to buy American made products even if they cost more (55 percent of Republicans vs. 44 percent of Democrats).
  • Roughly 6-in-10 white evangelical Protestants (62 percent) and white mainline Protestants (57 percent) report that they are very likely to attend a July 4th celebration, compared to less than half of Catholics (49 percent) and the religiously unaffiliated (48 percent). 
  • White Americans (66 percent) are more likely than Hispanic Americans (50 percent) or black Americans (40 percent) to report being very likely to display an American flag.
 Americans hold largely positive views about America’s role in history and in the world today. Nearly 8-in-10 (79 percent) say America has always been a force for good in the world, and nearly two-thirds (64 percent) believe God has granted America a special role in human history. More than 6-in-10 (63 percent) say if more countries adopted America’s values and way of life, the world would be much better off.
  • Conservatives are more likely than liberals to believe the world would be better off if more countries adopted America’s values and way of life (74 percent vs. 52 percent).
  • More than 8-in-10 white evangelicals agree that God has granted America a special role in human history, compared to 40 percent of religiously unaffiliated Americans.
  • Roughly three-quarters of white evangelical Protestants (74 percent) and Catholics (76 percent) believe that the world would be better off if more countries adopted America’s values and way of life. Less than half (49 percent) of religiously unaffiliated Americans agree.
More than 7-in-10 Americans think of themselves as a “typical American,” while 1-in-4 (25 percent) say they are very different from a typical American. Americans who are white and older are more likely than others to think of themselves as a typical American.
The survey was designed and conducted by Public Religion Research Institute in partnership with Religion News Service. Results of the survey were based on bilingual (Spanish and English) RDD telephone interviews conducted between June 5, 2013 and June 9, 2013 by professional interviewers under the direction of Social Science Research Solutions (SSRS). Interviews were conducted among a random sample of 1,007 adults 18 years of age or older in the continental United States (402 respondents were interviewed on a cell phone). The margin of error for the survey is +/- 3.1 percentage points at the 95% level of confidence.

Can't Stop Disbelieving

What’s the upshot for politics of this faltering confidence in these sorts of “pillar” institutions on which American society was built?
The simplest answer is that there are no more trusted referees. Everyone of them is viewed suspiciously and their motives for acting tend to be regarded through a cynical lens.
What that suspicion and cynicism produce is a huddling effect among partisans. Convinced that the honest brokers simply don’t exist, they tend to seek political sustenance from those who affirm their points of view. They watch the same TV shows, listen to the same radio stations, shop at the same places and live in the same neighborhoods as people who believe like they do. Interactions with people with which they disagree and entities like Congress or the news media dwindle.
Among people loosely or not-at-all aligned with a major political party, the erosion of confidence in institutions leads to a sort of throwing up of the hands and a disinterest, broadly, in what government and politics can (or will do) in their lives. Why care about Congress if you don’t trust in their motives? Same goes for the news industry.

Supreme Court: Who Agrees with Whom

Our chapter on the judiciary discusses agreement and disagreement among Supreme Court justices.  SCOTUSblog has a chart for the just-ended term:

Friday, June 28, 2013

Patriotism and Public Opinion

At AEI, Karlyn Bowman, Jennifer Marisco, and Andrew Rugg summarize surveys on patriotism and related matters:
How patriotic?: Last year, when the Pew Research Center asked people whether they agreed or disagreed with the statement “I am very patriotic,” 52% said they agreed completely with it and another 36% mostly agreed. Only 9% mostly or completely disagreed.

Patriotic activities: The Public Religion Research Institute recently asked respondents how likely they were to engage in a variety of patriotic activities. Eighty-one percent said it was very likely they would thank a member of the military for their service. Sixty-nine percent said the same about singing the national anthem, 59% displaying the American flag at their home or car, 53% attending a public 4th of July celebration, and 50% said they would make a special effort to buy products that are made in American.

Canada, here we don’t come: In an April CBS News/Vanity Fair poll, 92% of those surveyed said they had never thought of moving to Canada. In another question in the poll, a resounding 70% answered “no” when asked if there were ever a time when they wished they were not an American. Of the remainder, 9% said they wished they weren’t an American when the government does something they don’t like, 7% when watching reality TV, 4% when doing their taxes, and 3% when travelling abroad.

Thomas Paine: Forty-four percent of Americans surveyed by CBS News/Vanity Fair pollsters were able to identify Thomas Paine as an American revolutionary who wrote Common Sense, and another 40% were not.

I pledge allegiance: In the poll, 61% told the interviewers it was very important for children to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of each school day and another 22% said it was somewhat important. More than 70% of Republicans, Democrats and Independents, respectively, said this was very or somewhat important.

If the Founding Fathers were alive: The patriotic sentiments stand in stark contrast to views about Washington, DC. In Gallup’s June sounding, only 27% were satisfied with the way things were going in the country and 71% were dissatisfied. In a new mid-June Fox poll of registered voters, just 35% said they trusted the federal government. In another question in the poll, Congress had a 15% job approval rating. Only 13% said they thought the Founding Fathers would approve of how things are going in Washington today, while 82% disapproved.
il.

What Happens To a Law That the Supreme Court Declares Unconstitutional?

In the case of US v. Windsor, the US Supreme Court ruled that a key section of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional.  So what happens to that section?  Does it disappear?  No, it becomes unenforceable, but it technically stays on the books until Congress repeals it.

The same applies to state laws, as Brian Palmer explained at Slate earlier this year:
Judges cannot reach into statue books and erase laws. Some state legislatures proactively repeal unconstitutional laws, either one at a time or in batches after a few of them pile up. Others just leave them there, because repeal would suggest agreement with what they consider to be the anti-democratic court decision. The Texas law criminalizing homosexual sex, for example, remains part of the state penal code even though the Supreme Court invalidated it nine years ago in Lawrence v. Texas. It’s not mere laziness but an act of protest by offended legislators. Democrats have repeatedly introduced bills to repeal the unconstitutional language, but they are never enacted into law. (For anyone worried about the legal implications of their sexual preference, the statute books contain an annotation explaining that the anti-sodomy law is invalid.) Louisiana law still imposes the death penalty on those who rape children, although the Supreme Court banned this use of capital punishment in 2008. Lawmakers probably don’t want to appear soft on child rape.

State constitutions, which are more difficult to amend than ordinary statutes, are rife with unconstitutional language. Arkansas, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas, along with North Carolina, all have language suggesting that atheists are barred from office.
Advertisement.

The Supreme Court justices are pretty tolerant of states thumbing their noses at them from afar, but they will not tolerate meaningful resistance. After the Supreme Court declared school segregation unconstitutional in the landmark 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education, Arkansas passed a series of laws attempting to nullify the federal decision, forcing the court to issue a second decision emphasizing that the nine justices, and not the states, were the final arbiters of constitutionality.
h/t Richard Ahne 

Thursday, June 27, 2013

The Marriage Cases

At The Volokh Conspiracy, summarizes Justice Kennedy's majority opinion in United States v. Windsor:

In his opinion for the Court, Justice Kennedy employed much of this “federalism” logic, but with a significant twist that converted it from an enumerated powers into a “liberty” argument.  In brief, he used the interference with the traditional province of states to regulate marriage to justify heightened scrutiny under the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.  Here is the logic of his opinion: 
  • The definition and regulation of the right to marry is traditionally the province of states (and is not among the enumerated powers of Congress. (“The recognition of civil marriages is central to state domestic relations law applicable to its residents and citizens.” [17])
  • When it enacted DOMA Congress was demonstrably intending to and did interfere with this traditional function of states to define and regulate the right to marry by raising the cost to same-sex couples of being married under state law. (“DOMA seeks to injure the very class New York seeks to protect” [20])
  • Therefore, the Court will use heightened scrutiny to evaluate the rationality of DOMA’s imposed definition of marriage (“ In determining whether a law is motived by an improper animus or purpose, ‘[d]iscriminations of an unusual character’ especially require careful consideration.”).
  • This unusual deviation from the past practice of respecting state law definitions of marriage was improperly motivated by animus. (“The avowed purpose and practical effect of the law here in question are to impose a disadvantage, a separate status, and so a stigma upon all who enter into same-sex marriages made lawful by the unquestioned authority of the States.” [21)
In short, under Justice Kennedy’s reasoning, it is the fact that states have recognized same-sex marriage that gives rise to heightened judicial scrutiny (“Here the State’s decision to give this class of persons the right to marry conferred upon them a dignity and status of immense import.” (emphasis added) [18]).  In essence, state law is being used to identify a protected liberty or right within its borders against a federal statute.  Although this converted our enumerated powers argument into a protection of individual rights, at the same time, it both relied on and preserved the states’ prerogatives to define and protect liberty.
In a related case, the governor and attorney general of California refused to defend a state initiative that defined marriage as the union of a man and woman. Private supporters of the measure did so, and the Supreme Court ruled that they lacked standing. In his majority opinion in Hollingsworth v. Perry, Chief Justice Roberts wrote:
We have never before upheld the standing of a private party to defend the constitutionality of a state statute when state officials have chosen not to. We decline to do so for the first time here.
In his dissent, Justice Kennedy wrote:
The Court concludes that proponents lack sufficient ties to the state government. It notes that they “are not elected,” “answer to no one,” and lack “‘a fiduciary obligation’” to the State. Ante, at 15 (quoting 1 Restatement (Third) of Agency §1.01, Comments e, f (2005)). But what the Court deems deficiencies in the proponents’ connection to the State government, the State Supreme Court saw as essen- tial qualifications to defend the initiative system. The very object of the initiative system is to establish a law- making process that does not depend upon state officials. In California, the popular initiative is necessary to imple- ment “the theory that all power of government ultimately resides in the people.” 52 Cal. 4th, at 1140, 265 P. 3d, at 1016 (internal quotation marks omitted). The right to adopt initiatives has been described by the California courts as “one of the most precious rights of [the State’s] democratic process.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). That historic role for the initiative system “grew out of dissatisfaction with the then governing public offi- cials and a widespread belief that the people had lost control of the political process.” Ibid. The initiative’s “primary purpose,” then, “was to afford the people the ability to propose and to adopt constitutional amendments or statutory provisions that their elected public officials had refused or declined to adopt.” Ibid.
...
The California Supreme Court has determined that this purpose is undermined if the very officials the initiative process seeks to circumvent are the only parties who can defend an enacted initiative when it is challenged in a legal proceeding. See id., at 1160, 265 P. 3d, at 1030; cf. Alaskans for a Common Language, supra, at 914 (noting that proponents must be allowed to defend an enacted initiative in order to avoid the perception, correct or not, “that the interests of [the proponents] were not being defended vigorously by the executive branch”). Giving the Governor and attorney general this de facto veto will erode one of the cornerstones of the State’s governmental struc- ture. See 52 Cal. 4th, at 1126–1128, 265 P. 3d, at 1006– 1007. And in light of the frequency with which initiatives’ opponents resort to litigation, the impact of that veto could be substantial. K. Miller, Direct Democracy and the Courts 106 (2009) (185 of the 455 initiatives approved in Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington between 1900 and 2008 were challenged in court). As a consequence, California finds it necessary to vest the re- sponsibility and right to defend a voter-approved initiative in the initiative’s proponents when the State Executive declines to do so.

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Voting Rights and Federalism

Congress failed to take the U.S. Supreme Court’s word seriously in a 2009 decision raising “serious constitutional questions” about the Voting Rights Act. So the high court today struck down the central mechanism under which the law selects states for federal review of their voting procedures.
The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision penned by Chief Justice John Roberts, upheld the 1965 law designed to ensure equal voting rights for white and minority citizens. But Roberts declared Section 4 of that law unconstitutional because it singled out certain states and counties based on 40-year-old evidence of racial discrimination.

It was a strong affirmation of federalism and in particular the concept of equal sovereignty among the states. It also highlights the huge economic and social changes that have swept the South since 1965, to the point that voter turnout as a percentage of the minority population is far higher in Mississippi, a covered state, than in Massachusetts, which is not.
“There is no doubt that these improvements are in large part because of the Voting Rights Act,” Roberts wrote. But the formula Congress devised in 1965, separating states into those with low voter turnouts and pernicious tests like literacy requirements, is no longer valid, he said. “Today the Nation is no longer divided along those lines, yet the Voting Rights Act continues to treat it as if it were.”
The decision, one of a string of late-term 5-4 verdicts, split the court on ideological grounds. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a dissent accusing the court of downplaying continuing problems with racial discrimination in the U.S. According to the conservative majority, she wrote, “the very success …of the Voting Rights Act demands its dormancy.”

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Party Whipping Is Not Like "House of Cards"

House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has a much tougher time than his Netflix counterpart Frank Underwood (D-SC).  The Washington Post explains:
Simply put, McCarthy can’t guarantee success, in part because party power is not what it used to be on Capitol Hill, especially for the GOP.
Promises of special projects in the home district — a bridge here, a road there — no longer exist as an enticement. Pledges of fundraising help often draw little interest in the age of super PACs, which can deliver huge sums to a favored campaign on a moment’s notice. [Strictly speaking, the Super PAC money goes to independent expenditures, not the candidate's own campaign.] Personal pleas for fealty to party leaders fall on deaf ears among a new generation of conservatives who often prefer to be more closely allied with external movement leaders than with House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).
All these complicating factors were on full display this week as more than 60 Republicans opposed the House leaders, joining Democrats to defeat a five-year farm bill. The bill was crafted to address the conservative ethos that now controls the caucus. It cut food-stamp programs and eliminated some cash payments to farmers. But for most of those Republicans, it wasn’t conservative enough, and they were willing to let it die.

Monday, June 24, 2013

Nullification

An Associated Press analysis found that about four-fifths of the states now have enacted local laws that directly reject or ignore federal laws on marijuana use, gun control, health insurance requirements and identification standards for driver's licenses. The recent trend began in Democratic leaning California with a 1996 medical marijuana law and has proliferated lately in Republican strongholds like Kansas, where Gov. Sam Brownback this spring became the first to sign a measure threatening felony charges against federal agents who enforce certain firearms laws in his state.
Some states, such as Montana and Arizona, have said "no" to the feds again and again - passing states' rights measures on all four subjects examined by the AP - despite questions about whether their "no" carries any legal significance.
"It seems that there has been an uptick in nullification efforts from both the left and the right," said Adam Winkler, a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles who specializes in constitutional law.
Yet "the law is clear - the supremacy clause (of the U.S. Constitution) says specifically that the federal laws are supreme over contrary state laws, even if the state doesn't like those laws," Winkler added.
The fact that U.S. courts have repeatedly upheld federal laws over conflicting state ones hasn't stopped some states from flouting those federal laws - sometimes successfully.
About 20 states now have medical marijuana laws allowing people to use pot to treat chronic pain and other ailments - despite a federal law that still criminalizes marijuana distribution and possession. Ceding ground to the states, President Barack Obama's administration has made it known to federal prosecutors that it wasn't worth their time to target those people.
Federal authorities have repeatedly delayed implementation of the 2005 Real ID Act, an anti-terrorism law that set stringent requirements for photo identification cards to be used to board commercial flights or enter federal buildings. The law has been stymied, in part, because about half the state legislatures have opposed its implementation, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
About 20 states have enacted measures challenging Obama's 2010 health care laws, many of which specifically reject the provision mandating that most people have health insurance or face tax penalties beginning in 2014.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

CBO on the Immigration Bill

Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Elmendorf writes:
The Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act (S. 744) would revise laws governing immigration and the enforcement of those laws, allowing for a significant increase in the number of noncitizens who could lawfully enter the United States on both a permanent and temporary basis. Additionally, the bill would create a process for many individuals who are present in the country now on an unauthorized basis to gain legal status, subject to requirements specified in the bill. The bill also would directly appropriate funds for tightening border security and enforcing immigration laws, and would authorize future appropriations for those purposes.
...
How Would the Legislation Affect the U.S. Population?
CBO estimates that, by 2023, enacting S. 744 would lead to a net increase of 10.4 million in the number of people residing in the United States, compared with the number projected under current law. That increase would grow to about 16 million by 2033. CBO also estimates that about 8 million unauthorized residents would initially gain legal status under the bill, but that change in status would not affect the size of the U.S. population.
How Would the Legislation Affect the Federal Budget from 2014 Through 2023?
CBO and JCT estimate that enacting S. 744 would generate changes in direct spending and revenues that would decrease federal budget deficits by $197 billion over the 2014–2023 period. CBO also estimates that implementing the legislation would result in net discretionary costs of $22 billion over the 2014–2023 period, assuming appropriation of the amounts authorized or otherwise needed to implement the legislation. Combining those figures would lead to a net savings of about $175 billion over the 2014–2023 period from enacting S. 744. However, the net impact of the bill on federal deficits would depend on future actions by lawmakers, who could choose to appropriate more or less than the amounts estimated by CBO. In addition, the total amount of discretionary funding is currently capped (through 2021) by the Budget Control Act of 2011; extra funding for the purposes of this legislation might lead to lower funding for other purposes.
...
How Would the Legislation Affect the Economy?
S. 744 would boost economic output. Taking account of all economic effects (including those reflected in the cost estimate), the bill would increase real (inflation-adjusted) GDP relative to the amount CBO projects under current law by 3.3 percent in 2023 and by 5.4 percent in 2033, according to CBO’s central estimates. Compared with GDP, gross national product (GNP) per capita accounts for the effect on incomes of international capital flows and adjusts for the number of people in the country. Relative to what would occur under current law, S. 744 would lower per capita GNP by 0.7 percent in 2023 and raise it by 0.2 percent in 2033, according to CBO’s central estimates.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Associational Life Has Not Collapsed

In our chapters on civic culture and interest groups, we discuss Tocqueville's observations on associations in American life. In The Wall Street Journal, Niall Ferguson writes:
Tocqueville would not recognize America today. Indeed, so completely has associational life collapsed, and so enormously has the state grown, that he would be forced to conclude that, at some point between 1833 and 2013, France must have conquered the United States.

The decline of American associational life was memorably documented in Robert Puttnam's seminal 1995 essay "Bowling Alone," which documented the exodus of Americans from bowling leagues, Rotary clubs and the like. Since then, the downward trend in "social capital" has only continued. According to the 2006 World Values Survey, active membership even of religious associations has declined from just over half the population to little more than a third (37%). The proportion of Americans who are active members of cultural associations is down to 14% from 24%; for professional associations the figure is now just 12%, compared with more than a fifth in 1995. And, no, Facebook  is not a substitute.

Instead of joining together to get things done, Americans have increasingly become dependent on Washington. On foreign policy, it may still be true that Americans are from Mars and Europeans from Venus. But when it comes to domestic policy, we all now come from the same place: Planet Government.
Ferguson, however, overlooks some important data. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the volunteering rate has remained pretty steady in recent years:
  • 2008 26.4%
  • 2009 26.8%
  • 2010 26.3%
  • 2011 26.8%
  • 2012 26.5%
What about charitable giving?  A release from Indiana University:
Even with households across the country feeling continued financial pressure, Americans donated an estimated $316.23 billion to charitable causes in 2012. Modest overall gains in total contributions mirrored the nation’s recent economic trends, Giving USA Foundation™ and its research partner, the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, announced today.

The 3.5 percent year-over-year growth rate (1.5 percent adjusted for inflation) in gifts from American individuals (both households and bequests from their estates), corporations and foundations matches the same figurative portrait of 2012’s economic indicators – some trends were positive, others were negative, but overall, there was growth. Federal tax policy shifts likely also played a role in giving decisions made last year.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Get Hoffa

On September 26, 1960, in his first debate with Richard Nixon, JFK said:  "I'm not satisfied when I see men like Jimmy Hoffa - in charge of the largest union in the United States - still free."

Hoffa responded:  "What was he really trying to say? That if elected president he will put Hoffa in jail without trial? Or that he will insist upon an indictment, trial and conviction regardless of the merits?"

After his election JFK appointed his brother Robert F. Kennedy as Attorney General.  RFK appointed a special unit informally called the "Get Hoffa Squad."  Victor Navasky wrote that "Robert Kennedy allowed the pursuit of justice to look like the pursuit of Hoffa. `You can't have even-handed justice and personal justice at the same time,' [former Atttorney General] Ramsey Clark comments."

Social Media and the Affordable Care Act

The Obama administration is ramping up a plan to use the federal government’s social media accounts and websites to help convince millions of Americans, including those who “mistrust government,” to sign up for health insurance through Obamacare, according to a confidential administration presentation obtained by BuzzFeed.
The White House last Tuesdayhosted government agency social media directors and Chief Technology Officers in a summit aimed at coordinating communications around a central administration goal of President Obama’s second term: persuading people without health insurance to sign up for it. The meeting was led by Tara McGuinness, the White House communications pointperson on Obamacare implementation. The document obtained by BuzzFeed is a handout authored by the Department of Health and Human Service’s Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and its authenticity was confirmed by the White House.
Leveraging the government’s hundreds of social media accounts is part of a massive campaign-like operation to put Obamacare front-and-center in the minds of millions of Americans the White House needs to sign up for insurance in order to make the the health care law work. The White House bristles at the comparison to a political campaign, saying that similar efforts were mounted when the government rolled out Medicare Part D under George W. Bush. The White House also stresses that a main online focus will be on placing information about Obamacare on websites frequented by targeted groups.
 The target audience for social will be young people who use Facebook and Twitter.

Coverage of Same-Sex Marriage

In a period marked by Supreme Court deliberations on the subject, the news media coverage provided a strong sense of momentum towards legalizing same-sex marriage, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center. Stories with more statements supporting same-sex marriage outweighed those with more statements opposing it by a margin of roughly 5-to-1.
In the coverage studied, the central argument among proponents of same-sex marriage was one of civil rights. Arguments against were more varied, but most often voiced the idea that same-sex marriage would hurt society and the institution of traditional marriage.
Almost half (47%) of the nearly 500 stories studied from March 18 (a week prior to the Supreme Court hearings), through May 12, primarily focused on support for the measure, while 9% largely focused on opposition and 44% had a roughly equal mix of both viewpoints or were neutral. In order for a story to be classified as supporting or opposing same sex marriage, statements expressing that position had to outnumber the opposite view by at least 2-to-1. Stories that did not meet that threshold were defined as neutral or mixed.
Many of the events themselves during the period studied, such as announcements by politicians and state legislation, reflected movement towards same-sex marriage. Polls show the nation's views have been shifting as well, though there remains significant opposition with 51% of the public in support of legalizing same-sex marriage versus 42% opposed, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey.[1]
This news media focus on support held true whether the stories were reported news articles or opinion pieces, and was also the case across nearly all media sectors studied. All three of the major cable networks, for instance, had more stories with significantly more supportive statements than opposing, including Fox News.
In addition to the main set of news media, this study also examined same-sex marriage coverage in three other media segments: Twitter, the Huffington Post - which has a dedicated microsite to "Gay Voices" and produced so much coverage that it was examined separately from the rest of the news media - and a mix of LGBT news outlets.
Twitter postings on the subject were nearly evenly split between support and opposition for the measure, aligning much more closely with public opinion than with the news media. Coverage on the Huffington Post, on the other hand, was even more tilted towards support of same-sex marriage than the rest of the news media. Indeed, 62% of the 365 stories on the site were dominated with statements of support - very close to the level of support in the LGBT news outlets studied.

Knowledge and Polarization

Do one’s political leanings blind people to the facts? Judging from decades of polling, the answer is sometimes yes—partisanship appears to lead some people to claim as facts things that aren’t particularly factual.
For example, national surveys have found that Democrats are more likely to say that inflation rose under Ronald Reagan while Republicans say that the deficit rose during the Clinton administration. Some 81% of Democrats but 33% of Republicans in an April 2011 New York Times/CBS News poll said Obama was born in the U.S.
What explains these partisan gaps? Political scientists from Yale University and the University of California-San Diego think they may know. Their working paper released last month by the National Bureau of Economic Research found significant numbers of Democrats and Republicans actually know the correct answer to these questions—or know that they don’t know—but choose to give pollsters the incorrect response in order to cast their party in a favorable light or stick it to the opposition.
In fact, the researchers found that they could cut the partisan gap by more than half if they offered survey respondents a chance at a monetary reward for answering questions correctly. And when they gave respondents incentives to acknowledge that they don’t know the right answer, the partisan knowledge gap nearly disappeared.

Monday, June 17, 2013

Confidence in Newspapers and TV News

Gallup reports:
Americans' confidence in newspapers fell slightly to 23% this year, from 25% in 2012 and 28% in 2011.
The percentage of Americans saying they have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in newspapers has been generally trending downward since 1979, when it reached a high of 51%.
Newspapers rank near the bottom on a list of 16 societal institutions Gallup measured in a June 1-4 survey. Television news is tied with newspapers on the list, with 23% of Americans also expressing confidence in it. That is up slightly from the all-time low of 21% found last year. The only institutions television news and newspapers beat out this year are big business, organized labor, Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs), and Congress.
Americans' confidence in television news was highest, at 46%, in 1993, when Gallup first asked about it. The question does not indicate the specific type of television news, meaning respondents could be thinking about anything ranging from cable news channels to local news when answering the survey.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

War, Taxes, and Limited Government

George Will says that metaphorical "wars" on vice can hurt the cause of limited government as much as literal military conflicts.
So argue David B. Kopel and Trevor Burrusin their essay “Sex, Drugs, Alcohol, Gambling and Guns: The Synergistic Constitutional Effects.”
Kopel and Burrus, both associated with Washington’s libertarian Cato Institute, cite the 1914 Harrison Narcotics Act, which taxed dealings involving opium or coca leaves, as an early example of morals legislation passed using Congress’s enumerated taxing power as a pretext. In 1919, the Supreme Court held that the law “may not be declared unconstitutional because its effect may be to accomplish another purpose as well as the raising of revenue.”
Its “effect”? The effect of suppressing the drug business obviously was its purpose. Nevertheless, the court held that even if “motives” other than raising revenue really explained Congress’s exercise of its enumerated power, the law still could not be invalidated “because of the supposed motives which induced it.”
“Supposed”? The court’s refusal to reach a reasonable conclusion about the pretext Congress used in this case for trespassing on territory reserved to the states enabled the federal government to begin slipping its constitutional leash. In 1922, Chief Justice William Howard Taft warned that Congress could seize control of “the great number of subjects” reserved to the states by the 10th Amendment by imposing a “so-called tax” on any behavior it disapproved of: “To give such magic to the word ‘tax’ would be to break down all constitutional limitation of the powers of Congress and completely wipe out the sovereignty of the states.”

Saturday, June 15, 2013

Martin Luther King as Preacher

The New York Times reports on Jonathan Rieder's new book about Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.:
As America nears the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech in August, Dr. Rieder has become one of the most astute scholars of Dr. King as a preacher. In two consecutive books developed over nearly 20 years of research, Professor Rieder has immersed himself in the subject of Dr. King as a pulpit minister who shaped his theology in sermons delivered to black congregations.
The public Dr. King, Dr. Rieder argues, cannot be understood without understanding the preacher’s talking black talk to black folk. Dr. Rieder’s new book, “Gospel of Freedom,” traces the evolution of both the “I Have A Dream” speech and the “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” Dr. King’s most renowned written work, through years of his obscure sermons....
Dr. Rieder’s book stakes very specific turf in the corpus of King scholarship with its relentless focus on Dr. King the preacher. By doing so, as Mr. Forbes pointed out in his comments, Dr. Rieder is restoring the overtly religious element to Dr. King and the freedom movement. While African-Americans readily grasp the link, many white liberals diminish or ignore it out of discomfort with religion being granted a role — even a positive one — in political discourse.

“The image of liberal secular King misses the essential role of prophetic Christianity,” Dr. Rieder, a professor of sociology at Barnard College in New York, said in a recent interview. “Jesus wasn’t just an interesting historical figure to King. He saw Jesus as a continuation of the prophets. He has a powerful association with Jesus.”

Public Opinion and School Prayer

Many posts have dealt with prayer and religion in American public lifeThe Pew Research Center reports:
Earlier this month, the valedictorian at Liberty (S.C.) High School ripped up his prepared graduation speech, which had been approved by school officials, and instead recited the Lord’s Prayer at the public school’s graduation ceremony. According to CNN, Roy Costner IV said he was trying to make a statement that “taking prayer out of schools is the worst thing we could do.”
It has been more than 50 years since the Supreme Court ruled in Engel v. Vitale (1962) that school-sponsored prayer in public schools violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, and more than 20 years since the high court decided in Lee v. Weisman(1992) that public schools may not sponsor or promote prayer at graduation ceremonies. But as the incident in South Carolina illustrates, the controversy over prayer in school has not diminished.
A 2012 Pew Research Center poll found that 65% of Americans believe liberals have gone too far trying to keep religion out of schools and government. A smaller, but significant share (48%) think conservative Christians have gone too far to try to impose religious values on the country.

Anonymous Sources

In an investigative report on a California political family, John Hrabe quotes anonymous sources and explains:
The first code of journalism is “to seek truth and report it.” Sometimes, anonymous or unnamed sources are the only way to tell the whole story. Don’t take my word for it. Check out New York Magazine’s Kurt Andersen on “Why Journalism Needs Anonymous Sources.”
Why do journalists use anonymous sources?
Because people who are willing to tell reporters interesting things—that is, confidential or disturbing information or opinions—are usually disinclined to appear to be the candid plain talkers or snitches or whistle-blowers or gossips or backstabbers they are.

Friday, June 14, 2013

Confidence: Military, Yes; Congress, No

Americans' confidence in Congress as an institution is down to 10%, ranking the legislative body last on a list of 16 societal institutions for the fourth straight year. This is the lowest level of confidence Gallup has found, not only for Congress, but for any institution on record. Americans remain most confident in the military, at 76%.

Small business and the police also continue to rank highly, with 65% and 57% of Americans, respectively, expressing "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in these institutions. Joining Congress at the bottom of the list are Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) and organized labor. Congress' low position is further underscored when one looks at the percentage of Americans who have little or no confidence in each institution. The slight majority of Americans, 52%, have this level of confidence in Congress, compared with 31% for HMOs.

Americans' confidence in several institutions measured in the June 1-4 Gallup poll has shifted since last year. Americans have become more confident in banks, organized religion, and public schools, and less confident in the U.S. medical system, the Supreme Court, and Congress.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Demographic News

Deaths exceeded births among non-Hispanic white Americans for the first time in at least a century, according to new census data, a benchmark that heralds profound demographic change.

The disparity was tiny — only about 12,000 — and was more than made up by a gain of 188,000 as a result of immigration from abroad. But the decrease for the year ending July 1, 2012, coupled with the fact that a majority of births in the United States are now to Hispanic, black and Asian mothers, is further evidence that white Americans will become a minority nationwide within about three decades.

Over all, the number of non-Hispanic white Americans is expected to begin declining by the end of this decade.

“These new census estimates are an early signal alerting us to the impending decline in the white population that will characterize most of the 21st century,” said William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution.
The Census Bureau reports:
The U.S. Census Bureau announced Asians were the nation's fastest-growing race or ethnic group in 2012. Their population rose by 530,000, or 2.9 percent, in the preceding year, to 18.9 million, according to Census Bureau annual population estimates. More than 60 percent of this growth in the Asian population came from international migration.
By comparison, the Hispanic population grew by 2.2 percent, or more than 1.1 million, to just over 53 million in 2012. The Hispanic population growth was fueled primarily by natural increase (births minus deaths), which accounted for 76 percent of Hispanic population change. Hispanics remain our nation's second largest race or ethnic group (behind non-Hispanic whites), representing about 17 percent of the total population.
...
Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders (climbing 2.2 percent to about 1.4 million), American Indians and Alaska Natives (rising 1.5 percent to a little over 6.3 million), and blacks or African-Americans (increasing 1.3 percent to 44.5 million) followed Asians and Hispanics in percentage growth rates.
...
The population of children younger than 5 is close to becoming majority-minority nationally, standing at 49.9 percent minority in 2012.
...
The nation's median age climbed to 37.4 years in 2012, up from 37.3 one year earlier. 

Media and Politics: Family Ties

Previous posts have discussed the revolving door between media and politics.  A closely related phenomenon consists of ... close relations.

At The Washington Post, Paul Fahri writes:
The list of prominent news people with close White House relations includes ABC News President Ben Sherwood, who is the brother of Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, a top national-security adviser to President Obama. His counterpart at CBS, news division president David Rhodes, is the brother of Benjamin Rhodes, a key foreign-policy specialist. CNN’s deputy Washington bureau chief, Virginia Moseley, is married toTom Nides, who until earlier this year was deputy secretary of state under Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Further, White House press secretary Jay Carney’s wife is Claire Shipman, a veteran reporter for ABC. And NPR’s White House correspondent, Ari Shapiro, is married to a lawyer, Michael Gottlieb, who joined the White House counsel’s office in April.
Conservatives have suggested that these relationships may play a role in how the media cover Obama, specifically in their supposedly timid approach to reporting on the White House’s handling of the terrorist attacks last year on American facilities in Benghazi, Libya.The National Review Online recently claimed that such ties amount to professional incest: “The inbreeding among Obama’s court and its press corps is more like one of those ‘I’m my own grandpaw’ deals,” wrote NRO’s Mark Steyn in a posting titled “Band of Brothers.”
Such insinuations make media types bristle. They take exception to the notion that complicated judgments about the news — often made by others within an organization — have anything to do with personal favoritism or familial relationships. The critics, they say, can’t point to any direct evidence that such relationships have affected the amount or tone of their news coverage.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

George Wallace



As numerous posts have noted, the mass media sometimes get their facts wrong. Yesterday, MSNBC goofed in identifying the party of Alabama Governor George Wallace, who "stood in the schoolhouse" door in an effort to keep African Americans out of the University of Alabama.  The graphic identified him as a Republican, but he was a lifelong Democrat.  In 1964 and 1972, he sought the Democratic nomination for president.  In the latter race, he won Democratic primaries in Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Tennessee, and North Carolina.

Chris Hayes later apologized for the error.

New Data on Technology Use

While disparities in Internet use persist among racial and ethnic groups, smartphones appear to be helping to bridge the digital divide, according to a report issued today by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The findings are part of the latest Census Bureau report, Computer and Internet Use in the United States: 2011 [PDF], which provides analysis of computer and Internet use for households and individuals. The information comes from data collected as part of the Current Population Survey's 2011 Computer and Internet Use Supplement, which was sponsored and funded by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).
The report also features a table that places users along a "connectivity continuum" and shows that a sizeable percentage of Internet users now make their online connections both inside and outside the home and from multiple devices.
"Going online is no longer a simple yes or no proposition," said Thom File, the report's author and a sociologist with the Census Bureau. "Different groups of people are accessing the Internet in very different ways, and these statistics give us a better understanding of how and where those connections are taking place."
According to the report, a gap of 27.1 percentage points exists between groups with the highest and lowest reported rates of home Internet use. Asians reported the highest use at 78.3 percent and Hispanics the lowest at 51.2 percent. However, the gap narrows to 17.5 percentage points when smartphone use is factored into overall rates of Internet use. With smartphones factored in, 83.0 percent of Asians and 65.5 percent of Hispanics reported going online.
In terms of smartphone usage on its own, 51.6 percent of Asian respondents reported using a smartphone. About 48.0 percent of both white non-Hispanics and blacks reported smartphone use, and 45.4 percent of Hispanics said they used smartphones. The reported usage rates for blacks and Hispanics were not statistically different from each other. Overall, 48.2 percent of individuals 15 and older reported using a smartphone.
For the first time, a third (34%) of American adults ages 18 and older own a tablet computer like an iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab, Google Nexus, or Kindle Fire—almost twice as many as the 18% who owned a tablet a year ago.
Demographic groups most likely to own tablets include:
  • Those living in households earning at least $75,000 per year (56%), compared with lower income brackets
  • Adults ages 35-44 (49%), compared with younger and older adults
  • College graduates (49%), compared with adults with lower levels of education.
The Pew Research Center also reports:
For the first time since the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project began systematically tracking smartphone adoption, a majority of Americans now own a smartphone of some kind. Our definition of a smartphone owner includes anyone who says “yes” to one—or both—of the following questions:
  • 55% of cell phone owners say that their phone is a smartphone.
  • 58% of cell phone owners say that their phone operates on a smartphone platform common to the U.S. market.
Taken together, 61% of cell owners said yes to at least one of these questions and are classified as smartphone owners. Because 91% of the adult population now owns some kind of cell phone, that means that 56% of all American adults are now smartphone adopters. One third (35%) have some other kind of cell phone that is not a smartphone, and the remaining 9% of Americans do not own a cell phone at all.

Party Polarization and Views of Surveillance

According to the Pew Research Center, there has been little overall change in public views of surveillance since the Bush administration.  But that topline number masks some big partisan shifts. Democrats and Republicans seem more likely to approve of surveillance when their own party is in charge.

6-10-13 #4

Public Opinion on Race-Based Admissions

The Washington Post reports on a new poll:
Three quarters of Americans, 76 percent, oppose allowing universities to consider race when selecting students, the key element in affirmative-action programs in universities nationwide.
A decade ago, the high court approved racial considerations at the University of Michigan Law School but struck down an undergraduate admissions policy that awarded extra points to minority applicants. This year, the court is deciding whether the University of Texas at Austin’s admissions policy — which allows administrators to consider race in admitting about one-quarter of the freshman class — is constitutional.
...
The wide opposition to affirmative action in college admissions spans partisan and racial divides. Nearly eight in 10 whites and African Americans and almost seven in 10 Hispanics oppose allowing universities to use race as a factor. And although Democrats are more supportive than Republicans of the practice, at least two-thirds of Democrats, Republicans and independents oppose it.
An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Tuesday found support for broader affirmative action programs — not specifically in college admissions — at a historic low. About 45 percent said the programs are a good idea, while the same number said they have gone too far and now discriminate against whites, marking the first time in more than two decades that supporters did not outnumber opponents.

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Government Contractors and Security Clearances

In our chapter on bureaucracy, we note that the number of public employees is a poor measure of government activity because agencies contract out much of their work to the private sector.  The Huffington Post reports:
The U.S. government monitors threats to national security with the help of nearly 500,000 people like Edward Snowden – employees of private firms who have access to the government's most sensitive secrets.

When Snowden, an employee of one of those firms, Booz Allen Hamilton, revealed details of two National Security Agency surveillance programs, he spotlighted the risks of making so many employees of private contractors a key part of the U.S. intelligence apparatus. 
...
The ties between government and contract workers are so pervasive in Washington that those on each side are known by nicknames: Contractors are called "green badgers" for the color of their identification badges. Government workers, who sport blue, are known as "blue badgers."
...
Of the 4.9 million people with clearance to access "confidential and secret" government information, 1.1 million, or 21 percent, work for outside contractors, according to a report from Clapper's office. Of the 1.4 million who have the higher "top secret" access, 483,000, or 34 percent, work for contractors.
...
Because clearances can take months or even years to acquire, government contractors often recruit workers who already have them.



Monday, June 10, 2013

Archbishop Says Religious Freedom is at Risk

Our textbook discusses the role of religion in American public life.  Religious leaders have often spoken out on key issues (e.g., Rev. Martin Luther King and civil rights) and government affects church operations in significant ways.  We can see both points in a recent column by Philadelphia's Roman Catholic archbishop Charles J. Chaput:
As Mollie Hemingway, Stephen Krason and Wayne Laugesen have all pointed out, the current IRS scandal - involving IRS targeting of "conservative" organizations - also has a religious dimension. Selective IRS pressure on religious individuals and organizations has drawn very little media attention. Nor should we expect any, any time soon, for reasons Hemingway outlines for the Intercollegiate Review. But the latest IRS ugliness is a hint of the treatment disfavored religious groups may face in the future, if we sleep through the national discussion of religious liberty now.

The day when Americans could take the Founders' understanding of religious freedom as a given is over. We need to wake up.

Sunday, June 9, 2013

The Mechanics of the News

Our chapter on mass media talks about journalists interact with officials and other sources.  At Politico "Playbook," Mike Allen offers a look:
HOW THE SAUSAGE IS MADE: Andrew Sullivan posted an e-mail exchange with Leslie Kaufman, a New York Times reporter looking for a quote (which she got) about Glenn Greenwald: “He obviously had strong opinions, but how is he as a journalist? Reliable? Honest? Quotes you accurately? Accurately describes your positions? Or is more advocate than journalist? … He says you are a friend, is this so? I get the sense that he is something of a loner and has the kind of uncompromising opinions that makes it hard to keep friends, but could be wrong.” http://bit.ly/11qBqXp ... The resulting story http://nyti.ms/14nt6vJ
The New York Times Magazine explains how Buzzfeed works.

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Senator Obama and Bulk Collection

Previous posts have discussed government surveillance. On February 12, 2008, then-Senator Obama said:
We can give our intelligence and law enforcement community the powers they need to track down and take out terrorists without undermining our commitment to the rule of law or our basic rights and liberties. That is why I cosponsored the Feingold amendment, which would have prevented the Government from using these extraordinary warrantless powers to conduct "bulk collection" of American information. I also supported the Feingold-Webb-Tester amendment to protect the privacy of Americans' communications by requiring court orders to monitor American communications on American soil, unless there is reason to believe that the communications involve terrorist activities directed at the United States or the monitoring is necessary to prevent death or serious bodily harm. Unfortunately, these amendments were defeated as well. These are the types of narrowly tailored, commonsense fixes that would have allowed the Government to conduct surveillance without sacrificing our precious civil liberties.

Friday, June 7, 2013

More Surveillance

Privacy and the power of the administrative state have suddenly become hot issues. The Washington Post reports:
The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track foreign targets, according to a top-secret document obtained by The Washington Post.
The program, code-named PRISM, has not been made public until now. It may be the first of its kind. The NSA prides itself on stealing secrets and breaking codes, and it is accustomed to corporate partnerships that help it divert data traffic or sidestep barriers. But there has never been a Google or Facebook before, and it is unlikely that there are richer troves of valuable intelligence than the ones in Silicon Valley.