#tim carney

Spectacled Weaver (Ploceus ocularis)

By Tim Carney, Washington Examiner (June 9, 2013)

"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know," Google CEO Eric Schmidt said in 2009, "maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."

This line was creepy enough coming from one of President Obama's confidants and fundraisers. It takes on added weight now that the Washington Post and the Guardian have reported that the National Security Agency's Prism program, in the days before Obama was sworn in, tapped into Google's servers, gaining access to every message sent or received over Gmail.

Google spokesmen, like spokesmen from all the tech companies, deny participating in any such program. So Americans are left to wonder: Was this corporate-government collusion? Was this federal hacking or infiltration of corporate servers?

These are murky questions, so let's return for the time being to Schmidt's point, and the question it raises: If you're upset about the government reading your emails, or knowing whom you call -- when, from where, and for how long -- then what are you hiding?

In other words, why should law-abiding citizens mind federal surveillance?

The answer begins with this distressing reality: None of us scrupulously obeys the law. Technically speaking, we're all criminals.

Federal and state criminal statutes have multiplied like rabbits over the decades, and so now everyone breaks the law, probably every day.

Copy a song to your laptop from a friend's Beyonce CD? You just violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Did you buy some clothes in Delaware because they were tax free? You're probably evading taxes. Did you give your 20-year-old nephew a glass of wine at dinner? Illegal in many states.

Citizens that the federal government wants to indict, the federal government can indict if it monitors them closely enough. That's why it's so disturbing to learn that the federal government doesn't need to obtain a warrant on us in order to get our emails and phone records.

Nelson's trip through the revolving door demonstrates an important truth about Washington's influence industry: The revolving door rewards lawmakers for further entangling business and government, whether through regulations, subsidies or mandates.

Nelson represented the conservative state of Nebraska for two terms in the U.S. Senate. Voting for Obamacare in 2009 and 2010 sealed Nelson's fate in the 2012 elections, and so he decided not to run again. Nelson's last day as a senator was Jan. 3, and on Jan. 22 he announced he had taken two jobs on K Street.

Agenda Global is a new, self-described public affairs and advocacy firm headquartered on Capitol Hill. Former lobbyist Craig Pattee, who had founded a firm with Nelson back in 1994, launched Agenda this past summer. Pattee says Agenda doesn't lobby per se but concentrates on "building grassroots coalitions" to pressure lawmakers to support the policies that help Agenda's clients. "The backroom deal is dead," he tells me.

Last week, Agenda announced it was hiring Nelson and former North Dakota Gov. Ed Schafer (Pattee's old boss) as "senior advisers."

"Both are recognized for leadership on agriculture and biotech matters," the firm boasted on its announcement. How did Nelson "lead" on ag and biotech? Mostly by pushing federal subsidies.

Nelson firmly backed the federal ethanol mandate, which effectively forces drivers to buy ethanol. Last year the American Coalition for Ethanol gave the retiring senator its highest honor, the Merle Anderson Award.

In Obamacare, Nelson also showed "leadership" on biotech. For one thing, when the biotech lobby supported the bill (with all its profitable subsidies and mandates) and the people of Nebraska opposed it, Nelson sided with the biotech lobby.

More specifically, Nelson helped stick a special favor for biotech into the legislation: He was among a dozen lawmakers who specifically pushed for 12 years of exclusivity (that is, generics are banned) for name-brand biotech drugs. Regular name-brand drugs get five years before generics are allowed.

Today, Agenda wants as clients the biotech and ag companies that benefitted from Nelson's policies. And now, thanks in part to Nelson, biotech and agribusiness firms are more dependent on government's good favor than before.

"You're kinda in my house here."