“I actually like privatization,” said the Capitalist. “How can you not?”
“I like privatization too,” said the Cynic. “I’d even like to privatize the death penalty.”
“What?” asked the Capitalist.
“Simple,” said the Cynic. “People need to die, of course. Or at least our polity always says so. That means there’s a job to be done. And jobs… belong in the private sector.”
“What exactly do you propose?” asked the Capitalist.
“Contractors will bid for it,” said the Cynic. “The lowest-price bidder gets to do the killing. When all is said and done, at least one more person will be… gainfully employed.”
“That’s barbaric,” said the Humanitarian.
“There’s more,” said the Cynic. “I expect that in time the bids will be negative: Firms will offer the government money for the privilege of doing the killing, rather than billing it for services rendered.”
The Capitalist: “You mean — ”
“Reality TV,” said the Cynic. “They’re going to monetize it, baby. Nature, in her wisdom, has provided that the sickos who want to watch will always be more numerous than the sickos who want to perform. And this will make the government money.”
“You do like money, right?” the Cynic added hopefully. “If you want, I’ve got other ideas,” he said at length.
The Humanitarian raised an eyebrow. “I thought you might,” he said.
“Well, take this here NSA telephone metadata program,” said the Cynic. “The government scoops up all the information about nearly all domestic phone calls that isn’t spoken out loud. And there’s no need for a warrant because, well, whatever. It scoops up things like the time, the telephone numbers for all parties, and the duration. It’s really quite amazing what you can learn from metadata, including many things about the people involved that maybe they don’t want the world to know.”
“And?” asked the Capitalist.
“Take this program,” said the Cynic. “And privatize it.”
“You mean give it to a corporation?” asked the Malthusian.
“Yep!” said the Cynic. “Think of it as a jobs program, an economic stimulus, and a chance for entrepreneurs to employ their talents.”
“How exactly would that work?” asked the Capitalist.
“We’ll have the corporation keep all the data,” said the Cynic. “And when the government wants something, it just has to ask. That way it’s… private!”
“Will there be less LOVEINT at a private corporation?” asked the Malthusian.
“Will they spy less on ordinary citizens?” asked the Humanitarian.
“Will they respect the Fourth Amendment more, or less?” asked the Capitalist.
“It doesn’t matter!” said the Cynic. “That’s the beauty of it. Because they’re private, they can be… flexible, shall we say. They don’t need to obey the Fourth Amendment — not under the Third Party Doctrine.”
“Will they do less financial surveillance?” asked the Capitalist. “Or more?”
“Who knows?” said the Cynic. “Who cares? We’re at war here, and, as our commander-in-chief reminded us, our nation was founded on spying.”
“Sounds… extensive,” said the Capitalist.”
“It certainly is,” said the Cynic. “And of course there are a lot of programs, including some of the very most extensive, that we haven’t even gotten around to privatizing yet!”
“Tell me,” said the Humanitarian. “If our society still burned witches, would you privatize that too?”
“No, no,” said the Cynic. “You tell me: What do you have against efficiency?”
I like the cut of the Cynic’s jib. Then again he was probably written to be likable.Report
Brilliant and I mean that in a sincere way. This is why the pritivization of truly government functions like prisons is always a bad idea. Constitutional protections aren’t the perfect shield to government misconduct but they are a protector of sorts. When private entities conduct government business, the protections offered by the Constitution do not apply.Report
“When private entities conduct government business, the protections offered by the Constitution do not apply.”
Well, it depends. Private entities that act as “state actors” are indeed subject to the Constitutional protections in the Bill of Rights. However, not every private entity that contracts with the government can be considered a “state actor.”Report
To be fair, the president did acknowledge that though this was (more or less) in the recommendations provided to him, it isn’t really an answer.
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On the one hand, the proposed requirement of a search-by-search application to the FISA court before using the database strikes me as a non-trivial concession to the Fourth Amendment.
But the idea that the private corporation would sell licenses to mine the metadata to other entities had not occurred to me yet, to be honest, although I suspect it would have eventually.
And I’m still puzzling through how privacy can exist at all in world with a robust Third Party Doctrine.Report
It can’t, but we’re concerned about the NSA getting access to data that’s already being collected by third parties.Report
“data that’s already being collected by third parties.”
That’s what immediately came to mind when I got to the part about how “It scoops up things like the time, the telephone numbers for all parties, and the duration.”
Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that the phone company “scoops” up all this info and then sells it to the NSA? Yes, that would indeed be more accurate.
Didn’t Edward Snowden work for Booz Allen Hamilton? Yes, he did.
And yet we have the Cynic saying this:
You can’t make a function that government shouldn’t be carrying it out into one it should by having the government pay a private entity to do it. You first have to decide if you want this thing to be done at the government’s behest at all, and then decide whether, if so, it’s the kind of thing/function that will be improved by moving its operation to the private sector.
On the last question in the general case, the theory is pretty strong that moving functions from government to private operation will improve their efficiency and/or quality. that’s why it’s most helpful to observe and point out and learn from all the specific instances in practice when it’s unclear that that theory bears out, or when it’s clear that it doesn’t.Report
carrying outReport