November 26, 2021
COME BACK, ADMIRAL POINDEXTER, ALL IS FORGIVEN:
Who's Watching Whom? (BENJAMIN A. KLEINERMAN, NOVEMBER 25, 2021, The Constitutionalist)
In this tweet, Barbara Walter seems to propose that we allow the CIA to create a task force that would "try to predict where and when political instability and conflict is likely to break out" domestically, just as they do around the world now. I would like to assume that Professor Walter, a political scientist at UC-San Diego, meant this tweet ironically. But, given the rest of her intellectual profile, I think it wasn't meant in jest. Instead, it represents a new comfort level that people, especially those on the left, now have with the apparatuses of government. Insofar as the so-called "deep state" did seem to work to help stabilize and, critics would say, undermine the Trump Presidency, the left is alarmingly comfortable with the same apparatus used on a more regular basis in domestic politics. As long as Professor Walter is confident that this CIA task force will be looking for Trumpey types, she isn't much worried about this power.
There is, of course, no need for this to be a government project. Just open-source all intelligence and create something like the Iowa presidential market, where people would buy shares of events they think likely. Intelligence is generally rendered less effective by keeping it secret, reducing the number of eyes on it, making it fodder in bureaucratic infighting, etc. Exploiting the wisdom of markets, reducing the imagined added-value of secrecy, etc., and making people put their money where their mouths are would likely improve predictive value while identifying potential threats more quickly and impartially.
Posted by Orrin Judd at November 26, 2021 8:40 AM