The Future (73 page)
Authors: Al Gore
247
and no reasonable cause for allowing the search is required
Ibid.
248
whose digital information has been searched and seized
Ibid.
249
“marketing a catalog of ‘surveillance fees’ ”
Eric Lichtblau, “Police Are Using Phone Tracking as a Routine Tool,”
New York Times
, April 1, 2012.
250
plans to sell the data to private investigators, insurers, and others
Julia Angwin and Jennifer Valentino-Devries, “New Tracking Frontier: Your License Plates,”
Wall Street Journal
, October 2, 2012.
251
The market for these technologies has grown
Nicole Perlroth, “Software Meant to Fight Crime Is Used to Spy on Dissidents,”
New York Times
, August 31, 2012.
252
including Iran, Syria, and China
Rebecca MacKinnon, “Internet Freedom Starts at Home,”
Foreign Policy
, April 3, 2012; Cindy Cohn, Trevor Timm, and Jillian C. York, Electronic Frontier Foundation, “Human Rights and Technology Sales: How Corporations Can Avoid Assisting Repressive Regimes,” April 2012,
https://www.eff.org/document/human-rights-and-technology-sales
; Jon Evans, “Selling Software That Kills,” TechCrunch, May 26, 2012,
http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/26/selling-software-that-kills/
.
253
video cameras will become commonplace tools
Francis Fukuyama, “Why We All Need a Drone of Our Own,”
Financial Times
, February 24, 2012.
254
sixty-three active drone sites in the U.S
.
“Is There a Drone in Your Neighbourhood? Rise of Spy Planes Exposed After FAA Is Forced to Reveal 63 Launch Sites Across U.S.,”
Daily Mail
, April 24, 2012.
255
awareness—even if the device has been turned off
David Kushner, “The Hacker Is Watching,”
GQ
, January 2012.
256
have also been used to monitor the conversations of some suspects
Declan McCullagh, “Court to FBI: No Spying on In-Car Computers,” CNET,
November 19, 2003,
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1029_3-5109435.html
. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that this instance of surveillance is illegal.
257
other confidential information as it is typed
Nicole Perlroth, “Malicious Software Attacks Security Cards Used by Pentagon,”
New York Times
, Bits blog, January 12, 2012,
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/malicious-software-attacks-security-cards-used-by-pentagon/
.
258
powerful data collection system that the world has ever known
Bamford, “The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say).”
259
caused public outrage and resulted in congressional action
American Civil Liberties Union, “Congress Dismantles Total Information Awareness Spy Program; ACLU Applauds Victory, Calls for Continued Vigilance Against Snoop Programs,” September 25, 2003,
http://www.aclu.org/national-security/congress-dismantles-total-information-awareness-spy-program-aclu-applauds-victory-
.
260
against these proposals, resulted in the withdrawal of both
Jonathan Weisman, “After an Online Firestorm, Congress Shelves Antipiracy Bills,”
New York Times
, January 21, 2012.
261
eavesdrop on any online communication
Robert Pear, “House Votes to Approve Disputed Hacking Bill,”
New York Times
, April 27, 2012.
262
“habits of the heart and resisting the allure of the ideology of technology”
Michael Sacasas, “Technology in America,”
American
, April 13, 2012.
263
norms and values that reflect the American tradition of free speech and robust free markets
Gross, “World War 3.0.”
264
Brazil, India, and South Africa are following
Georgina Prodhan, “BRIC Nations Push for Bigger Say in Policing of Internet,”
Globe and Mail
, September 6, 2012.
265
as a last resort for protecting confidential, high-value information
Gross, “World War 3.0.”
266
“walled garden” approach
Ryan Nakashima, “Ex-AOL Exec Calls Facebook New ‘Walled Garden,’ ” Associated Press, May 1, 2012.
267
attempted to slow down or make more expensive
Claire Cain Miller and Miguel Helft, “Web Plan from Google and Verizon Is Criticized,”
New York Times
, August 10, 2010.
268
laws that protect free speech and free competition
“Protecting the Internet,” editorial,
New York Times
, December 18, 2010.
1
“closing of a 500-year cycle in economic history”
“China Became World’s Top Manufacturing Nation, Ending 110 Year US Leadership,” MercoPress, March 15, 2011,
http://en.mercopress.com/2011/03/15/china-became-world-s-top-manufacturing-nation-ending-110-year-us-leadership
.
2
first time since 1890 that any economy
Charles Kenny, “China vs. the U.S.: The Case for Second Place,”
BloombergBusinessweek
, October 13, 2011.
3
International Monetary Fund require support from 85 percent
“Profile: IMF and World Bank,” BBC News, April 17, 2012,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/country_profiles/3670465.stm
; Thomas J. Bollyky, “How to Fix the World Bank,” op-ed,
New York Times
, April 9, 2012; David Bosco, “A Primer on World Bank Voting Procedures,”
Foreign Policy
, March 28, 2012.
4
it has effective veto power over their decisions
BBC News, “Profile: IMF and World Bank,” BBC News; World Bank, “World Bank Group Voice Reform: Enhancing Voice and Participation in Developing and Transition Countries in 2010 and Beyond,” April 25, 2010,
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/NEWS/Resources/IBRD2010VotingPowerRealignmentFINAL.pdf
.
5
members of the U.N. Security Council when Brazil
CIA,
The World Factbook
,
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html
.
6
some have already preemptively labeled it the “G2”
C. Fred Bergsten, “Two’s Company,”
Foreign Affairs
, September/October 2009.
7
there were episodic warnings that American power was waning
Josef Joffe, “Declinism’s Fifth Wave,”
American Interest
, January/February 2012; Samuel P. Huntington, “The U.S.—Decline or Renewal?,”
Foreign Affairs
, Winter 1988/1989; Victor Davis Hanson, “Beware the Boom in American ‘Declinism,’ ” CBS News, November 14, 2011,
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-215_162-57324071/beware-the-boom-in-american-declinism/
.
8
the U.S. was in danger of quickly falling
Joffe, “Declinism’s Fifth Wave”; Huntington, “The U.S.—Decline or Renewal?”; Victor Hanson, “Beware the Boom in American ‘Declinism.’ ”
9
1940s to roughly 25 percent in the early 1970s
Stephen M. Walt, “The End of the American Era,”
National Interest
, October 25, 2011; Robert Kagan, “Not Fade Away,”
New Republic
, January 11, 2012.
10
remained at that same level for the last forty years
Kagan, “Not Fade Away.”
11
largely at the expense of Europe, not of the United States
Ibid.
12
when it first became the world’s largest economy
Charles Kenny, “China vs. the U.S.: The Case for Second Place,”
BloombergBusinessweek
, October 13, 2011.
13
suffered casualties 100 times greater than those of the United States
Irina Titova, “Medvedev Orders Precise Soviet WWII Death Toll,” Associated Press, January 27, 2009; Anne Leland, Mari-Jana Oboroceanu, Congressional Research Service, “American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and Statistics,” February 2010,
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf
.
14
Stalin’s 1939 pact with Hitler
“The Day in History: August 23rd, 1939. The Hitler-Stalin Pact,”
History.com
, 2012.
15
which formalized the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency
“Beyond Bretton Woods 2,”
Economist
, November 4, 2010.
16
which later evolved into the Common Market and the European Union
European Commission, “Treaty Establishing the European Coal and Steel Community, ECSC Treaty,” October 15, 2010,
http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/institutional_affairs/treaties/treaties_ecsc_en.htm
.
17
“the father of the United Nations”
Cordell Hull Foundation, “Cordell Hull Biography,”
http://www.cordellhull.org/english/About_Us/Biography.asp
.
18
“when goods cross borders, armies do not”
Jill Lerner, “Free Trade’s Champion,”
Atlanta Business Chronicle
, February 13, 2006.
19
“the end of history”
Francis Fukuyama,
The End of History and the Last Man
(New York: Harper Perennial, 1993).
20
three waves of democracy that spread throughout the world
U.S. Department of State, Bureau of International Information Programs, “Democracy’s Third Wave,”
http://www.4uth.gov.ua/usa/english/politics/whatsdem/whatdm13.htm
.
21
aftermath of the American Revolution, produced twenty-nine democracies
Ibid.
22
carried a picture of George Washington in his breast pocket
John F. Kennedy, “Remarks at an Independence Day Celebration with the American Community in Mexico City,” June 30, 1962, American Presidency Project,
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=8748
.
23
twelve by the beginning of World War II
U.S. Department of State, “Democracy’s Third Wave.”
24
the number of democracies to thirty-six
Ibid.
25
decline to thirty from 1962 until the mid-1970s
Ibid.
26
with the collapse of communism in 1989
Ibid.
27
decline in the number of democratic nations in the world
Economist Intelligence Unit, Democracy Index 2010, 2010,
http://www.eiu.com/democracy
.
28
fourth wave of democratization
Larry Diamond, “A Fourth Wave or False Start?,”
Foreign Affairs
, May 22, 2011.
29
increased in absolute terms to the highest level since 1945
Kagan, “Not Fade Away,” January 11, 2012; Todd Purdum, “One Nation, Under Arms,”
Vanity Fair
, January 2012.
30
almost equal to the military spending of the entire rest of the world
Purdum, “One Nation, Under Arms.”
31
more pilots for unmanned vehicles than it trains pilots of manned fighter jets
Christian Caryl, “Predators and Robots at War,”
New York Review of Books
, August
30, 2011; Elisabeth Bumiller, “Air Force Drone Operators Report High Levels of Stress,”
New York Times
, December 19, 2011.
32
drone pilots suffer post-traumatic stress disorder
Caryl, “Predators and Robots at War.”
33
U.S. stealth drone and commanded it to land
Scott Peterson, “Downed US Drone: How Iran Caught the ‘Beast,’ ”
Christian Science Monitor
, December 9, 2011; Rick Gladstone, “Iran Shows Video It Says Is of U.S. Drone,”
New York Times
, December 9, 2011; “Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones,”
Wall Street Journal
, December 17, 2009; “Iran ‘Building Copy of Captured US Drone’ RQ-170 Sentinel,” BBC, April 22, 2012.
34
More than fifty countries
David Wood, “American Drones Ignite New Arms Race from Gaza to Iran to China,”
Huffington Post
, November 27, 2012,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/27/american-drones_n_2199193.html
.
35
right to unleash deadly fire when threatened
Ibid.
36
doubt that the social, political, and economic foundations in China
Walt, “The End of the American Era”; Thair Shaikh, “When Will China Become a Global Superpower?,” CNN, June 10, 2011,
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/06/10/china.military.superpower/index.html
.
37
experts warn that the lack of free speech
Walt, “The End of the American Era”; Kagan, “Not Fade Away,” January 11, 2012; Martin Feldstein, “China’s Biggest Problems Are Political, Not Economic,”
Wall Street Journal
, August 2, 2012; Frank Rich, “Mayberry R.I.P.,”
New York
, July 22, 2012.
38
the concentrated autocratic power in Beijing
Ibid.
39
high levels of corruption throughout China
Feldstein, “China’s Biggest Problems Are Political, Not Economic.”
40
an estimated 64 million empty apartments in China
“Crisis in China: 64 Million Empty Apartments,”
Asia News
, September 15, 2010,
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Crisis-in-China:-64-million-empty-apartments-19459.html
.
41
windmills constructed by China are not connected to the electrical grid
“Weaknesses in Chinese Wind Power,”
Forbes
, July 20, 2009.
42
largest internal migration in history
“The Largest Migration in History,”
Economist
, February 24, 2012.
43
“180,000 protests, riots and other mass incidents”
Tom Orlik, “Unrest Grows as Economy Booms,”
Wall Street Journal
, September 26, 2011.
44
fourfold increase from 2000
Ibid.
45
building in response to economic inequality
Feldstein, “China’s Biggest Problems Are Political, Not Economic”; Wendy Dobson,
Gravity Shift: How Asia’s New Economic Powerhouses Will Shape the Twenty-First Century
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009).
46
intolerable environmental conditions
Dobson,
Gravity Shift
.
47
autocratic local and regional leaders
Orlik, “Unrest Grows as Economy Booms.”
48
wages have been increasing significantly in the last two years
David Leonhardt, “In China, Cultivating the Urge to Splurge,”
New York Times Magazine
, November 28, 2010.
49
sources besides the participatory nature of their system
Daniel Bell, “Real Meaning of the Rot at the Top of China,”
Financial Times
, April 23, 2012.
50
“form the fundamental principle of Mao Zedong Thought?”
Deng Xiaoping, “Speech at the All-Army Conference on Political Work: June 2, 1978,” in
Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping
, vol. 2 (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1984), p. 132.
51
corporate lobbies to sit in the actual drafting sessions
Laura Sullivan, “Shaping State Laws with Little Scrutiny,” NPR, October 29, 2010,
http://www.npr.org/2010/10/29/130891396/shaping-state-laws-with-little-scrutiny
; Mike McIntire, “Conservative Nonprofit Acts as a Stealth Business Lobbyist,”
New York Times
, April 22, 2012.
52
routinely rubber-stamp laws
Sullivan, “Shaping State Laws with Little Scrutiny”; McIntire, “Conservative Nonprofit Acts as a Stealth Business Lobbyist”; John Cassidy, “America’s Class War,”
New Yorker
blog, June 8, 2012,
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012/06/wisconsin-scott-walker-class-war.html
.
53
longest running corporation was created in Sweden in 1347
“Sweden: The Oldest Corporation in the World,”
Time
, March 15, 1963.
54
common until the seventeenth century, when the Netherlands
“The taste of adventure,”
Economist
, December 17, 1998.
55
United Kingdom
Joel Bakan,
The Corporation
(New York: Free Press, 2004), p. 6.
56
South Sea Company scandal
Ibid., p. 7.
57
England banned corporations in 1720
Ibid., p. 6.
58
The prohibition was not lifted until 1825
Ibid., p. 9.
59
civic and charitable purposes, for limited periods of time
Justin Fox, “What the Founding Fathers Really Thought About Corporations,”
Harvard Business Review
, April 1, 2010,
http://blogs.hbr.org/fox/2010/04/what-the-founding-fathers-real.html
.
60
“bid defiance to the laws of our country”
Thomas Jefferson, “To George Logan,” November 12, 1816.
61
expanded by an order of magnitude, from 33 to 328
Bakan,
The Corporation
, p. 9.
62
New York State enacted the first of many statutes
Linda Smiddy and Lawrence Cunningham, “Corporations and Other Business Organizations: Cases, Materials, Problems,” LexisNexis, 2010, p. 16.
63
increased considerably with the mobilization of Northern industry
David C. Korten,
When Corporations Rule the World
(Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, 1995),
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Korten/RiseCorpPower_WCRW.html
.
64
huge government procurement contracts
Ibid.
65
building of the railroads
Ibid.