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Alex Daoud had been mayor of Miami Beach from 1985 to 1991, but was then convicted of bribery and various other charges. Some years later, he arranged a real estate deal together with his daughter, Kelly Hyman (a lawyer and occasional political commentator)—but that went bad, and led her to sue him. The case dragged on for years, and unsurprisingly got a good deal of media coverage, such as in the Miami Herald, on the local CBS affiliate, and in the Real Deal (South Florida Real Estate News).

Hyman also alleged that Daoud or people working with him had posted various derogatory things about Hyman and her family (which includes her husband Paul Hyman, a retired federal bankruptcy judge), at sites named “atrociousattorney.com,” “avariciousadulteress.com,” “despicabledaughter.com,” and the like. As a result, the parties entered into an Agreed Order to Take Down Internet Posting Related to Kelly Hyman, Paul G. Hyman, Jr., [and other family members], in which Daoud was ordered to remove such posts.

So far, that’s fine; parties are generally entitled to enter into such agreements. But here’s the twist: After imposing the obligations on Daoud (who was a party to the agreement), the order went on to purport to bind third parties, who weren’t parties (and to my knowledge weren’t even notified that their rights were being adjudicated):

FURTHER ORDERED AND ADJUDGED that within ten (10) of being furnished a copy of this Order any internet-related services, internet service provider, host provider and/or search engine shall

remove and cause to be removed from any Site (including the web sites themselves and all URLS and links, even if they change) all statements, posts, social media, or videos or documents related to directly or indirectly to this lawsuit, and/or [the Hymans] and/or any website or posting defamatory, slander, or any statements against [the Hymans] … including, but not limited to the Sites [listed earlier in the order].

remove and cause to be removed any derogatory references to Kelly Hyman including, but not limited to any reference to Hyman as an “adulteress,” “blackmailer,” “whore,” “despicable,” “liar,” and/or any derogatory and/or negative comment about Kelly Hyman.

remove or cause to be removed any derogatory reference to Paul G. Hyman, Jr., including, but not limited to any reference to him as “prenup paul,” any judicial complaint and/or any derogatory comment about him including but not limited to any alleged misconduct.

remove and cause to be removed statements, documents, videos, and/or postings about this lawsuit, Kelly Hyman v. Arnold Daoud; related to the house located at 1750 Michigan Ave, Miami Beach, Florida; any communication between Kelly Hyman and Arnold “Alex” Daoud; and/or any libelous, defamatory, and/or slanderous websites, videos, internet posts and/or social media posts about [the Hymans], which was or is created directly or indirectly by Daoud.

And Google has indeed been asked, on the strength of this order, to deindex not just items that may have been posted by Daoud, but also mainstream media articles (see here and here):

https://ift.tt/3ftXZbK
https://ift.tt/3m2m5Nj

Notorious Father Faces Eviction—By Daughter

https://ift.tt/2UZdP4B
https://ift.tt/3ftsLS5
https://ift.tt/2KyoUrr

And Google was also asked to deindex two items that criticize Judge Paul Hyman, which do not appear to be linked to Daoud, and which in any case consist of copies of documents filed in other matters:

https://ift.tt/33aZZ3S
https://ift.tt/3fC3xkE

This appears to be the court’s fully approving an order proposed by Ms. Hyman’s lawyers.

I expect that Google will see through this, and will realize that it’s not actually bound by the order (despite what the order says), because it had never been made a party to the case (and wasn’t acting in concert with a party). And I expect that Google will also conclude that it shouldn’t deindex the mainstream media pages (and the criticisms of Judge Hyman) even voluntarily, because there’s no basis for thinking that there’s anything false and defamatory there.

Still, I think the court erred in approving the overbroad agreed order, which on its face purports to bind entities that had never agreed to it. (I have e-mailed Kelly Hyman and her lawyers to get their side of the story, but haven’t heard back from them.)

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Over the past 50-plus years, Charles Koch grew his family business, Koch Industries, into one of the largest privately-held companies in America while playing a leading role in creating or supporting the modern libertarian movement and some of its major institutions. Among them: The Cato Institute, the Institute for Humane Studies, the Mercatus Center, and the Charles Koch Foundation, a nonprofit that supports many organizations, including Reason Foundation, which is the publisher of Reason magazine. Along with his brother David, a longtime trustee of the Reason Foundation who passed away last year at the age of 79, the 85-year-old billionaire became not only one of the most successful businessmen in the country but also one of the most controversial, with leftists blaming  “the Koch brothers” for many of our contemporary problems.

Koch has just published Believe in People, a book that seeks to “offer a paradigm shift [that] calls for all of us to move away from the top-down approach to solving the really big problems” by instead “empowering people from the bottom up to act on their unique gifts and contribute to the lives of others.”

In a conversation with Koch and his co-author, Brian Hooks, who is the chairman and CEO of Stand Together and the president of the Charles Koch Foundation, Reason‘s Nick Gillespie discusses the 2020 election, the successes and failures of the libertarian movement, and what Koch and Hooks see as the defining challenges and opportunities in the coming decade.

Coordination producer: Drake Springer

Cameras by Rob Keyes, Benjamin Gaskell, Zach Weissmueller, and Paul Detrick; audio by Kyle Arnold; narrated by Nick Gillespie; edited by Ian Keyser and John Osterhoudt

Photos: AP Photo/Topeka Capital-Journal, Mike Burley; Kris Tripplaar/Sipa USA/Newscom; BO RADER/MCT/Newscom; Gage Skidmore/Creative Commons/Flickr; Gavin Peters/CC BY-SA 3.0/Wikimedia Commons; BO RADER/MCT/Newscom; AP Photo/David Zalubowski; Nicholas von Akron/Creative Commons/Flickr.

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With distribution of vaccines starting in the next month or so, should one rationally change one’s behavior? If one assumes that one’s choice in a period has no effect on other periods, then the answer is no. Holding risk of infection constant, the decision calculus is essentially the same in each time period of a pandemic, reflecting the trade-off between the costs of infection (including death) and the cost of social distancing in that month.

But the periods of a pandemic are not independent. Infection conveys at least some degree of immunity, and this explains the common sentiment that maybe it would be worth getting Covid over with. All else equal, it makes more sense to distance at the end of a pandemic (just before vaccines) than at the beginning. Getting sick at the beginning of the pandemic saves one from having to worry about it for the rest of the pandemic, while getting sick at the end of the pandemic doesn’t buy one any freedom from worry.

A quick simulation analysis quantifies this: Suppose that social distancing destroys one-quarter of the utility of being alive each month, that the risk of infection if not distancing is one in twenty (and zero otherwise), that the risk of death given infection is one in one hundred, and that one will live fifty more years if one does not die in the pandemic. If the pandemic will last twelve months, a person looking only after his or her own interests should distance only for the last four months and only if not yet infected.

Similar logic can lead to another counterintuitive result, that past some level of infectivity in the general population, one should be less cautious. If viral spread is so pervasive that you are eventually likely to become infected even if you are cautious, you might as well get infected earlier rather than later. At relatively low risk levels, increased prevalence of Covid should lead a rational maximizer of self-interest to greater precaution, but at very high risk levels, increased prevalence could rationally lead to reduced precaution, at least if those previously infected have less reason to socially distance.

Near the end of the pandemic, however, this possibility is unlikely, because the first argument outweighs the second. With infection rates very high and a vaccine around the corner, one would thus expect rational people to act more carefully rather than less. And yet, we see reduced social distancing and ever-increasing rates of infection. Why? Part of the answer surely lies in changes in the weather, but that may be an incomplete explanation. There may be individual incentives to act with less caution, even if the social calculus still tilts in favor of heavy social distancing.

Some of these incentives are obvious: Maybe costs of compliance increase over time. It is not so hard to comply for a while, maybe even fun, but loneliness grows. And the risk of death from infection has fallen over time. Both these answers focus on the amount of time from the beginning of the pandemic to the present, rather than on the duration of the pandemic that remains. Might there also be arguments that it is individually rational to be less careful, the closer we are to the end of the pandemic? Yes.

Let’s assume that individuals care to some extent not only about the prospect that they themselves will get sick, but also at least somewhat about the prospect that they may infect others. At first, it might seem that this should make no difference. It doesn’t matter whether the costs one takes into account are costs to oneself or costs to others. It’s still best to be more cautious near the end of the pandemic.

But multiplier effects may be greater earlier in the pandemic. One must worry not only about infecting others, but also about those whom they might infect, and so on. Much of the costs of one’s own lack of care may be many degrees removed. But if the end of the pandemic is near, then multiplier effects might be stopped, as soon as everyone receives the vaccine. It may be too early for logic of this sort to matter. But the most vulnerable people might receive vaccines in December, reducing the indirect costs of infecting others today. Also, if we are nearing the top of the wave, individual incentives at self-preservation will soon kick in, reducing multiplier effects. Similarly, if one believes the story that people will be more careful shortly before being vaccinated, that itself is an event that will reduce the infection multiplier, and so there is less reason to be careful beforehand. I am skeptical that this line of thinking explains current behavior, though. It seems more likely that people are becoming more indifferent to others’ welfare than that they are rationally taking into account that social distancing might not advantage others as much.

A separate argument is based on the iterated prisoner’s dilemma. If many individuals’ interest narrowly conceived is to not socially distance but society as a whole benefits from everyone social distancing, then the game is a many-player iterated prisoners’ dilemma.

The two-player version is simple enough: It may be that for each of two roommates, it would be collectively rational to socially distance but not individually rational. In a one-period game, each roommate would not cooperate, regardless of the other roommate’s choice, just as each prisoner in the prisoners’ dilemma has an incentive to rat out the other regardless of what that person does. But when the game will be continued over multiple periods, each roommate may cooperate given the continued cooperation of the other roommate, applying a strategy like tit-for-tat.

The iterated prisoners’ dilemma breaks down as the end of the game nears. There is no reason to cooperate in the final period of the game, just before administration of the vaccine, because there will be no benefit from doing so in generating further later cooperation. But if that’s true, then there is no reason to cooperate in the penultimate period of the game, and so on. In the real world, cooperation is not black-and-white. Social distancing occurs on a continuum that is not easily measurable, and so each roommate’s failures at social distancing may matter only if repeated over a sufficient number of periods to amount to a clear violation of the cooperation norm. Later in the game, the benefit from weakly signaling cooperation becomes attenuated. Each roommate rationally loosens up, while still claiming to be taking every reasonable precaution.

But what if there are many millions of players? One’s own individual actions will likely have a negligible effect on infection rates in society as a whole, so why should one ever cooperate? If one cares about social welfare, even though not enough fully to internalize effects on others, the iterated prisoner’s dilemma story becomes plausible. One infects others not only with the virus but also with non-cooperation, and one may worry about multiplier effects with non-cooperation too. Later in the game, this is less worth worrying about. For your behavior to have an indirect adverse effect on others, it must cause others to behave recklessly and for that in turn to lead to infection, but such effects are less likely in the end game.

But one doesn’t need to think that people care about the effect of their behavior on the national average level of compliance to believe the iterated prisoners’ dilemma story. Each of us belongs to small groups–families, workplaces, and so on–and in these groups it is more plausible to believe that one’s own refusal to socially distance will lead to a breakdown of cooperation. These small groups can themselves be seen as atomistic actors in broader communities, concerned themselves about setting a good example.

The mechanism works less through conscious worries about indirect effects than through social norms. And we should not be surprised that social norms will break down as the pandemic proceeds. The anticipated end of a social norm may lead to the breakdown of the social norm even before the end, just as an anticipation that one’s company will switch to business casual next month might lead people to go casual this month too. If I will be able to violate social distancing soon, it may be less of a breach of the social distancing norm now. At one level, this is illogical; the social norm should survive until it is no longer needed. But if one thinks that others may think that still others may think that it is logical to transition gradually into reduced social distancing, then one may be less scolding of someone who breaks social distancing prematurely. Anticipating a lower cost of breach, more will break the social norm, in a vicious circle.

I am not arguing that people should break social distancing norms. We need them more than ever with the end of the pandemic in sight! But it is good to be realistic in acknowledging that it may well be individually rational for many people not to socially distance, even when it is socially destructive, especially people whose own risk from Covid is low. That recognition can help us solidify the social norm. If we are past the point where social norms can serve as a useful form of social opprobrium and informal regulation, that may be justification for increasing the force of formal rules and laws. The greater the breakdown of norms in combatting a negative externality problem, the greater the case for government regulation. If the breakdown in social distancing reflects a rational individual calculus partly attributable to the upcoming end of the pandemic, individual incentives must be recalibrated, and there is no reason to expect private ordering to achieve optimal compliance levels.

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Home-based gatherings and small-group socializing are at the root of the most recent spike in COVID-19 cases, say state leaders. Hence a new round of restrictions on when people can leave their homes, how many non-household members they can have over or meet up with, and other measures meant to once again slow the spread. Bars, restaurants, retail shops, and other places of business are also being targeted under new orders—but, these days, it’s mostly private socializing which authorities are blaming. It’s now become conventional wisdom in government, pundit spheres, and among at least some of the public that curtailing any and all socializing is a sound solution.

Hold up, says The New York Times (not exactly known to be a bastion of government-critical thinking about coronavirus containment). Where’s the evidence for all of this?

Small gatherings can of course lead to people infecting one another—just like the virus doesn’t get more deadly after dark, it doesn’t care how many people you’re with or how close you are with them. A small group here and a small group there and the virus can easily keep finding new hosts.

But that doesn’t necessarily explain the recent surge in cases in all types of areas all over the country, health experts told the Times:

In dozens of statements over the past weeks, political leaders and public health officials have said that while previous waves of infection could be linked to nursing homes, meatpacking plants or restaurants, the problem now is that unmasked people are sitting too closely in kitchens and living rooms, lighting thousands of small Covid fires that burn through their communities….

But many epidemiologists are far less certain, saying there is little evidence to suggest that household gatherings were the source of the majority of infections since the summer. Indeed, it has become much harder to pinpoint any source of any outbreak, now that the virus is so widespread and Americans may be exposed in so many ways.

To the extent that we have data, they implicate prisons, health care facilities, and nightlife spots as superspreaders:

Most states don’t collect or report detailed information about the exposure that led to a new infection. But in states where a breakdown is available, long-term care facilities, food processing plants, prisons, health care settings, and restaurants and bars are still the leading sources of spread, the data suggest.

An analysis of nearly 800 nursing homes in six states experiencing the biggest surges, including North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin, found that these homes are still hot spots of viral transmission and that little has been done since the spring to reduce that risk….

In Colorado, only 81 active cases are attributed to social gatherings, compared with more than 4,000 from correctional centers and jails, 3,300 from colleges and universities, nearly 2,400 from assisted living facilities, and 450 from restaurants, bars, casinos and bowling alleys.

In Louisiana, social events account for just 1.7 percent of the 3,300 cases for which the state has clear exposure information.

So why the focus on banning social gatherings of more than 10 people, instituting curfews, or even banning all indoor and outdoor inter-household meetups (as Minnesota did this week)?

Perhaps they let authorities look like they’re taking strong and swift action while shifting responsibility away from their own failures.

Of course they want people to blame their neighbors rather than focus on the number of deaths on politicians’ hands. Of course authorities would rather wax on about you how you can do your part, and to issue rules that justify more policing, than focus on how the places they have total control over—jails and prisons—are some of the worst pandemic hot spots. Or how the state has basically written off the suffering and lives of people in them—many of whom haven’t even been convicted of a crime.

Or how local, state, and federal authorities have limited or hindered testing options and capabilities, stood in the way of at-home testing, and otherwise made it more difficult for Americans to do one thing that really works at stopping the spread (one which does not rely on people becoming hermits indefinitely).Widespread mask adoption was a good early turning point for fighting the pandemic, and on our way to a vaccine, ramped up testing should have been the second turning point.

Because testing did get more widely available than it was originally, and case counts were lower over the summer, the testing options for a while seemed not great, but adequate. Now that demand for tests is surging again, however, it’s become clear that not enough was done at all. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) only just approved rapid at-home tests, and these—when they are rolled out—will still require a prescription. People in many parts of the country now report that getting tested has become an ordeal again, often requiring long waits out in the cold or in a waiting room full of other patients. Around me, in Cincinnati, there are very few rapid-testing sites and seemingly not enough testing sites generally, with many places still requiring a doctor’s order or only testing for antibodies.

Meanwhile, the new lockdowns and restrictions on social gatherings are all message-sending and blame-shifting until the cops get involved.

While some sheriff’s departments and police agencies say they won’t enforce state orders, most are. And anything that puts people in more unnecessary contact with the police can be dangerous, especially for minority communities. (So far, we see New York City busting up sex clubs and targeting Orthodox Jewish communities…) New restrictions give police another pretense for surveilling and harassing black Americans and other groups who have historically been the targets of biased law enforcement.

Thanksgiving week is giving cops an extra excuse to flex their muscles. For instance, Maryland state police have said they will step up COVID restriction enforcement this Wednesday and Thursday nights. Pennsylvania has ordered no on-premise alcohol sales on Thanksgiving night, as well as the night before, and state Health Secretary Rachel Levine said that this week, “law enforcement and state agencies will be stepping up enforcement efforts, issuing citations and fines, and possible regulatory actions for repeat offenders.”

FREE MINDS

Texas will include information about contraception in middle school sex education. “For the first time in more than two decades, Texas’ Board of Education voted Friday to make major changes to the state’s sex education standards, expanding the teaching of birth control beyond abstinence-only education for middle school students,” notes The New York Times:

Under the revision, public school educators will be allowed to teach students in seventh and eighth grades about birth control methods such as condoms and other contraceptives, and about their effectiveness in preventing pregnancy, S.T.D.s and S.T.I.s.

The revisions are set to go in effect in August 2022.

FREE MARKETS

Trump adviser says TikTok and WeChat bans will happen. At a talk in Hanoi, Vietnam, U.S. national security adviser Robert O’Brien said Trump’s stalled apps bans “will take place.” From the South China Morning Post:

QUICK HITS

• If President-elect Joe Biden is serious about criminal justice reform, he won’t pick Merrick Garland for attorney general, writes Reason‘s Damon Root.

• South Dakota cops are trying to stop the state from legalizing marijuana after voters approved a ballot measure to do so.

• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit has ruled that Texas and Louisiana can bar Medicaid patients from receiving covered services at Planned Parenthood. “The issue is likely to go next to the U.S. Supreme Court,” says CBS News.

• States are planning yet another half-assed antitrust lawsuit against Google.

• The Trump Department of Justice is planning on going out on an execution spree.

• Nick Gillespie interviews former Reason Editor in Chief Virginia Postrel about her new book, The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World.

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The South Carolina mom who wants her kids’ elementary school to allow them to walk home alone could find herself facing an investigation.

Ominously, at the end of a local news story about Jessie Thompson’s quest to get her kids’ school to permit them to enjoy some fresh air, the anchorwoman said, “Social Services could be called if the children are left to walk home on their own.”

“Left” to walk home. As if the mom is abandoning her kids, rather than trusting them.

The story, chronicled here, involves Thompson, a mom of four. Her three youngest, ages 9, 10, and 11, attend Spann Elementary School in Summerville, South Carolina. They already walk alone in that neighborhood—and look both ways before crossing—on their way to extracurriculars. But the principal has said they can’t walk home from school without an adult present. Thompson must come pick up the kids, or the school will put them on the bus.

The school is situated off a four-lane highway, mistakenly identified as a six-lane highway by the TV reporter. (It has extra turning lanes.) “The Thompson family lives on one side of the parkway and Spann Elementary School is on the other,” intoned the reporter as the camera dramatically zoomed out to illustrate the intersection.

It has a crosswalk as well as Walk/Don’t Walk signs. If the school believes no child can traverse this safely, why not station a crossing guard there, rather than insisting that each and every parent come fetch their kids?

The bus ride takes longer than the walk: During COVID-19, it actually seems less safe than the fresh-air option. As for insisting a parent come pick up the kids, this is a burden on anyone who can’t afford to leave her job in the middle of the day. Presumably, child protective services has better things to do than investigate parents whose kids walk home from school.

For Thompson, the issue is simple: Why is the school allowed to dictate what kids do once they leave school property? A lawyer for the district, Christy Graham, said the school is wary of liability issues. An “additional concern of the district [is] for our students not to be harmed.”

But how far into the children’s home life does the school’s right to be concerned” extend? It doesn’t dictate where the kids can walk on evenings and weekends, after all.

“I’m not naïve,” says Thompson. “It’s a major intersection.” But just because it’s not 100 percent safe doesn’t mean it’s 100 percent dangerous. No intersection can be guaranteed safe, but neither can a car ride to or from the school. Indeed, car passenger deaths are the number one way children die in America. Yet no one stops parents from driving their kids home.

We aren’t really criminalizing danger—we’re criminalizing parents who don’t helicopter. Which means we are criminalizing childhood independence.

With any luck, South Carolina will pass the Reasonable Childhood Independence Bill that had passed the Senate unanimously and was working its way toward the House before the pandemic shut the legislature down. Parents know their kids best. If they believe their kids are ready for a time-honored independence milestone, they should not be threatened with an investigation for neglect. Not by schools, and not by the media.

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