Tag: posts

After weeks of refusing to reveal health plan
enrollment totals through the health insurance exchanges launched
in October, federal officials released Obamacare “enrollment”
numbers for the first time this afternoon. Except that they aren’t
real enrollment numbers.

According to the release, 106,185 people have “enrolled and
selected a Marketplace plan” from either a state-run exchange or
the federally facilitated exchange system operating in 36
states.

The important words to notice in that sentence are “and
selected.”

As a companion report on exchange activity by an office within
the Department of Health and Human Service explains, the 106,185
figure represents the number of “plan-eligible persons” who “have
already selected a plan by clicking a button on the website
page.” 

That’s really just an awkward way of saying that the report
counts all the people who have done the equivalent of moving a plan
into their online shopping carts—regardless of whether or not they
have actually paid their first month’s premium yet. Given that
those who don’t pay won’t be covered, this means that the true
enrollment number so far is almost certainly significantly
lower.

The report does provide a sense of how much the federal exchange
network has struggled. Of the 106k plan selections, just 26,794, or
about 25 percent, came through the federal exchange system, which
includes Florida and Texas, two key large states where the
administration has
indicated that enrollment is critical to the law’s success.

The report’s state-by-state breakdown of plan-selection totals
also offers some hints about the difference between the number of
people who have taken the step of “clicking a button on the website
page” and the number of people who have fully enrolled. For
example, the HHS report lists 97 people as having selected a plan
in the state of Delaware, one of the 36 states relying on a federal
exchange, between October 1 and November 2. But the Associated
Press reported last week that Delaware’s federally funded
marketplace
guides have successfully managed just four total
enrollments in the state.

Even the “selection” number doesn’t bode well for the law’s
success at getting people covered. Before the launch of the
exchanges, administration officials expected that
about 500,000 people would enroll in private coverage through
the exchanges during October.

So we learned something from this release. But we didn’t learn
how many people had actually enrolled. 

Prosecutors are pushing for the
10 year maximum sentence for Jeremy Hammond, who is accused of
large-scale hacking crimes against a private intelligence firm.
Hammond will be sentenced this Friday.

Hammond pleaded guilty to a
conspiracy charge, one of three charges brought against him in
2012 in the U.S. District Court Court for the Southern District of
New York. He and four other members of the hacking network
Anonymous were
accused of hacking and leaking emails from the private
intelligence company Strategic Forecasting (Stratfor).

Hammond turned the documents over to Wikileaks for publication.
The emails contained information about the Stratfor itself,
including potential
insider trading and
domestic spying, as well as information about international
affairs and individuals, such as Julian Assange and Osama bin
Laden.

Although the judge overseeing the case initially suggested
that Hammond could face life imprisonment, the 28-year-old hacker
made a plea deal for a 10 year maximum. His co-defendants, who were
located and tried in the UK, received comparatively lenient
sentences. The harshest was roughly two and a half years in prison;
the lightest was 200 hours of community service.

Hammond, who created HackThisSite, which hosts hacking
simulations, and has committed numerous controversial hacking

campaigns, like his one against conservative pro-war group
Protest Warrior, has people divided. Some believe him to be a
serious criminal. Others consider him an anti-war hacktivist hero.
Wired reports on the prosecution’s
stance:

Contrary to the picture he paints of himself … Hammond is a
computer hacking recidivist who, following a federal conviction for
computer hacking, went on to engage in a massive hacking spree
during which he caused harm to numerous businesses, individuals,
and governments, resulting in losses of between $1 million and $2.5
million, and threatened the safety of the public at large,
especially law enforcement officers and their families

On the other hand, organizations like the Electronic Frontier
Foundation suggest that Hammond’s actions “benefit the public
good.” They are among
265 groups and individuals that have written to the judge in
defense of Hammond. EFF contends that the punishment Hammond
faces outweighs the crime, and that the hacker’s motivation should
be considered. It “is a crucial fact,” EFF explains
“actions were not done out of malice or intent to gain financially,
but with an eye towards revealing uncomfortable truths about the
private intelligence industry.”

• HealthCare.gov is most
  certainly probably
  not going to be working properly by the end of the month. The
  administration finally released the number of enrollees through the
  site and it’s even less than expected:
  fewer than 27,000. The state-run exchanges are outperforming
  it.
• Assuming Hillary Clinton runs for president in 2016,
  she certainly won’t be touting Obamacare.
• Former
  Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is also reportedly considering a
  presidential run in 2016. I guess it’s technically not royal
  succession if we actually elect these people.
• One million Californians are getting
  health insurance cancellation notices, thanks to Affordable
  Care Act coverage requirements.
• The typhoon that struck the Philippines has been followed by
  the typical
  looting, and survivors are panicking over shortages of food and
  water.
• Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is digging in and refusing city council
  members’ requests to step down over his admitted crack use at a
  
  confrontational debate today. He also said he has bought
  illegal drugs during the past two years but is not an addict.

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• HealthCare.gov is most
  certainly probably
  not going to be working properly by the end of the month. The
  administration finally released the number of enrollees through the
  site and it’s even less than expected:
  fewer than 27,000. The state-run exchanges are outperforming
  it.
• Assuming Hillary Clinton runs for president in 2016,
  she certainly won’t be touting Obamacare.
• Former
  Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is also reportedly considering a
  presidential run in 2016. I guess it’s technically not royal
  succession if we actually elect these people.
• One million Californians are getting
  health insurance cancellation notices, thanks to Affordable
  Care Act coverage requirements.
• The typhoon that struck the Philippines has been followed by
  the typical
  looting, and survivors are panicking over shortages of food and
  water.
• Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is digging in and refusing city council
  members’ requests to step down over his admitted crack use at a
  
  confrontational debate today. He also said he has bought
  illegal drugs during the past two years but is not an addict.

Get Reason.com and Reason 24/7
content widgets for your
websites.

Follow Reason and Reason
24/7 on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.  You
can also get the top stories mailed to you—sign up
here. Have a news tip? Send it to us!

Secretary of State John Kerry came before the
Senate Banking Committee to argue against a line of thinking in the
Senate that the U.S. should respond to continuing negotiations over
Iran’s nuclear program by renewing sanctions.
Kerry acknowledges he voted for sanctions against Iran
several times, but considers any vote now “a vote for or against
diplomacy.” Kerry was wrong to have voted for sanctions then,
writes Ed Krayewski, but is right to call them a mistake now.

View this article.

Stone, a well-known political operative and Richard Nixon
loyalist, lays out his case in The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case
Against LBJ, written with Mike Colapietro.

“Did LBJ Kill Kennedy? (And Why It Matters): Q/A with Roger
Stone” is the latest from ReasonTV. Watch above or click the link
below for full text, links, downloadable versions and more.

View this article.

Virginia has a lot to gain from
joining Colorado and Washington in bringing marijuana out of the
shadows, but doing so will be a long slog. A. Barton Hinkle gives
five good reasons why Virginians should push forward with the
effort, pointing out that prohibition is expensive, unnecessary,
and hurts people.

View this article.

More than a
decade before Edward Snowden was born, a whistleblower calling
himself Winslow Peck gave the New Left magazine Ramparts
an insider’s
account of the National Security Agency, an institution
that at that time was shrouded in even more secrecy than today.
Peck, whose given name was Perry Fellwock, went on to help launch
Counterspy, a magazine devoted to exposing the activities
of America’s intelligence agencies. And then he left activism
behind. Today he is an antiques dealer on Long Island.

Adrian Chen of Gawker tracked Fellwock down, and after
a rather distrustful start (“I believe that you’re honest, but who
knows about the people in your office? Who knows about your boss,
what kind of deals he’s doing?”) the man once known as Winslow Peck

granted Chen an interview. Their conversation covers everything
from Fellwock’s disappointment with the way that original
Ramparts article came out to his guilt over the treatment
of a Counterspy colleague who got accused of being a
police plant. Here’s an excerpt from Chen’s story:

It turns out that constant brooding over
the machinations of the surveillance state is not conducive to a
sound state of mind. Counter-Spy staff worked in a haze of
mistrust. “You’d be sitting with people and you knew that somebody
was wondering about somebody else at that table,” said [magazine
staffer] Harvey Kahn, “were they being controlled by somebody else?
Or unconsciously being manipulated?”

It was not a fantasy: The COINTELPRO papers had revealed security
agencies kept close tabs on radical publications. In the late ’60s,
the CIA dedicated a 12-man team to undermining Ramparts,
according to Angus Mackenzie’s book Secrets: The CIA’s War at
Home.

“It was intense,” said Fellwock. “Clearly it really upset the
security agencies, what we were doing. They were all over us. I
just generally accepted that the next person in the next booth
would be some security person following me.”

“It seems like that is still kind of implanted in your thinking,” I
said.

“Yeah, that’s why I got paranoid when you called me, you really
evoked a lot of old memories and feelings that I haven’t had in 30
years.” He sighed. “But if I could live with it back then, I guess
I could live with it now.”

I could pick a few nits with Chen’s account—he
has Counterspy dissolving in 1976, for example,
but it actually continued publishing into the ’80s—but overall it’s
a strong piece. You should
read it.

Bonus 1970s anti-intelligence-agency activism links:
“What
It Would Take To Stop the Spying” and “Agee’s
Revenge.”

More than a
decade before Edward Snowden was born, a whistleblower calling
himself Winslow Peck gave the New Left magazine Ramparts
an insider’s
account of the National Security Agency, an institution
that at that time was shrouded in even more secrecy than today.
Peck, whose given name was Perry Fellwock, went on to help launch
Counterspy, a magazine devoted to exposing the activities
of America’s intelligence agencies. And then he left activism
behind. Today he is an antiques dealer on Long Island.

Adrian Chen of Gawker tracked Fellwock down, and after
a rather distrustful start (“I believe that you’re honest, but who
knows about the people in your office? Who knows about your boss,
what kind of deals he’s doing?”) the man once known as Winslow Peck

granted Chen an interview. Their conversation covers everything
from Fellwock’s disappointment with the way that original
Ramparts article came out to his guilt over the treatment
of a Counterspy colleague who got accused of being a
police plant. Here’s an excerpt from Chen’s story:

It turns out that constant brooding over
the machinations of the surveillance state is not conducive to a
sound state of mind. Counter-Spy staff worked in a haze of
mistrust. “You’d be sitting with people and you knew that somebody
was wondering about somebody else at that table,” said [magazine
staffer] Harvey Kahn, “were they being controlled by somebody else?
Or unconsciously being manipulated?”

It was not a fantasy: The COINTELPRO papers had revealed security
agencies kept close tabs on radical publications. In the late ’60s,
the CIA dedicated a 12-man team to undermining Ramparts,
according to Angus Mackenzie’s book Secrets: The CIA’s War at
Home.

“It was intense,” said Fellwock. “Clearly it really upset the
security agencies, what we were doing. They were all over us. I
just generally accepted that the next person in the next booth
would be some security person following me.”

“It seems like that is still kind of implanted in your thinking,” I
said.

“Yeah, that’s why I got paranoid when you called me, you really
evoked a lot of old memories and feelings that I haven’t had in 30
years.” He sighed. “But if I could live with it back then, I guess
I could live with it now.”

I could pick a few nits with Chen’s account—he
has Counterspy dissolving in 1976, for example,
but it actually continued publishing into the ’80s—but overall it’s
a strong piece. You should
read it.

Bonus 1970s anti-intelligence-agency activism links:
“What
It Would Take To Stop the Spying” and “Agee’s
Revenge.”

Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch
interview George Will, the nation’s most widely syndicated
columnist. Will talks about political philosophy, drugs,
isolationism, optimism, and his political development over four
decades in Washington. Recently Will has become a frequent champion
of libertarianism, both in print and on the air, praising the likes
of Liberty Movement stalwart Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) while
puncturing the balloons of big-government conservatives like Sen.
John McCain (R-Ariz.).

View this article.