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February 27, 1949

Tragedy and the Common Man
By ARTHUR MILLER
n this age few tragedies are written. It has often been held that the lack is due to a paucity of heroes among us, or else that modern man has had the blood drawn out of his organs of belief by the skepticism of science, and the heroic attack on life cannot feed on an attitude of reserve and circumspection. For one reason or another, we are often held to be below tragedy-or tragedy above us. The inevitable conclusion is, of course, that the tragic mode is archaic, fit only for the very highly placed, the kings or the kingly, and where this admission is not made in so many words it is most often implied.
I believe that the common man is as apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as kings were. On the face of it this ought to be obvious in the light of modern psychiatry, which bases its analysis upon classific formulations, such as Oedipus and Orestes complexes, for instances, which were enacted by royal beings, but which apply to everyone in similar emotional situations.

More simply, when the question of tragedy in art is not at issue, we never hesitate to attribute to the well-placed and the exalted the very same mental processes as the lowly. And finally, if the exaltation of tragic action were truly a property of the high-bred character alone, it is inconceivable that the mass of mankind should cherish tragedy above all other forms, let alone be capable of understanding it.

As a general rule, to which there may be exceptions unknown to me, I think the tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing-his sense of personal dignity. From Orestes to Hamlet, Medea to Macbeth, the underlying struggle is that of the individual attempting to gain his "rightful" position in his society.

Sometimes he is one who has been displaced from it, sometimes one who seeks t attain it for the first time, but the fateful wound from which the inevitable events spiral is the wound of indignity and its dominant force is indignation. Tragedy, then, is the consequence of a man's total compulsion to evaluate himself justly.

In the sense of having been initiated by the hero himself, the tale always reveals what has been called his "tragic flaw," a failing that is not peculiar to grand or elevated characters. Nor is it necessarily a weakness. The flaw, or crack in the characters, is really nothing-and need be nothing, but his inherent unwillingness to remain passive in the face of what he conceives to be a challenge to his dignity, his image of his rightful status. Only the passive, only those who accept their lot without active retaliation, are "flawless." Most of us are in that category.

But there are among us today, as there always have been, those who act against the scheme of things that degrades them, and in the process of action everything we have accepted out of fear of insensitivity or ignorance is shaken before us and examined, and from this total onslaught by an individual against the seemingly stable cosmos surrounding us-from this total examination of the "unchangeable" environment-comes the terror and the fear that is classically associated with tragedy. More important, from this total questioning of what has previously been unquestioned, we learn. And such a process is not beyond the common man. In revolutions around the world, these past thirty years, he has demonstrated again and again this inner dynamic of all tragedy.

Insistence upon the rank of the tragic hero, or the so-called nobility of his character, is really but a clinging to the outward forms of tragedy. If rank or nobility of character was indispensable, then it would follow that the problems of those with rank were the particular problems of tragedy. But surely the right of one monarch to capture the domain from another no longer raises our passions, nor are our concepts of justice what they were to the mind of an Elizabethan king.

The quality in such plays that does shake us, however, derives from the underlying fear of being displaced, the disaster inherent in being torn away from our chosen image of what and who we are in this world. Among us today this fear is strong, and perhaps stronger, than it ever was. In fact, it is the common man who knows this fear best.

Now, if it is true that tragedy is the consequence of a man's total compulsion to evaluate himself justly, his destruction in the attempt posits a wrong or an evil in his environment. And this is precisely the morality of tragedy and its lesson. The discovery of the moral law, which is what the enlightenment of tragedy consists of, is not the discovery of some abstract or metaphysical quantity.

The tragic right is a condition of life, a condition in which the human personality is able to flower and realize itself. The wrong is the condition which suppresses man, perverts the flowing out of his love and creative instinct. Tragedy enlightens-and it must, in that it points the heroic finger at the enemy of man's freedom. The thrust for freedom is the quality in tragedy which exalts. The revolutionary questioning of the stable environment is what terrifies. In no way is the common man debarred from such thoughts or such actions.

Seen in this light, our lack of tragedy may be partially accounted for by the turn which modern literature has taken toward the purely psychiatric view of life, or the purely sociological. If all our miseries, our indignities, are born and bred within our minds, then all action, let alone the heroic action, is obviously impossible.

And if society alone is responsible for the cramping of our lives, then the protagonist must needs be so pure and faultless as to force us to deny his validity as a character. From neither of these views can tragedy derive, simply because neither represents a balanced concept of life. Above all else, tragedy requires the finest appreciation by the writer of cause and effect.

No tragedy can therefore come about when its author fears to question absolutely everything, when he regards any institution, habit or custom as being either everlasting, immutable or inevitable. In the tragic view the need of man to wholly realize himself is the only fixed star, and whatever it is that hedges his nature and lowers it is ripe for attack and examination. Which is not to say that tragedy must preach revolution.

The Greeks could probe the very heavenly origin of their ways and return to confirm the rightness of laws. And Job could face God in anger, demanding his right and end in submission. But for a moment everything is in suspension, nothing is accepted, and in this sketching and tearing apart of the cosmos, in the very action of so doing, the character gains "size," the tragic stature which is spuriously attached to the royal or the high born in our minds. The commonest of men may take on that stature to the extent of his willingness to throw all he has into the contest, the battle to secure his rightful place in the world.

There is a misconception of tragedy with which I have been struck in review after review, and in many conversations with writers and readers alike. It is the idea that tragedy is of necessity allied to pessimism. Even the dictionary says nothing more about the word than that it means a story with a sad or unhappy ending. This impression is so firmly fixed that I almost hesitate to claim that in truth tragedy implies more optimism in its author than does comedy, and that its final result ought to be the reinforcement of the onlooker's brightest opinions of the human animal.

For, if it is true to say that in essence the tragic hero is intent upon claiming his whole due as a personality, and if this struggle must be total and without reservation, then it automatically demonstrates the indestructible will of man to achieve his humanity.

The possibility of victory must be there in tragedy. Where pathos rules, where pathos is finally derived, a character has fought a battle he could not possibly have won. The pathetic is achieved when the protagonist is, by virtue of his witlessness, his insensitivity, or the very air he gives off, incapable of grappling with a much superior force.

Pathos truly is the mode for the pessimist. But tragedy requires a nicer balance between what is possible and what is impossible. And it is curious, although edifying, that the plays we revere, century after century, are the tragedies. In them, and in them alone, lies the belief-optimistic, if you will, in the perfectibility of man.

It is time, I think, that we who are without kings, took up this bright thread of our history and followed it to the only place it can possibly lead in our time-the heart and spirit of the average man.

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February 27, 1949 Tragedy and the Common ManBy ARTHUR MILLER n this age few tragedies are written. It has often been held that the lack is due to a paucity of heroes among us, or else that modern man has had the blood drawn out of his organs of belief by the skepticism of science, and the heroic attack on life cannot feed on an attitude of reserve and circumspection.

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Marizza

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A school in northern Malaysia has had to shut temporarily to handle what local media have called a case of "mass hysteria".

It started last week with several students and teachers of the school in the city of Kota Bharu claiming that they had seen spirits or had supernatural experiences.

School authorities shut the school and called in Islamic traditional experts, scholars and even witch doctors in prayer sessions and "exorcisms".

By Sunday, the school had reopened and school officials said things had gone back to normal - but questions remain and the case continues to generate intense interest in Malaysia.

What happened?

The school, SKM Pengkalan Chepa 2, is located in the highly traditional and religious state of Kelantan.

Last week, a small group of students began claiming they had seen a "black figure" lurking in the school. Soon, more students and even teachers claimed to have seen the same figure or experienced a supernatural presence.

One teacher told local news channel Astro Awani that she felt a "heavy" presence was hanging on to her, while another claimed that a "black figure" was attempting to enter her body.

A student meanwhile told newspaper Sinar Harian (in Malay) that he felt numbness in his hands while his mind "was all over the place".

About 100 people, mostly students, were affected, a senior school staff member confirmed to the BBC.

"Our students were possessed and disturbed [by these spirits]. We are not sure why it happened. We don't know what it is that affected us," she said.

"But the place is a bit old, and these children can be disobedient and sometimes throw their rubbish around the school grounds. Perhaps they hit some 'djinns' and offended the spirits," she added, using a local reference to ghosts.

The school shut on Thursday and invited Islamic preachers to recite the Koran and conduct prayers in the school. Local education authorities are also sending counsellors to the school this week.

The Kelantan state education department did not respond to queries from the BBC.

What is mass hysteria?

Based on the media reports, Robert Bartholomew, a sociologist who has researched mass hysteria in Malaysia, called it a textbook outbreak in an email to the BBC.

Mass hysteria or collective delusions are defined as the spontaneous and rapid spread of false or exaggerated beliefs within a population.

Outbreaks usually occur in small, tight-knit groups in enclosed surrounding such as schools, orphanages and factories.

How common is it?

Several famous cases of mass hysteria or collective delusion have been documented throughout history all over the world - including "dancing mania" centuries ago, in which people reportedly would start dancing uncontrollably for hours.

In 2012, LeRoy, New York made headlines with high school students developing strange tics and verbal outbursts with no obvious cause. Eventually the New York state department of health found that those involved - mostly girls - were suffering from conversion disorder, a form of mass hysteria.

In South East Asia, during the 1970s there were several reported cases of mass hysteria outbreaks at factories in Singapore and Malaysia.

Mr Bartholomew, who once lived and did research in Malaysia, said the phenomenon is quite common in rural areas of the country.

In 1987 there was an outbreak involving 36 Muslim girls in a Malay hostel in Alor Star, Kedah which Mr Bartholomew said had lasted five years.

"The outbreak involved shouting, running and mental confusion, crying, bizarre movements, trances and spirit possession. The girls, ages 13-17, complained of too much religion and study, and too little recreation," Mr Bartholomew said.

"Malays are susceptible because of their belief in an array of spirits," said Mr Bartholomew, adding that outbreaks tend to occur in all-female boarding schools as they are the strictest.

So what could have caused it?

Existing fears or beliefs often influence what is blamed for mass hysteria incidents - for example in LeRoy the HPV vaccine was first suspected followed by a decades-old chemical spill in the area. In Kota Bahru, school officials are pointing to the supernatural.

In some cases one person sets off a mass episode that is then exacerbated or prolonged by various factors.

In the case of LeRoy, New York some doctors said it had been sparked by one student actually diagnosed with Tourette syndrome.

Mr Bartholomew says his research points to deeper underlying causes in Malay girls who have been sent to boarding school.

"They are reluctant to attend such schools, where overcrowding is rife and privacy non-existent," he says. "Frustration and anger build over weeks or months. Eventually a single student becomes 'possessed' and is a seed or catalyst for the unfolding drama."

In the Alor Star case, school officials brought in witch doctors to help. "The use of so many bomohs and native healers can be a double-edged sword, especially if they fail, because they legitimise the supernatural aspects of the outbreak. As a result, the outbreak is likely to be prolonged."

Social media and media attention have been blamed for exacerbating the outbreak in some cases.

Dr Wan Zumusni Wan Mustapha, a university lecturer who lived and taught in Kelantan for 13 years, however, thought the incident had been blown out of proportion.

"It could have just been brought on by heat, stress or the haze," said Dr Zumusni, from the Universiti Teknologi Mara in Seremban.

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Malaysia school shuts after 'mass hysteria' outbreak

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A school in northern Malaysia has had to shut temporarily to handle what local media have called a case of "mass hysteria". It started last week with several students and teachers of the school in the city of Kota Bharu claiming that they had seen spirits or had supernatural experiences.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNWfxHFsx-k

Stay in the shadows
Cheer at the gallows
This is a round up

This is a low flying panic attack
Sing a song on the jukebox that goes

Burn the witch
Burn the witch
We know where you live

Red crosses on wooden doors
And if you float you burn
Loose talk around tables
Abandon all reason
Avoid all eye contact
Do not react
Shoot the messengers

This is a low flying panic attack
Sing the song of sixpence that goes

Burn the witch
Burn the witch
We know where you live
We know where you live

(Kiel)

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http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2017/09/the-dark-world-of-real-modern-day-witch-hunters/
facts about modern day witch hunting (kemmer)

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Hursh http://0-ic.galegroup.com.sable.jefferson.lib.co.us/ic/ovic/MagazinesDetailsPage/MagazinesDetailsWindow?disableHighlighting=false&displayGroupName=Magazines&currPage=&scanId=&query=&docIndex=&source=&prodId=OVIC&search_within_results=&p=OVIC%3AGIC&mode=view&catId=&u=lsc&limiter=&display-query=&displayGroups=&contentModules=&action=e&sortBy=&documentId=GALE%7CA498485497&windowstate=normal&activityType=BasicSearch&failOverType=&commentary=

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Mattes

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Art you need to know - the world's best art on ArtStack

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http://0-ic.galegroup.com.sable.jefferson.lib.co.us/ic/ovic/MagazinesDetailsPage/MagazinesDetailsWindow?disableHighlighting=false&displayGroupName=Magazines&currPage=&scanId=&query=&docIndex=&source=&prodId=OVIC&search_within_results=&p=OVIC%3AGIC&mode=view&catId=&u=lsc&limiter=&display-query=&displayGroups=&contentModules=&action=e&sortBy=&documentId=GALE%7CA496094674&windowstate=normal&activityType=BasicSearch&failOverType=&commentary=
(Kiel)

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http://0-ic.galegroup.com.sable.jefferson.lib.co.us/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/ViewpointsDetailsWindow?disableHighlighting=false&displayGroupName=Viewpoints&currPage=&scanId=&query=&docIndex=&source=&prodId=OVIC&search_within_results=&p=OVIC%3AGIC&mode=view&catId=&u=lsc&limiter=&display-query=&displayGroups=&contentModules=&action=e&sortBy=&documentId=GALE%7CEJ3010809209&windowstate=normal&activityType=BasicSearch&failOverType=&commentary=
(Koppelmaa)

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Mikhail Gorbachev studied law at Moscow state. He didn't believe in his teacher's teachings so he dropped him an anonymous note sharing his beliefs. He stood up for what he believed in and he eventually became the  General Secretary of Russia.

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http://0-ic.galegroup.com.sable.jefferson.lib.co.us/ic/ovic/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetailsWindow?disableHighlighting=false&displayGroupName=Reference&currPage=&scanId=&query=&docIndex=&source=&prodId=OVIC&search_within_results=&p=OVIC%3AGIC&mode=view&catId=&u=lsc&limiter=&display-query=&displayGroups=&contentModules=&action=e&sortBy=&documentId=GALE%7CCX1337703671&windowstate=normal&activityType=BasicSearch&failOverType=&commentary=

Kellen Hodges

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“I’m not going to hide,” Snowden told The Post from Hong Kong, where he has been staying. “Allowing the U.S. government to intimidate its people with threats of retaliation for revealing wrongdoing is contrary to the public interest.”

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A 29-year-old man who says he is a former undercover CIA employee said Sunday that he was the principal source of recent disclosures about top-secret National Security Agency programs, exposing himself to possible prosecution in an acknowledgment that had little if any precedent in the long history of U.S. intelligence leaks.

Edward Snowden, a tech specialist who has contracted for the NSA and works for the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, unmasked himself as a source after a string of stories in The Washington Post and the Guardian that detailed previously unknown U.S. surveillance programs. He said he disclosed secret documents in response to what he described as the systematic surveillance of innocent citizens.

In an interview Sunday, Snowden said he is willing to face the consequences of exposure.

"I'm not going to hide," Snowden told The Post from Hong Kong, where he has been staying. "Allowing the U.S. government to intimidate its people with threats of retaliation for revealing wrongdoing is contrary to the public interest."

Asked whether he believes that his disclosures will change anything, he said: "I think they already have. Everyone everywhere now understands how bad things have gotten - and they're talking about it. They have the power to decide for themselves whether they are willing to sacrifice their privacy to the surveillance state."

Snowden said nobody had been aware of his actions, including those closest to him. He said there was no single event that spurred his decision to leak the information, but he said President Obama has failed to live up to his pledges of transparency.

"My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them," he said in a note that accompanied the first document he leaked to The Post.

The Guardian was the first to publicly identify Snowden, at his request.

The White House said late Sunday that it would not have any comment on the matter.

In a brief statement, a spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said the intelligence community is "reviewing the damage" the leaks have done. "Any person who has a security clearance knows that he or she has an obligation to protect classified information and abide by the law," said the spokesman, Shawn Turner.

Snowden said he is seeking "asylum from any countries that believe in free speech and oppose the victimization of global privacy," but the law appears to provide for his extradition from Hong Kong, a semiautonomous territory of China, to the United States.

Although any extradition proceeding could take months or even years, experts said Snowden has not put himself in a favorable position.

"The fact that he outed himself and basically said, from what I understand he has said, 'I feel very comfortable with what I have done' . . . that's not going to help him in his extradition contest," said Douglas McNabb, a lawyer and extradition expert.

The Justice Department said it is in the "initial stages of an investigation" into the unauthorized disclosure of classified information but declined to comment further.

A stunning revelation

Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said the revelation of Snowden's role in the leaks will lead to a sweeping reexamination of security measures at the CIA and the NSA, and they described his decision to come forward as a stunning conclusion to a week of disclosures that rattled the intelligence community.

"This is significant on a number of fronts: the scope, the range. It's major, it's major," said John Rizzo, a former general counsel of the CIA who worked at the agency for decades. "And then to have him out himself . . . I can't think of any previous leak case involving a CIA officer where the officer raised his hand and said, 'I'm the guy.' "

A half-dozen former intelligence officials, including one who now works at Booz Allen Hamilton, said they did not know Snowden or anything about his background. Several former officials said he easily could have been part of a surge in computer experts and technical hires brought in by the CIA in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as its budget and mission swelled.

"Like a lot of things after 9/11, they just went on a hiring binge, and in the technical arena young, smart nerds were in high demand," a former U.S. intelligence official said. "There were battalions of them."

Officials said the CIA and other spy agencies did not relax their screening measures as the workforce expanded. Still, several officials said the CIA will now undoubtedly begin reviewing the process by which Snowden may have been hired, seeking to determine whether there were any missed signs that he might one day betray national secrets.

More broadly, the CIA and the NSA may be forced to reexamine their relationships with contractors, who were employed in roles ranging from technical support to paramilitary operations before concerns about the outsourcing of such sensitive assignments prompted a backlash in Congress and pledges from the agencies to begin thinning their contracting ranks.

Some former CIA officials said they were troubled by aspects of Snowden's background, at least as he described it to The Post and the Guardian.

For instance, Snowden said he did not have a high school diploma. One former CIA official said that it was extremely unusual for the agency to have hired someone with such thin academic credentials, particularly for a technical job, and that the terms Snowden used to describe his agency positions did not match internal job descriptions.

Snowden's claim to have been placed under diplomatic cover for a position in Switzerland after an apparently brief stint at the CIA as a systems administrator also raised suspicion. "I just have never heard of anyone being hired with so little academic credentials," the former CIA official said. The agency does employ technical specialists in overseas stations, the former official said, "but their breadth of experience is huge, and they tend not to start out as systems administrators."

A former senior U.S. intelligence official cited other puzzling aspects of Snowden's account, questioning why a contractor for Booz Allen at an NSA facility in Hawaii would have access to something as sensitive as a court order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

"I don't know why he would have had access to those . . . orders out in Hawaii," the former official said.

The Guardian initially reported the existence of a program that collects data on all phone calls made on the Verizon network. Later in the week, the Guardian and The Post reported the existence of a separate program, code-named PRISM, that collects the Internet data of foreigners from major Internet companies.

Snowden expressed hope that the NSA surveillance programs will now be open to legal challenge for the first time. This year, in Amnesty International v. Clapper, the Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit against the mass collection of phone records because the plaintiffs could not prove exactly what the program did or that they were personally subject to surveillance.

"The government can't reasonably assert the state-secrets privilege for a program it has acknowledged," Snowden said.

Journalists criticized

Snowden's name surfaced as top intelligence officials in the Obama administration and Congress pushed back against the journalists responsible for revealing the existence of sensitive surveillance programs and called for an investigation into the leaks.

Clapper, in an interview with NBC that aired Saturday night, condemned the leaker's actions but also sought to spotlight the journalists who first reported the programs, calling their disclosures irresponsible and full of "hyperbole." Earlier Saturday, he issued a statement accusing the media of a "rush to publish."

"For me, it is literally - not figuratively - literally gut-wrenching to see this happen because of the huge, grave damage it does to our intelligence capabilities," Clapper said.

On Sunday morning, before Snowden's unmasking, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) had harsh words for the leaker and for the journalist who first reported the NSA's collection of phone records, the Guardian's Glenn Greenwald.

Greenwald "doesn't have a clue how this thing works; neither did the person who released just enough information to literally be dangerous," Rogers said on ABC's "This Week," adding: "I absolutely think [the leaker] should be prosecuted."

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) agreed that whoever leaked the information should be prosecuted, and she sought to beat back media reports suggesting that the Obama administration overplayed the impact of the programs.

After opponents of the programs questioned their value last week, anonymous administration officials pointed to the thwarting of a bomb plot targeting the New York City subway system in 2009. Soon after, though, reporters noted that public documents suggested that regular police work was responsible for thwarting the attack, rather than a secret government intelligence program.

Feinstein said the programs were valuable in both the New York case and in another involving an American plotting to bomb a hotel in India in 2008. She noted that she could talk about those two cases because they have been declassified, but she suggested that the surveillance programs also assisted in other terrorism-related cases.

A chief critic of the efforts, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), said he is considering filing a lawsuit against the government and called on 10 million Americans to join in.

"I'm going to be asking all the Internet providers and all of the phone companies, ask your customers to join me in a class-action lawsuit," Paul said on "Fox News Sunday."

Sari Horwitz and Julie Tate contributed to this report.

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Edward Snowden comes forward as source of NSA leaks

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A 29-year-old man who says he is a former undercover CIA employee said Sunday that he was the principal source of recent disclosures about ­top-secret National Security Agency programs, exposing himself to possible prosecution in an acknowledgment that had little if any precedent in the long history of U.S. intelligence leaks.

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The caged bird sings

with a fearful trill

of things unknown

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Maya Angelou, "Caged Bird" from Shaker, Why Don't You Sing? Copyright © 1983 by Maya Angelou. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

Source: The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou (Random House Inc., 1994)

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Caged Bird by Maya Angelou | Poetry Foundation

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"Government programs intended to help individuals build wealth or status also failed to deliver adequate results to African Americans"

--Kylie Howerter

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Marizza

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More than 2,000 people accused of being witches have been killed in India over the last 15 years in poor, remote areas of the northeast.

The victims, nearly all of them women, have been swept up in modern-day witch hunts, often accused by a neighbor or family member who might blame devious sorcery for a bad harvest or an unexplained illness. But the allegations sometimes stem from personal disputes over property and the land rights of women.

For three decades, Birubala Rabha, an activist, has fought to end this violent, retrograde practice of punishing women accused of witchcraft. She works with state legislators and residents of rural villages to investigate accusers and protect victims and their families. A videojournalist, Vikram Singh, traveled to Assam State to report on Ms. Rabha's work.

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murders  attempted murders and homicides

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Fighting Modern-Day Witch Hunts in India's Remote Northeast

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More than 2,000 people accused of being witches have been killed in India over the last 15 years in poor, remote areas of the northeast. The victims, nearly all of them women, have been swept up in modern-day witch hunts, often accused by a neighbor or family member who might blame devious sorcery for a bad harvest or an unexplained illness.

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The fear of communism brought a modern day witch hunt.

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Salvatore Rosa

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Witch-hunt in the School of Management: National Gallery podcast - University of Leicester

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Academic discusses art, history, folklore, almost everything except management...

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Matttes

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In the aftermath of the white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, Va., many civil rights activists took to Twitter and shared photos of people who allegedly were at the march. The idea was to identify who they were and shame them. But identifying someone from a photo can be tricky - and the activists managed to make at least one mistake.

It was Saturday and Kyle Quinn and his wife were having a quiet afternoon at home: "I was sitting on the on the couch with my wife; I think we were watching Planet Earth II" - a nature documentary show - "and I got a phone call."

It was from the university relations office at the University of Arkansas, where Quinn works as a professor of biomedical engineering.

"They wanted to confirm where I was," he says. And then it got stranger. "They asked whether I'd heard about what was going on in Charlottesville. I told them I was vaguely familiar."

The school official told Quinn his weekend was "about to get a lot worse."

A counterprotester at the white supremacist march had posted a picture of a man with a beard and light brown hair, the same color as Quinn's, the school official said. The man was wearing a T-shirt that said "Arkansas Engineering." The official said someone on social media put Quinn's name to the picture.

"I thought, you know ... 'This is completely ridiculous,' " Quinn says. "I didn't really understand exactly what was going to happen in the days to come."

His Twitter account and email were inundated with people cursing at him, threatening him and his wife. The university was getting phone calls and emails encouraging it to fire Quinn.

"It got to the point then, on Saturday night, where they had tweeted our home address," he says. "At that time we definitely got the police involved."

Quinn and his wife hid out at a friend's house. They were frightened - it was like being chased by a mob.

"And they're emboldened, because they're online and there's no or little consequences for their actions," he says. "That was definitely the most disturbing part - not knowing what poor decisions this group of people on the Internet could make next."

We have verified that the man in the photo is not assistant professor Quinn.
- UniversityofArkansas (@UArkansas) August 12, 2017

It's not the first time this sort of thing has happened. In one incident, users on Reddit and other sites combed through photos and other leads after the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. One result was a New York Post cover that falsely suggested two men in a photo were suspects. There also were false accusations against a missing Brown University student.

Most people are not experts at identification. That's why Storyful exists. The company uses a mix of old sleuthing tools and technology to verify photos and videos posted on social media.

Benjamin Decker, a research coordinator at Storyful, says someone with training would have noticed some details that raised questions as to whether the man in the picture was really Quinn. For instance, the man in the photo at the rally was wearing glasses.

"Kyle Quinn does not wear glasses in his academic photo on the University of Arkansas website," Decker says. "Why would he be wearing glasses to a torchlit rally that could get ugly?"

Decker says Storyful has a lot of tricks in its bag to verify images, including looking at social media accounts. Quinn's likely would have had clues about his whereabouts.

"The standard rule of thumb is that, if you can raise enough doubt about something without even using any of the tech tools, odds are there's a decent chance that you're right," Decker says.

Storyful also uses a lot of technical tools - for instance, metadata in photos that can help locate where and when a photo was taken and if it was altered. But it takes time and skill to do a real verification.

Thank you for all those who are supporting me through this case of mistaken identity.
- Kyle Quinn (@QuinnLab_UofA) August 13, 2017

Meanwhile, Quinn still is getting nasty emails and messages on Twitter, though as the word has gotten out that he wasn't at the rally they have slowed down.

"I understand the anger and frustration that's out there about what happened in Charlottesville," he says. "It was awful and I understand that people want to be able to do something about it. I don't know what the right way is, but I can tell you being on the receiving end, this is not the way to go about it."

Quinn thinks that in this case, maybe it would be better to leave photo identification to the experts.

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Kyle Quinn Hid At A Friend's House After Being Misidentified On Twitter As A Racist

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In the aftermath of the white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, Va., many civil rights activists took to Twitter and shared photos of people who allegedly were at the march. The idea was to identify who they were and shame them. But identifying someone from a photo can be tricky - and the activists managed to make at least one mistake.

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(CBS) Why did 12 teens from the same town in upstate N.Y. all begin to experience odd symptoms at once? Doctors say it's an outbreak of mass hysteria.

Last fall, 12 teenage girls from LeRoy Junior-Senior High School - located in a town about an hour outside of Buffalo, N.Y. - began to show symptoms similar to those of Tourette's syndrome, including painful shaking and jerking their necks, Gothamist reported.

Doctors were initially baffled. The condition was so bad for at least one of the girls that she has yet to return to school. School and state officials investigated the outbreak and school building for several months, and concluded no known environmental substances or infectious agents were found that could have caused the symptoms in the teens.

"We have conclusively ruled out any form of infection or communicable disease and there's no evidence of any environmental factor,'' Dr. Gregory Young of the New York Department of Health told MSNBC.

But not all of the girls' parents were satisfied with the results, and went on the "Today" show to state their case.

"Where's the proof?'' Melisa Phillips, mother of one of the 17-year-olds who came forward with the condition, Thera Sanchez, asked on Today. "Where's the data? Testing they say that all the girls have had, they have not had," she said.

Sanchez, a cheerleader at the high school, took a nap one day last October then woke up with uncontrollable tics and stutters. Sanchez and another girl on the show with symptoms, 16-year-old Katie Krautwurst, said doctors told them their condition was stress-induced.

"They told us it was traumatic, but I really don't think any of us had that traumatic of a life before,' Krautwurst said on Today.

A day after the girls' interview, Dr. Laszlo Mechtler, a neurologist at the DENT Neurologic Institute in Amherst, N.Y. who has treated several of the girls, decided to come forward to offer an explanation to quell the curious masses.

Mechtler's diagnosis? The girls may have a conversion disorder - also known as mass hysteria.

Conversion disorder is a condition in which a person can experience blindness, paralysis, or other neurologic symptoms that can't be explained by another disease. The disorder often occurs because of a "psychological conflict." According to the National Institutes of Health, symptoms of a conversion disorder are thought to resolve a conflict a person feels inside. For example, a woman who believes it's not acceptable to have angry feelings may experience numbness when they get really mad.

Mechtler told USA Today that when a conversion disorder occurs in a large group, its known as a "mass psychogenic illness," because it affects groups of people in the same environment, such as in a classroom or office. That means watching the girls on television won't cause others to experience similar symptoms, he said.

"This is a unique situation, and it is unusual," Mechtler told USA Today.

Although the disorder is psychological in its origins, the symptoms are very much real, experts warned. Dr. David G. Lichter, a clinical professor of neurology at the University at Buffalo, told Buffalo News a mass psychogenic illness is the result of the brain making the body sick, not unlike when people feel nauseous from stage fright.

That doesn't mean all the girls' parents were satisfied with the explanation that stress is causing these debilitating symptoms.

"Obviously, we are all not just accepting that this is a stress thing," one of the girl's father's, Jim Dupont, told Today. "It's heart-wrenching, you fear your daughter's not going to have a normal life."

Will these girls ever be cured? Mechtler told Today that with treatment, "The bottom line is these teenagers will get better."

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Mass hysteria outbreak reported in N.Y. town: What does it mean?

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(CBS) Why did 12 teens from the same town in upstate N.Y. all begin to experience odd symptoms at once? Doctors say it's an outbreak of mass hysteria. Last fall, 12 teenage girls from LeRoy Junior-Senior High School - located in a town about an hour outside of Buffalo, N.Y.

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Stott

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Mattes

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The American panic about Ebola hasn't made headlines just in the United States. It's also gotten attention abroad - and many foreign broadcasters and newspapers have criticized the American reaction in harsh terms.

Here's a roundup of some commentaries and reports from around the world:
Russia: "Ebola rumor mill has gone into overdrive."
Russia's RT news channel never misses a chance to criticize the American media, and U.S. Ebola coverage has provided a welcome opportunity. "The Ebola rumor mill has gone into overdrive," RT wrote in an article on its Web site, accusing the U.S. media of "contributing to rather than quelling the spread of disease-provoked hysteria."

RT - which is financed by the Kremlin - also condemned President Obama's decision to send troops to West Africa. "In the event of a full-blown outbreak of Ebola in the United States, would that be the signal for the U.S. Army to introduce martial law on the streets of America?" the channel asked.
Nigeria: "America's funny hypocrisy"
The Nigerian newspaper Vanguard suggested that the United States might face similar - or even worse - problems handling an Ebola outbreak than Nigeria did. The western African country successfully fought the disease and was declared free of it on Monday. "Africa, in spite of calls by the WHO that the rest of the world come to its aid, was being left to its own devices as far as finding a workable vaccine for Ebola was concerned," the newspaper pointed out.

"What goes round may somehow come around. Just as Nigeria was being declared Ebola-free by the WHO, America started its long walk through the dark tunnel with her first Ebola case," the Vanguard added. "For as long as it was citizens of the poorer nations of the world that were suffering, it was okay for America and the rest of the West to delay clinical trial of drugs that could bring succor to many." In other words: Nigeria's Vanguard thinks that the United States rushed to test new Ebola treatment methods and vaccines only after it became clear that the disease could reach North America.
Liberia: U.S. implicated in "devilish" Ebola tests
As my colleague Terrence McCoy summed up last week, Liberian newspapers have done little to correct myths and have instead churned out Ebola conspiracy theory after theory. The country's Daily Observer published an article on its Web site in which it speculated about possible U.S. Defense Department involvement in the 'manufacture' of the virus, claiming that "the U.S., Canada, France, and the U.K. are all implicated in the detestable and devilish deeds that these Ebola tests are."
Iran: Washington using Ebola outbreak to expand military presence
The country's Press TV channel was quick to offer an explanation for the conspiracy theory spread by Liberia's Daily Observer. "Reports have pointed out that the U.S. and a number of Western countries are using the Ebola outbreak to expand their military presence in mineral-rich Africa," Press TV wrote in an article published Oct. 19. The channel's post - which seems to be entirely based on the crude report published in Daily Observer - also points at the American interest in challenging Chinese influence in Africa.

According to the state-run TV channel, the United States might have manufactured Ebola - as well as HIV - to benefit American pharmaceutical companies."Hence, Africans are being used as guinea pigs," according to the Iranian media outlet, which offers no evidence for the claim.

Nevertheless, the allegation spread and was reportedly featured on Turkish state television and in a newspaper cartoon.

First, expert on Turkish state TV ponders if Ebola is a US biological weapon. Next, this gem from a pro-AKP daily. pic.twitter.com/A7cw4uJY3a

- Piotr Zalewski (@p_zalewski) October 20, 2014

Germany: "Ebola has fueled an infinite loop of disinformation."
Germany's Manager Magazine criticized the American news channel CNN: "For days, the 'Fear & Greed Index' of CNN has been stuck at 'Extreme Fear'." News magazine Der Spiegel struck a condemnatory tone as well: "As long as the disease was limited to distant Africa, Americans hardly cared. That changed suddenly when the first U.S. cases emerged. Since then, Ebola has fueled an infinite loop of disinformation and demagogue, spreading in the form of headlines, and twitter hashtags such as #EbolaInAmerica," the Hamburg-based magazine argued in its online edition.

Fearmongering: the act of deliberately arousing public fear or alarm on a particular issue. #CNN on #Ebola #Isis pic.twitter.com/tTprhote32

- Marchella (@1Marchella) October 17, 2014

The German weekly Die Zeit, however, urged understanding. "In dealing with Ebola, Germany should show a bit more humility in order to prevent a spread of the disease like in West Africa." According to Die Zeit, a certain degree of worry is justified.
Britain: "The President's tactic may backfire, creating the very panic it seeks to avoid."
The Guardian newspaper deemed the U.S. anxiety over Ebola as a recognizable, if unhelpful, human reaction. "Hysteria shuts down schools and airports, paranoia undermines health workers and law enforcement, and fear encourages some of people's worst instincts," according to the paper.

The Independent duly noted the American panic - "Glance at the headlines and you'd think Dallas is a city about to fall to the silent enemy within," it wrote - and attributed some of it to the upcoming midterm elections. "In an election season, where there's potential panic, there's politics."
France: "An excess of caution [and] American hysteria."
France's private TV channel TF1 summarized: "Schools that are closed f0r no reason, and cruise ships that have to turn around... those are only a few examples of an excess of caution." The TV channel also mentioned the case of a Washington Post photographer who was disinvited from a journalism workshop at Syracuse University because he had recently returned from a reporting trip to Liberia, and called it an example of "American hysteria."
South Africa: "What are African governments doing?"
"U.S. media reported on overzealous action taken by some worried communities, including a group of Mississippi parents who pulled their children from school because the principal had traveled to Zambia - a southern African country far from the Ebola crisis in West Africa," noted the Mail and Guardian, a pan-African newspaper that has a South African publisher and is headquartered in Kenya. But it placed blame elsewhere: "Those who are criticising America and Europe for 'not doing enough' to fight Ebola, should ask African leaders the same question; 'what are African governments doing for themselves?'"

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ebola u.s. dallas world reaction media outlets rt der spiegel die zeit rfi the independent the guardian liberia south africa

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What the world thinks of the American Ebola panic

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The American panic about Ebola hasn't made headlines just in the United States. It's also gotten attention abroad - and many foreign broadcasters and newspapers have criticized the American reaction in harsh terms. Here's a roundup of some commentaries and reports from around the world: Russia: "Ebola rumor mill has gone into overdrive."

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Stott

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A Combination of Factors Motivates Terrorists

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A Combination of Factors Motivates Terrorists

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"Psychological motivation for terrorism derives from the terrorist's personal dissatisfaction with his life and accomplishments. ... "[A] common characteristic of the psychologically motivated terrorist is the pronounced need to belong to a group. With some terrorists, group acceptance is a stronger motivator than the stated political objectives of the organization. Such individuals define their social status by group acceptance"

--Kylie Howerter

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Konkle

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Catwright

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Konkle

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Hursh

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Koppelmaa

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(Hick)

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Malala Yousafzai

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Craig

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Craig

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http://www.stompoutbullying.org/information-and-resources/parents-page/understanding-why-kids-bully

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https://www.google.com/amp/amp.timeinc.net/time/5060172/donald-trump-claimed-he-never-met-women-accusing-him-sexual-harassment-not-truehttps://www.google.com/amp/amp.timeinc.net/time/5060172/donald-trump-claimed-he-never-met-women-accusing-him-sexual-harassment-not-true

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Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror

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Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror

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(Gantner)

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This face clearly shows despair and tragedy that he or she had experienced.
(Gantner)

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Machiavelli's The Prince, published in 1513, is one of the most influential and enduring books to date. It still serves as an inspirational guide of sorts for politicians, autocrats, and leaders across the globe.

Machiavelli discussed power and the best ways for a single bodied ruler to consolidate, solidify, and maintain his power via actions that promote fear and encourage selfishness. Thus, a Machiavelli is a leader that will take any action, regardless of the possible moral or societal consequences, as long as the end result causes the leader to maintain power. The ultimate goal of any good Machiavelli is to gain and preserve power.

North Korea's dictator, Kim Jong-un, assumed power on December 28th, 2011 after his father and the previous dictator, Kim Jong-il, died. He is a rational, cunning, and patient Machiavellist who intentionally uses fear to sustain his country's existence and gain advantage amongst the international community.

Kim Jong-un consciously tries to come off as a mentally unstable sociopath who is not afraid to nuke another nation at a moment's notice in order to maintain long-term intimidation. This intimidation is given credence through the missile tests and various warheads-some of which are nuclear-the country possesses and the possibility that they could cause exceptional devastation. It is also necessary for Kim to intimidate the world's powers so brazenly in order for him and his party to maintain control of North Korea.

It's important to take a step back and understand how North Korea ended up where it is today. A set of economic policies and societal rules make up the Juche ideology that North Korea began following more and more intensely once previous support from the USSR began waning and eventually ended in 1991. Juche places heavy emphasis on sovereignty, self-defense, Korean nationalism, and the basic tenets of Marxism-Leninism.

The ideology was then used to begin complete isolationism from the West and its influences, despite the fall of virtually all communism throughout the world, in order to maintain power within the Kim family. Without isolationism, North Korea would become exposed to Western influences that could bring about democratic elections that could consequently depose the Kim family, and the Workers' Party of North Korea (WPK), of their power. This course was avoided because it goes against basic Machiavelli tenets which advocate for a ruler to maintain power at all costs.

North Korea tenaciously hangs on to the old guard of communism and isolationism simply so that the WPK can stay in power and continue to pass the baton of leadership down the Kim lineage.

North Korea is notorious for its rampant testing of missiles despite stern warnings and sanctions from the international community. These missiles range in size and the amount of distance that they can cover. They include artillery rockets that could hit Seoul within 15 minutes, surface to surface missiles that could strike Japan, and as of July 7th an ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) capable of hitting Alaska.

North Korea then launched a missile on Friday, July 28th, that could travel as far as Chicago according to various experts. This method of intimidation is known as saber rattling because it reminds other nations of its powers and that its threats are constantly credible. Kim and his generals utilize saber rattling to coerce other countries into giving them what they desire. According to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), North Korea's missiles have become increasingly more powerful over time due to their ability to travel farther and create bigger explosions.

People have used fear through all of human history to push others into giving into their demands. Machiavelli has advised the world that autocrats who wish to retain power for the longest period of time should prefer the usage of fear over kindness.

Kim Jong-un's aim is to procure several benefits for North Korea via its saber rattling. These goals include the natural desire to demonstrate that North Korea is capable of defending itself from outsiders, acceptance amongst the international community, and the acquiring of capital through compulsion in order to keep its economy afloat.

Self-preservation is paramount for any society that wishes to maintain its way of life and stave off encroachment or conquest from outside powers. North Korea, a tiny nation with a small population that is surrounded by mighty, developed nations, demonstrates to the world that it is capable of defending itself.

The missile launches and military parades serve as visceral spectacles to remind the world of the consequences that would come with a preemptive strike or an invasion. The further acceleration of these programs and parades, despite sanctions and condemnation from most of the world, further shows the North's resolve and commitment to its agenda.

North Korea's second primary goal is to gain full acceptance, recognition, and respect amongst the international community. This includes; admittance into international groups such as the UN; the removal of all US troops and bases from South Korea; a reconciliation of conflict and tension with the US and South on its terms as opposed to theirs; and acknowledgement of a reality that North Korea has become too powerful to coerce and the status quo too risky to maintain.

North Korea has been publicly announcing this to be their primary goal, but experts and world leaders have been mostly dismissive of their hopes. This objective is essential to the North if they wish to survive in the long term. Experts surmise that the country will eventually collapse or be destroyed at some point due to its weak economy and massive tension with neighboring powers.

Acceptance into the international community would allow freer trade, the removal of sanctions, and a serious reduction of tensions. The New York Time's Max Fisher has extrapolated these points in greater detail in his article "North Korea's Nuclear Arms Sustain Drive for 'Final Victory.'"

One of the other purposes, though not the primary one, of the missile launches is to intimidate Western powers into giving the country money through the form of foreign aid. Most experts concluded that North Korea should have imploded 5, 10, or 15 years ago because the country's economy, until very recently, was not growing due to a lack of cash to pay its bills.

The Telegraph reported that North Korea has received over £4 million from the United Kingdom since 2011. The Congressional Research Service has shown that the United States has given the North about $1.3 billion, mostly in the form of food aid and energy assistance, from 1995 to 2008. North Korea would have no credible way of intimidating other powers into giving it cash and credit without its arsenal. However, this plan often backfires as well because continued testing of nuclear weapons often causes an increase in sanctions.

As previously mentioned, North Korea has defied all odds and long outlived the lifespan that many experts had assigned it. Clearly, there is a method to this madness that is working very well. North Korea has managed to prevent the erosion of its isolated society and military conquest because of one simple principle: a threat from a mentally unstable person is taken much more seriously than a threat from someone that is calm and calculating.

The scenario is akin to a madman with a loaded gun who screams and fires shots into the air threatening to cause mayhem if his demands are not met. Any rational person that found themselves in this situation would do what the psychopath asked of them because the apparent risk is too high and the reward not great enough.

No country wants to take any chances with the North because of the consequences, a missile or nuclear strike into a major metropolitan area is not worth any possible reward. Little do they know that underneath the mask lies a clever criminal that uses hysteria and fear to get people to do his bidding.

It turns out that Kim Jong-un is far from the idiot that he portrays himself to be. He is actually a clever chess player that uses nuclear missiles to preserve the North's way of life and his status as a dictator, to gain acceptance amongst the international community, and rear in money to help bolster the state's weak economy.

He directly or indirectly follows the basic tenet of Machiavelli's The Prince: any leader that wishes to remain in power for the longest period should use fear in vast quantities. The result is a world community that is mostly paralyzed and unable to take much direct action. It is clearly impossible to predict where this course will head in the future. All we can hope is that cooler heads prevail and that conflict can be avoided for the sake of mankind.

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North Korea's Kim Jong-Un Uses Fear Tactics For Regime Survival

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Machiavelli's The Prince, published in 1513, is one of the most influential and enduring books to date. It still serves as an inspirational guide of sorts for politicians, autocrats, and leaders across the globe. Machiavelli discussed power and the best ways for a single bodied ruler to consolidate, solidify, and maintain his power via actions that promote fear and encourage selfishness.

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Packard

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SHARK. Poem by Judy Ball. SHARK: Silently he moves about, Searching for easy prey. An expert opportunist, His game is not just play. Often using

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Last week, the White House announced $9 million in funding for five pilot projects as part of its National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace initiative, a federal effort to establish a secure, universal online identity ecosystem led by the private sector.

Critics say any kind of top-down identification system would be a security risk and an encroachment on civil rights. But the fact is that the United States already has a universal ID: the unique nine-digit number issued to US citizens and residents by the Social Security Administration, which has turned out to be no less than a gift to identity thieves. While Social Security numbers work pretty well for tracking Social Security, they weren't designed to be secure.

Americans are reluctant to institute a national ID. But in the absence of one, the market adopted a poor substitute - and the millions of Social Security numbers for sale online for cheaper than a cup of coffee is one of the consequences of that disastrous indecision.

"NOT TO BE USED FOR IDENTIFICATION"

Social Security numbers were poorly understood from the beginning. In 1938, a leather factory in Lockport, New York attempted to capitalize on the excitement around the country's newly-formed social insurance program by tucking duplicate Social Security cards into its wallets. Company vice president and treasurer Douglas Patterson thought it would be cute to use the actual Social Security number of his secretary, Hilda Schrader Whitcher.

Real Social Security cards had just begun circulating the year before, so many Americans were confused. Even though the display card was marked "specimen" and sold at Woolworth's, more than 40,000 people adopted Hilda's number as their own. According to the Social Security Administration, no fewer than 12 people were still using their Woolworth's-issued SSN in 1977.
The SSN was originally intended for one purpose: tracking a worker's lifetime earnings
The SSN was originally intended for one purpose: tracking a worker's lifetime earnings in order to calculate retirement benefits after age 65. But birth certificates are issued state-by-state and not everyone has a passport, making the SSN the closest thing we have to a national ID number. As a result, the SSN is now widely used within the government and private sector - and most people are no less confused about it than they were 75 years ago.

Only a very narrow set of government agencies and financial organizations are required to ask for a customer's SSN by law. That list does not include landlords, cable companies, cell phone providers, or even credit reporting agencies, which all habitually request SSNs simply because a number is more precise than a name. Americans have repeatedly rejected the idea of instituting a formal national identification system when it was proposed for use in health care or to prevent illegal immigration. As a result, the SSN has become the national ID by default.

Unfortunately, SSNs are also appealing to identity thieves, who can use the numbers to open new bank accounts and credit cards. An SSN is also typically the first piece in building an identity profile that can be used for more elaborate crimes like insurance fraud. In addition to being unique and widely available, the vast majority of SSNs were assigned according to a publicly-available formula. Because it was never intended to be used for identification - the SSA added the disclaimer "FOR SOCIAL SECURITY PURPOSES NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION" to the card in 1946, then removed it in 1972 during a redesign - this was never anticipated as being a problem.

Insecurity

In 2009, researchers developed an algorithm that could guess an individual's SSN with up to ten percent accuracy depending on the size of the population in the state it was issued. Combined with phishing attacks that trick people into giving up their last four digits, malevolent hackers have become pretty adept at cracking any individual's number. Algorithms aren't necessary anymore, though. SSNs have become available through data resellers, security breaches at various companies and government agencies, unsuspecting customer service representatives, and even public records, if you know where to look. SSNs can be bought in bulk for $1 each on private online forums, and a specific person's SSN can reportedly be had for as little as $3.80.

A screenshot of an underground forum where identity thieves do business. Source: RSA
Social Security numbers are the most common starting point for identity thieves, said Angel Grant, a senior manager at the information security firm RSA, which monitors the black markets where identity thieves traffic. In the last five years, SSNs have become so easy to obtain that thieves now usually bundle the number with extra identifying information like birth dates and even medical records in order to get the price up. "A Social Security number is good, and it's very easy for a fraudster to obtain," she said. "Social Security numbers are a commodity in the underground right now."
"Social Security numbers are a commodity in the underground right now."
The pitfalls of using SSNs for identification have been known for years, but there has been a recent push by state and local governments to make the number more secure. Last year, the SSA dropped the formula it had been using to assign new numbers in favor of a randomized method. The Social Security Protection Act of 2010 prohibits government agencies at all levels from displaying the number on checks. At least 20 states have enacted laws restricting the use of SSNs. Even private companies are starting to roll back their reliance on the SSN due to security concerns, Grant said.

In August, the state of New York passed a law that will prohibit most types of companies from refusing service to customers without an SSN, and subjects violators to a $500 fine. Jeffrey Dinowitz, the New York assemblyman who sponsored the law, said he gets complaints from his Bronx constituents who are constantly asked to give up their SSNs. Tellingly, the complaints come mostly from older people who remember a time before the SSN became a US resident's de facto ID.

The bill was introduced a few years ago, Dinowitz said, but for some reason it failed to gain traction with other state lawmakers until now. "I think the dissemination of Social Security numbers should be done sparingly," he said. "There are so many ways to take advantage of or steal people's identity, but the most important number is the Social Security number. I don't give it out."

Hackers now frequently bundle SSNs with harder-to-get information. Source: RSA.
After year of warnings from groups like the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse and the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the public may be waking up to the dangers of systemic reliance on the SSN. High profile data leaks at companies like Sony and LinkedIn in the last year have increased general awareness of the underground market in personal information and the danger of losing control of one's data. The SSN is the ultimate password because it's always the same, whether you're talking to your bank or your doctor, and so many companies use it to authenticate customers over the phone.

"Can you verify your Social for me?"

It's unclear when private companies first had the bright idea of using SSNs to identify their customers. The evolution of laws that required the use of SSNs for various government purposes like food stamps is well-documented, and the government does require that SSNs be collected by certain financial institutions. In fact, the Social Security Administration is one of the most nostalgic agencies in government and maintains extensive historical records. It has its own (modest) history museum, its own historian's office, and a history of the historian's office on its website along with a thorough archive of historical documents.

But when asked about the proliferation of the SSN in the private sector, the historians were stumped. "Over the decades, the uses of the number have expanded greatly beyond that original idea for it and it's become, for many private purposes, an identification thing," said Jane Zanca, a spokesperson for the agency. "There really isn't a timeline or anything. It seems it's pretty early on that the issue must have come up."

A screenshot of a hacker selling identity information. Source: RSA
Similarly, the Government Accountability Office issued a report in 2004 that acknowledged that the private sector entities "routinely" obtain and use SSNs, but does not say how the practice started.

The use of the number by the three credit reporting agencies, which are privately owned, would have encouraged the practice by other companies because having the number makes it easy to run a credit check on a new customer.

But Chris Hibbert, who published a widely-disseminated SSN explainer on Usenet and maintained it for 20 years, says the credit bureaus weren't even early adopters. "They didn't take off until SSNs had been in use for quite a while," he said in an email. "There has long been a confusion over whether the SSN is a secret (and so would be useful for verifying someone's identity) or a public identifier (and thus should be treated as well known)." He hypothesized that local utilities may have been the first to use SSNs, or that it might have spontaneously occurred to companies throughout the private sector.
Some privacy rights diehards prefer to give out Richard Nixon's SSN as their own
The SSN is still awkwardly short of being as public an identifier as a name, but perhaps it should be treated as such. For now, most consumers who try to withhold their SSN from private companies are in for an uphill battle. A resistant customer usually has to talk to a manager and may be asked to plunk down a deposit in exchange, and it's legal in most states for companies to refuse to do business without the number. Some privacy rights diehards prefer to give a fake SSN or one belonging to a dead person ( Richard Nixon's is a favorite). This often works but is technically illegal.

"It's the only thing that's really unique," said Paul Stephens, director of policy and advocacy at the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. But given the popularity of SSNs with legitimate service providers and identity thieves alike, it's become increasingly tough to protect. "We tell people, 'if a private business wants your Social Security number... you should just say no."

Still, the vast majority of customers don't realize that in many situations, including at the doctor's office, a SSN is not legally required. Until the problem of public perception is corrected, SSNs will continue to function as the national ID system that Americans on both sides of the political spectrum have said they do not want.

What's next?

The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace is not really a push for a national ID, either. Each of the pilot projects has a specific focus, including healthcare, ecommerce, and senior citizens, with the hope that the government's investment will lead to multiple systems. "The government will not require that you get a trusted ID," says NSTIC's website. "If you want to get one, you will be able to choose among multiple identity providers - both private and public - and among multiple digital credentials. Such a marketplace will ensure that no single credential or centralized database can emerge."
The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace is not really a push for a national ID
The projects will test solutions that rely on mobile phones, biometrics, encryption, and other cutting-edge security technology that lets consumers browse anonymously but also validate their identities when needed. If one or more of the privately-developed online identity systems commissioned by the Obama administration proves effective, it may end up creeping into daily use the same way the SSN did - that is, through common practice instead of federal mandate. Unlike the SSN system, these systems are being designed for use as an identifier. If implemented, one of these systems could easily substitute for many less secure verification methods in place today, including typing in your mother's maiden name or reciting the last four digits of your SSN.

Making any identification system secure yet usable and universal yet private is a challenge, to say the least, and must be handled delicately in order to avoid comparisons to 1984. But even if the idea of a government-funded online identity system creeps you out, the existence of such alternatives would mean the private sector could give SSNs a rest.

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Identity crisis: how Social Security numbers became our insecure national ID

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Last week, the White House announced $9 million in funding for five pilot projects as part of its National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace initiative, a federal effort to establish a secure, universal online identity ecosystem led by the private sector.