For 19 years I worked for a company that was and remains the antithesis of fake news. From its founding in 1851, Reuters has sought to produce accurate, independent and well-sourced journalism. There have been moments when Reuters fell short of this ambition, and its best editors and journalists have always been conscious that humans struggle to abstract themselves completely from their personal, political or religious contexts; however, getting the story right has always been at the heart of the Reuters mission. As a non-journalist myself I found this inspiring.

 
Thus, it should come as no surprise that I find the debate on “fake news” and “post-truth” politics extremely distressing. Not that I believe that US Presidential candidates must conduct themselves in accordance with the The Reuters Handbook of Journalism (or the Marquess of Queensberry Rules for that matter), but Donald J. Trump and his team plumbed new depths of lying in his successful pursuit of the presidency. As the Wall Street Journal reported immediately after the election: “Asked whether he thought his rhetoric had gone too far in the campaign, the president-elect responded: ‘No. I won.’” Perhaps this is the ultimate faux justification for fake news — regardless of what we teach our children, the ends always justify the means.

 

I think not.

 

So what can be done if like I you believe that democracy requires an informed electorate? (I reject at the outset one possible answer that has resonated from Plato to Hamilton: just exclude voters, from the poor to women to African Americans who were deemed unqualified to vote.) It seems to me that this leaves two basic choices. First, that each citizen be sufficiently educated, motivated and versed in the issues of the day to make an informed decision. Or, second, that she follow the advice of suitably informed experts or briefing materials curated by them.

 

We might all prefer that each citizen of voting age devotes the time and energy to independently research and arrive at fact-based conclusions on difficult issues such as global warming, fracking and the economics of global trade, but this may be asking too much. These issues are complex and often require a thorough grounding in science if not epistemology. Moreover, adult study time is limited, attention spans are short and spin-masters abound to cloak issues in a fog of misinformation.

 

So what about riding the coattails of experts? There once was a time when voters did place their trust in experts who they believed would do the heavy fact lifting for them. The endorsement of the local paper, even if it was the liberal-leaning New York Times, the BBC, Walter Cronkite, The Council on Foreign Relations, Chatham House, The Brookings Institute, the right-leaning Wall Street Journal, the parish priest or rabbi. However, the real poison of fake news, Benghazi conspiracy theories, and Russian disinformation is that it eats away at the credibility of institutions and the very idea of meritocracy, declaring an all-leveling “pox on both houses.” We saw this corrosive force at work in the lead-up to the Brexit vote in the UK — a very important societal choice requiring a firm grasp of economics – when the stark warnings of prominent economists, ministers and bankers were dismissed as “fear mongering.”

 

The road back to truth from post-truth must begin by restoring faith that there is a difference between facts and lies, between argument and bombast. Facts matter. As the great Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan observed, “everyone is entitled to his own opinion, not his own set of facts.” Donald J. Trump would not have won the popular vote if “millions of illegals” had not voted for Hillary Clinton; he did not witness hundreds of New Jersey Muslims celebrating the destruction of the World Trade Center; and the concept of global warming was not invented by the Chinese to harm US manufacturing.

 

One means of attacking fake news and lies is for established media to be more aggressive in fact checking and calling out Trumpian lies. Indeed, many publishers took the unprecedented step of including in their headlines the caveat that: “Trump asserts without evidence that illegal voting cost him the popular vote.” However, this is really weak tea in a polarized country where those who embrace these lies are not reading the publications careful enough to fact check their headlines. Mark Zuckerberg, while clinging disingenuously to the fiction that Facebook is not a media company, has offered a range of helpful suggestions ranging from stronger technical systems to detect false information to tools that make it easier for users to report fake news.

While helpful what we need more is a robust and trusted set of fact-checkers. Perhaps a new, less boring version of C-SPAN delivered over-the-top to everyone’s Facebook feed in which trusted cultural icons appear and debate the news of the day. Not screaming talking heads appearing, Crossfire-like, to boost media ratings, but public school teachers, judges, firefighters, rock stars, athletes — even the occasional think tank scholar discussing the pros and cons of the vital issues facing our country and our world. How such a system would work in practice, who would choose the fact checkers (quis custodiet ipsos custodies?), how to finance it and would there be multiple such systems (perhaps replicating the fake news problem one level up) are all valid concerns. Nonetheless, the threat to our democracies is grave enough to warrant concerted action.

 

I would be very proud if Reuters stepped into this breach, in this the bicentennial of the birth of Paul Julius Reuter, to apply its well-honored tradition of independence and freedom from bias to contribute to the solution. However, that is not my call today, if it ever was. All I can do like the journalists I so admire is to state fairly the urgent case for action.

Dear Donald,

I am writing you this letter because I love our country and, despite your hateful rhetoric, I suspect that you do as well. Since I doubt you do much reading other than fanzines about yourself, I don’t expect you to read this or the many other unflattering (but true) posts I’ve written about you in this blog over the past four years. Nonetheless, I hope that others closer to you will convey the recommendations (really, the hopes) I set forth below.

Listen to your better angels.

Set yourself the goal of competing with the Obamas in dignity, grace and inclusion.

Disavow the racists who celebrate your victory with hate speech and waving Confederate flags.

Surprise us all with kindness, compassion and inclusiveness.

Eschew the has-been loyalists and fanners of the flames of prejudice who campaigned with you by appointing the best and the brightest to advise you. Listen to them patiently and seek out those who will speak truth to power now that your office confers it upon you and you need not bully others to obtain it.

Appoint a Muslim and a Mexican-American to high office. Better yet, make sure they are feminists.  Appoint the best qualified jurist to the vacant Scalia seat on the Supreme Court.  Since you tend to pack your teams with family members you might even consider choosing your elder (and better behaved) sister, Judge Maryanne Trump Barry.

Focus your boundless energies on attacking the entrenched bureaucracy of Washington – the kudzu of rules and agencies that strangle good governance. You can start by merging the SEC, CFTC and CFPB into a single agency that balances investor protection with vibrant and fair capital markets.

Don’t tamper with the independence of the Federal Reserve, but follow through on your proposals to use the fiscal policy of infrastructure investment (as I’ve been arguing for years in this blog) to relieve the burden that the Fed and other central banks around the world have had to carry with monetary policy alone.

Revamp the tax code to make it simpler, shorter and more fair: reduce the corporate tax rate to be more in line with the economies around the world with which we compete; move to a territorial system of corporate taxation and encourage the repatriation of foreign source income; increase the earned income credit for poorer families to provide a basic income to those who work less skilled/lower paying jobs; abolish the preferential treatment of carried interest; abolish the AMT but make all individuals (yourself included) pay at least 20% of their income and gains.

Protect the environment. If you really don’t believe the science of global warming, ask your son Baron – most 5^th Graders who attend Columbia Grammar in NYC know more than their parents about climate change.

On healthcare, rebrand Obamacare Trumpcare if you prefer and fix the insurance/payment provisions that don’t work,  but leave in place the protections that actually benefit the folks who elected you such as coverage for those who had no health insurance and the prohibition on denying coverage based on prior conditions. 

Don’t underestimate the value the US receives from the “Pax Americana.” Yes, the United States bears a disproportionate share of the cost of defending freedom and democracy around the world, but we benefit greatly from free trade, open shipping lanes and the reserve currency status of the US Dollar. Respect international treaties and don’t encourage further nuclear proliferation.

Keep a cool head; don’t let others bait you; keep off Twitter, you now have a very big megaphone.

Oh, and don’t build that silly wall.

I was invited by the New York Federal Reserve Bank to moderate a panel at its annual Culture Conference on the challenges and opportunities that FinTech is raising for the culture of financial institutions.  As this is a topic that has long interested me I was happy to accept.  At tomorrow’s session (October 20, 2016) the distinguished panel and I will discuss the issues summarized below in a post that originally appeared in Medium.

Technology and Culture

Thomas H. Glocer, Former Chief Executive Officer, Thomson Reuters and Director and Chairman, Operations and Technology Committee, Morgan Stanley

This is being published from the New York Fed by a guest writer as part ofReforming Culture and Behavior in the Financial Services Industry: Expanding the Dialogue. The views of the author are his own and are offered by the New York Fed to contribute to discussions on this topic.

Much has been written about the digital future of finance and banking over the past few years, particularly as it relates to the disruptive technologies gaining traction and their potential impact on the actual business of finance. On October 20, I plan on going beyond the headlines to explore fundamental questions about the impacts these disruptive and transformative technological changes can have on culture and conduct, both within an individual financial firm and the industry more broadly.

With my esteemed panelists — Megan Butler of the UK Financial Conduct Authority, Martin Chavez of Goldman Sachs, and Axel Lehmann of UBS — we will spotlight the risks and challenges of merging technology and banking cultures. We will also build on the theme of trustworthiness, which will be introduced earlier in the day, and consider whether technological change presents an opportunity — or an impediment — in building the trustworthiness of the financial sector.

Technology advancements within a firm tend to remove friction, accelerate processes, displace human labor and unbundle core functions. As firms strive to stay competitive given this rapid rate of change, we are seeing a rise of technologists in banking, with some banks aspiring to emulate tech firms. This shift in the underlying composition of a firm has the potential to lead to a culture clash with traditional banking models. Firms will need to carefully balance the drive for innovation with prudent risk taking.

As business models, workforce and the culture of financial services evolve through technological change, how do these changes impact the public’s trust in banks? Consumers will continue to need trustworthy providers of financial services. New uses of technology may help mitigate conduct risk. They may also provide fresh opportunities for mischief. Steering a firm toward the former, and away from the latter, will be of the first order.

Supervisors, too, need to be attentive to technological change and its impact on consumers and the stability of the financial system. An array of cheaper and more suitable products are likely to become available for consumers. Regulatory technology may substantially reduce human error and misconduct, but may not address all of the risks posed by these new offerings (i.e., will RegTech keep pace with FinTech). And, with greater electronic connectively — and less actual in-person connection — the basic human ties that foster self-restraint and greater trust may be lost.

Finally, to navigate this fast-changing and complex environment successfully, strong leadership will be critical. Technology often results in greater complexity and a realm of deep vertical expertise that only highly skilled technologists can understand. This will present new challenges to corporate governance and the traditional responsibilities of directors. Specialized technology expertise in senior leadership positions, and on boards, will become increasingly important over time, but boards should not delegate oversight responsibility to one or a handful of “expertized” members. The public purposes of banks must remain an indispensable part of the decision process when making leadership choices. Technology is, after all, a means to an end, not the end in itself.

With this week’s passing of Shimon Peres the world has lost a warrior for peace – as full of contradictions as those words suggest.

Much has been written and eulogized about this truly great man. He was an optimist; he was naïve; he was an egoist; he was a wonderful grandfather; he sought lasting peace; he was twice Defense Minister and architect of Israeli’s nuclear program. He was first and foremost a great statesman and the last of a generation of lions.

I met with Shimon regularly, in Davos, in London and once, very memorably, in Tel Aviv. It is that personal memory I recount here. While I was chief executive of Reuters, I visited Israel every couple of years to see clients like everywhere else, to meet with tech entrepreneurs from this start-up nation, to support the brave Reuters journalists in Israel as well as the West Bank and Gaza, and to visit my family.

On one such trip in 2006 I had one of the most exciting and fulfilling days of my career or, for that matter, my life. I was scheduled to meet Peres in his Tel Aviv office for a coffee in the morning and to visit Mahmoud Abbas for a late night tea in Ramallah. Ever the peacenik, I was looking forward to gaining insights from the Nobel Laureate for Peace on his current views of the seemingly intractable Israeli – Palestinian peace process. While I recall repeatedly attempting to turn our conversation back to these matters of state, Peres preferred to speak about the latest technology investments by his son Chemi, and the prospects for advancements in nanotechnology in particular.

Those who know me well know that I never shy away from a good technology discussion, but I pressed Shimon to discuss Arab-Israeli relations and raised the problems we at Reuters were having obtaining travel permits for our excellent Palestinian journalists. He finally got animated and declared that Reuters journalism was “pro-Palestinian.” Coming from a man I admired and respected so much I was alarmed and somewhat hurt by the charge; however, I would recover later that day when President Abbas accused Reuters of being “pro-Israeli.” I concluded that if both sides claimed we were biased we must either be really bad or very good. I chose to believe the latter.

This weekend Jews around the world will celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the Hebrew new year.   We should enter this new year with renewed hope and optimism as this would certainly be Shimon’s advice and attitude. Shanah Tovah Shimon; we will miss you.

 

In a recent post, Liz Spayd, the newly appointed Public Editor of the New York Times, asked the open question as to whether Times readers see the paper as being overly liberal.  In particular, supporters of Donald Trump have complained that New York City’s traditional journal of record has a “relentless bias” against the Republican nominee.

 

While I have been an occasional critic of the “Gray Lady,” I rise to her defense in this election cycle.  I’m not talking here about the Editorial page of the paper which is unashamedly left-leaning in its opinion-making.  Rather, I focus on how publications seeking to cover this election in a fair and unbiased manner should approach the Trump candidacy.

 

For the reasons I outline below, I believe that the extraordinary nature of the Trump campaign requires responsible journalists to jettison their traditional “on the one hand, on the other hand” paradigm. Never has there been a candidate who so brazenly lies, spouts racial and religious insults and threatens to violate treaties and the Constitution alike. Under such extreme conditions blandly to apply the rules of politics-as-usual is to abdicate the vital responsibility of the Fourth Estate.

 

I am not advocating an abandonment of journalistic ethics or turning the front page or home page into the op-ed page. Instead, I believe that fairness in the context of the Clinton-Trump campaign requires a heightened scrutiny of both candidates. For example, when running video of either candidate or reporting their comments, their lies or inconsistent prior statements should be called out in real-time. This can be done with a crawler on live video or a corrections box adjoining text.

 

To her great credit, Fox’s Megyn Kelly strongly confronted Candidate Trump with his long and sorry history of misogyny. Likewise, Chris Mathews of MSNBC really did play hardball with Trump over the candidate’s waffling on exactly how women should be punished for seeking an abortion. Unfortunately, these are rare displays of journalistic backbone in the face of Trumpian bombast, bigotry and bullying.

 

Where were the follow-up questions when Trump flatly asserted he could not possibly release his tax returns because they were being audited by the IRS? (Think about that one a moment – why should it matter if Trump is being audited if he was previously happy to sign and file the returns as correct?). Or who lifted a pen or a microphone to condemn Trump’s proposals to deport 11 million immigrants, ban Muslims from the US, encourage Japan and South Korea to obtain nuclear weapons, welch on the US national debt or abrogate the NATO treaty? These are not serious political policy positions. This is race-

baiting and rabble-rousing and needs to be called out and corrected.

 

So the next time the New York Times self-consciously worries that it is not being fair to Mr. Trump it should consider whether the normal rules of journalism apply to the parallel Trump universe or whether independence, fairness and integrity require a more exacting edit.

 

Let me begin what may prove to be a controversial post on the battle between billionaire entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Peter Thiel, and the irreverent online publication and media holding company, Gawker Media, with a full-throated commitment to freedom of expression.  Throughout my 19 years at Reuters and beyond, I have zealously defended the right (indeed the necessity) of journalists to report the truth in the face of threat, opposition and all-too-often physical violence. While I have often disliked (and at times felt deeply aggrieved about) individual articles written about friends or me, I prefer to live in a world in which society and the courts err strongly on the side of freedom of expression over the protection of personal privacy and discomfiture.

 

The Thiel v. Gawker feud has generated much heat, light and media comment following revelations that Peter Thiel spent $10 million to finance Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker for posting an unauthorized video of the former pro wrestler having sex with a friend’s wife. Many commentators have expressed the concern that a new chill will descend on journalists and their publications if other aggrieved billionaires follow Peter Thiel’s lead and search for lawsuits to bankroll against the media they feel have done them wrong.

 

I’m not so worried.

 

I believe the Gawker case has drawn so much attention because journalists love no subject as much as writing about other journalists, because Peter Thiel is a controversial figure, and (mostly) because many commentators have conflated a series of separate ethical and legal issues into a single one pitting the power of money versus press freedom. While that tension certainly exists in the US and elsewhere, Gawker is not that case.

 

That Peter Thiel has a vendetta against Nick Denton and his stable of present and former publications is neither novel nor germane. Lots of wealthy and powerful men have been at odds with the more lurid fringes of the press, from Lord Browne’s tangle with the Daily Mail to Max Mosley’s successful litigation against News of the World. What distinguishes Thiel is that he not only has pressed his own claims but has reached out to finance the claims of third parties such as the wrestler Hulk Hogan in the current controversy.

 

There are three key elements at play here that we must untangle: 1) Rich guy is ticked off by publication and wants revenge. 2) Did the jury err in awarding the adulterous wrestler $140 million in damages against Gawker? And 3) Should we permit third parties to finance the lawsuits of others?

 

Thus untangled and simplified I do not find this to be a difficult legal or ethical case – whatever one may think of the controversial Peter Thiel or Nick Denton of Gawker.

 

First, seeking revenge isn’t pretty, but when pursued via writ rather than violence it is not a mortal sin. Second, the relative merit of Hulk Hogan’s claims is the core issue. If the jury erred in awarding such large damages against Gawker that it threatens the future of the group, the remedy lies in seeking an appeal to a higher court, not in demonizing the motives of the third party who financed the litigation. Third and finally, there is nothing wrong with Peter Thiel providing the funds to bring the Hogan lawsuit, whatever his motive.

 

To underscore this last point let’s imagine a less contentious lawsuit. What if the victim of a mugging raised money from his friends and family to sue his assailant for battery? I doubt there would be an objection from any quarter that it was somehow unfair to the mugger that his victim did not finance the lawsuit himself.

 

Thus, I believe what the commentariat finds objectionable is either the identity of the financier (Thiel) or the possibility that under the law a publication could be bankrupted by a large court judgment or well-financed campaign of nuisance lawsuits. While, as stated above, I believe libel and privacy laws should be interpreted to provide maximum leeway for the freedom of expression, I nonetheless believe that the nature and provenance of litigation funding is irrelevant. As for the possibility that wealthy individuals or organizations can finance non-meritorious nuisance litigation, the solution lies in judges using existing legal tools such as summary judgment motions to ensure that the legal process is not abused, not in dictating who may pay for what.

 

Peter Thiel v. Nick Denton makes for good copy, but not good law.

US Presidential candidate Donald Trump has been accused by opponents of being a pathological liar.  While no friend of The Donald, as posts to this blog will attest, I decided to do a bit of research as to whether Trump had been accurately diagnosed.  I conclude he has not.

Mr. Trump is not a pathological liar; rather, he is a sociopathic liar.  The former is a compulsive liar who consciously or not seeks to embellish the details of his life. The latter is defined as an individual (often a great narcissist) who  “lies incessantly to get their way and does so with little concern for others. A sociopath is often goal-oriented (i.e., lying is focused—it is done to get one’s way)… Sociopaths are often charming and charismatic, but they use their talented social skills in manipulative and self-centered ways.”  https://www.truthaboutdeception.com/.

Whether the lie relates to the number of Arab-Americans Trump claims to have seen celebrating the fall of the World Trade Center buildings, his claimed $10 billion net worth, or his constant flip flops on abortion rights, the case for war in Iraq and Afghanistan, or his incitement to violence at political rallies, Trump is a veritable fountain of untruth.

The amusing and revealing thing is he may not always realize he is lying.  For Trump business, and he hopes presidential politics, is a succession of “deals” which he claims to be preternaturally gifted at.  He also prides himself on unpredictability and “flexibility.”  When taken together, these character traits easily translate into saying one thing on Monday and the 180 degree opposite on Tuesday.  Most people would call that lying and brand the speaker a liar.  However, I believe for The Donald, life is a series of non-continuous film frames in which he feels free to say one thing today if he finds it expedient and the polar opposite tomorrow without even the least sense of contrition.

This is why Donald Trump fits the profile of a sociopathic liar to a “T” — a big, fake gold leaf T as in Trump.

Bad facts make bad law. This well-worn legal aphorism may well describe the state of American privacy law if the FBI is successful in its bid to compel Apple to write a special version of its iPhone operating system to provide a “back door” into one of its legacy devices.

 

Ostensibly, the question presented is whether Apple can refuse a court order to assist the FBI in gathering evidence from one specific phone provided by the employer of a dead terrorist. However, the potential precedential significance of the case is far greater.

 

The late Syed Rizwan Farook, together with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people and wounded 22 others in San Bernardino, California before meeting a swift and just end. As part of its investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation sought and obtained an court order under the All Writs Act of 1789 ordering Apple to write a special version of its iOS to defeat two security features included in the operating system of Farook’s legacy 5c iPhone. In its request, the FBI was at pains to stress the supposedly limited nature of the cooperation sought: just a little bit of code to be downloaded one time on a single out-of-date phone owned by the government employer of a dead terrorist-murderer. How could that be unreasonable?

 

In this case I believe it is, but the decision is neither an easy one nor an absolute one for all cases. Rather, as I argue below, these types of requests by law enforcement should be judged on a reasonableness standard based on their unique facts and circumstances, with personal privacy and freedom of communication given a strong but rebuttable presumption.

 

The Farouk case is just one of many requests the FBI has made to Apple to assist it in recovering information believed to be stored on its phones or in the iCloud. The FBI has chosen well to litigate this matter as the Farook set of facts makes an attractive test case for them. While Apple has generally complied with such requests in the past, it has refused in this instance because it argues that in balancing public safety versus our right to privacy, acceding to the FBI request in this case would set a dangerous precedent. In particular, Apple argues that it will be impossible to limit the “back door” the FBI seeks to only unlock the late terrorist’s phone without jeopardizing others. To understand why requires some additional background on Apple technology and criminal procedure.

 

What the FBI is asking Apple to do in the Farook case is to create a special version of the iOS (it has been dubbed “govtOS”) that once installed on Farook’s 5c will (i) allow an unlimited number of attempts to enter the four-digit passcode and (ii) eliminate the artificial and progressive delay that the standard iOS introduces after repeated failed attempts. This will allow the FBI to use what is known as a “brute force” technique to try up to all of the 10,000 possible four-key combinations needed to unlock the phone.

 

The FBI analogizes its request to serving a lawful search warrant on a landlord to gain access to a suspect’s apartment with a master key. I think a more apt analogy would be a request to the landlord to send a team of its handymen to replace an existing wall of the suspect’s apartment with a new fake wall that includes a secret doorway. The extraordinary nature of the request consists in forcing the recipient to build something it would not otherwise undertake and which, in fact, it believes would render the apartment (or phone) insecure. The secret doorway like the special iPhone back door would permit anyone less trustworthy than the FBI to access the contents of the apartment/phone.

 

As for the criminal procedure context, it is important to understand what would happen if and when the FBI gained access to Farook’s phone. In particular, to determine whether the FBI would be able to keep its promise that the special back door created for the Farook case would never become public or fall into dangerous hands. Since both prime suspects are dead, investigators probably want the phone to discover if there are accomplices who could be identified via information currently encrypted on the phone or if there is other information that would be useful in preventing future attacks or adding to our understanding of terrorist networks. There is no suggestion, however, that there exists a clear and present danger of another specific attack or lives in danger that makes access to the contents of Farook’s phone critical. This would, like in the First Amendment free speech context from which I borrow this talismanic words, convince me to overcome my presumption in favor of personal privacy and agree to the FBI request. Absent such an extreme threat, I assume the investigation might play out on the following lines: I imagine that via access to Farook’s phone, the FBI could discover, arrest and charge one or more other conspirators. What would happen next? The defense lawyers and their forensic experts would demand access to the rogue govtOS code to dispute that the system worked as alleged to implicate their client.  For example, they would be free to argue that the name of their client was inserted by the FBI via the special govtOS code and not present in the original memory. Thus, at least to me, it does not sound farfetched that the back door code would then be released and pass through many hands, exposing us all to cyber insecurity.

 

While we are on the subject of the law, I find it ironic that all of the candidates seeking the 2016 Republican nomination extol their steadfast dedication to the Second Amendment to the US Constitution (conferring a right to bear arms), but rush quickly to condemn Apple for refusing to comply with the magistrate’s ex parte order to build a back door into the iPhone. As I understand it, a major tenet of the conservatives’ insistence on the right to carry concealed weapons or automatic rifles is that this will protect Americans from the potential tyranny of their government. However, if my goal is protecting liberty, I find it far more effective to protect our right of free speech and freedom of assembly by allowing the use of encrypted communications than maintaining an arsenal at home that I can use against a drone-equipped national military. Hence my preference for a rebuttable presumption in favor of privacy, just as I support the right of Americans to own guns, just not AR 15 automatic weapons – Constitutional rights should not be absolute when they bump up against each other.

 

Finally, I believe there is one additional and decisive reason to support Apple in its refusal to create even “limited” back doors. The Internet is a great force for freedom and democracy based on its ability to connect us, remove friction and rapidly disseminate information. Like most technologies, it is also “dual use” and can facilitate terrorist coordination and cybercrime. No matter how noble the motives of the FBI in seeking to crack Syed Farook’s iPhone, repressive regimes around the world are watching and will happily order Apple and other American technology companies to write potentially more dangerous and intrusive “limited” instruments to facilitate their law enforcement efforts. They may do so even if US courts ultimately support Apple’s position; however, the United States should not abandon the moral high ground.

 

The City on a Hill should not leave the back door open.

 

Passent les jours et passent les semaines
Ni temps passé
Ni les amours reviennent
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine

I have always loved Apollinaire’s poem, Le Pont Mirabeau, for capturing the flow of time like the flow of the great river through Paris. The tranquility and humanity of poetry was a natural refuge after the deranged violence of November’s terror attacks in Paris.

I made my first trip of the new year to Paris last week and I found the city changed in some important ways, but timeless as ever in its architectural elegance. The changes were not subtle. In front of every major store along the Champs-Élysées, Avenue Montaigne and Boulevard St. Germain, there were security guards posted at the entrance. They passed their buzzing, metal detecting wands over shoppers’ bulky coats and rummaged through their bulging bags. It made me think more of tightly controlled Tel Aviv after the bus bombings than the normally open café society of Paris.

In other ways, Paris remained defiant and beautiful. The new Foundation Louis Vuitton museum in the Bois de Boulogne stood out against a cold winter sky, still worth a visit for its Frank Gehry architecture even with its galleries closed between shows. And Parisians outnumbered tourists huddled around outdoor heaters in the suddenly insecure  terraces of the city.

As I walked across Paris, letting my feet guide me along paths both familiar and occasionally new, I asked myself what has changed in France and what still needs to change. First, the French security services have taken advantage of their enhanced freedom to act under the state of emergency declared in the aftermath of the Paris attacks and done much more than “round up the usual suspects.” While still understaffed, they have undoubtedly foiled several follow-on attacks. Second, France has chosen to take the fight outside its borders to hit back against Daesh (IS) in the Middle East and Africa. While this military action may be more symbolic than effective, it does inspire confidence at home in the face of the terror.

However, what France really needs to do is make up for 50 years of not so benign neglect of its Muslim immigrants and take affirmative steps to begin their economic and cultural integration into French society. When it was only a question of the periodic uprising of the Paris “banlieus,” replete with their ritual overturned car burnings, the French establishment could afford to make speeches but do little. However, with the battle now much more lethal and directed to the center of Paris, the need for action is clear.

Unfortunately, the solution is not a quick fix, but must be pursued with unflagging energy for a generation. For motivation, we have fortunately been given the beauty and poetry of Paris. As Henry IV declared in an admittedly different context, “Paris vaut une messe.”

I have resisted the temptation for several months to follow-up on my post likening The Donald to a member of the Kardashian Klan, but his comments this week seeking to ban, even temporarily, the entry of all Muslims into the United States now compel me to write.

As his campaign for President has maintained loft in the period leading up to the Republican Party primaries, Trump has shown himself not just to be the divot-haired buffoon building a personal brand, but a truly dangerous racist demagogue seeking power. For months I have batted-off queries from amused or horrified foreign friends with a standard reply that I still, fortunately, believe to be true: “Don’t, worry, he is a clown and he won’t be elected.” However, they now rightly point out that the sheer number of my fellow Americans who are willing to tell pollsters that they support Trump is scary to educated global citizens who think highly of the United States.

Not only does Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric play right into the hands of IS in seeking to draw battle lines between all Christians and Muslims, but it also reminds me of early Nazi rabble-rousing against Jews which was dismissed by many ordinary Germans until it was too late.

At a dinner I attended last week, a former senior European statesman likened Trump to France’s Front National leader, Marine Le Pen, for her anti-immigrant rhetoric. I replied that the comparison was inapposite. The closer parallel was with her father and former FN leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, whose racist and anti-Semitic pronouncements became so frequent and noxious that his own daughter maneuvered to have him thrown out of the political party he founded.

As readers of this blog know, I am often too fond of all things French, but I believe that here again in the “Affaire Le Pen” there is learning for us Americans. Republican Party leaders should follow Speaker Paul Ryan’s noble lead in condemning Trump’s racist comments as un-American and not just counter to the Republican Party platform, and The Donald’s otherwise successful and intelligent children should follow Marine Le Pen’s example and call for their father to pull out of the race for President.

The time to stand-up is now.