Dana Liebelson

Reporter

Dana Liebelson is a reporter in Mother Jones' Washington bureau. She contributes regularly to The Week. Previously, she worked for the Project On Government Oversight (POGO), covering defense and open government issues. Her work has also appeared on TIME's Battleland, Truthout, OtherWords and Yahoo! News. In her free time, she plays electric violin in an Indie rock band.

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Obama Issues Cybersecurity Order, Does Not Seize Control of Internet

—By Dana Liebelson

| Wed Feb. 13, 2013 9:57 AM PST

Largely overlooked among President Obama's State of the Union policy moves was a push to protect US infrastructure from cyberattacks. Earlier on Tuesday, the president signed an executive order that expands information-sharing between the government and private companies to, as he said in Tuesday night's address, develop "standards to protect our national security, our jobs, and our privacy." Conservatives and big business are warning of executive overreach—but in fact, the cybersecurity program gives companies more information than it requires from them, relies heavily on congressional support, and even makes civil liberties advocates happy.

Under the order, companies that provide vital services like electricity and water—many of which are considered highly vulnerable to attacks—will be able to view classified government information on cyberthreats, but they aren't required to share information when they get hacked. The order doesn't require companies to participate, nor does it provide any financial incentives (yet), but that didn't stop House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. John McCaul, R-Texas, from warning that it could "open the door to increased regulations that would stifle innovation [and] burden businesses." The U.S. Chamber of Commerce called the program "unnecessary."

By contrast, civil libertarians such as the ACLU were relieved that the order emphasized privacy and civil liberties safeguards. Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Forbes that “We definitely like the executive order better than last year's Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act... The executive order can’t change any federal rules. It just changes the way the executive branch chooses to do things.”

In other words, Obama didn't take over the Internet (that's what Facebook is for.)

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Anti-Evolution Missouri Bill Requires College Students to Learn About Destiny

—By Dana Liebelson

| Fri Feb. 8, 2013 1:21 PM PST

Late last month, Rick Brattin, a Republican state representative in Missouri, introduced a bill that would require that intelligent design and "destiny" get the same educational treatment and textbook space in Missouri schools as the theory of evolution. Brattin insists that his bill has nothing to do with religion—it's all in the name of science.

"I'm a science enthusiast...I'm a huge science buff," Brattin tells The Riverfront Times. "This [bill] is about testable data in today's world." But Eric Meikle, education project director at the National Center for Science Education, disagrees. "This bill is very idiosyncratic and strange," he tells Mother Jones. "And there is simply not scientific evidence for intelligence design."

HB 291, the "Missouri Standard Science Act," redefines a few things you thought you already knew about science. For example, a "hypothesis" is redefined as something that reflects a "minority of scientific opinion and is "philosophically unpopular." A scientific theory is "an inferred explanation...whose components are data, logic and faith-based philosophy." And "destiny" is not something that $5 fortune tellers believe in; Instead, it's "the events and processes that define the future of the universe, galaxies, stars, our solar system, earth, plant life, animal life, and the human race."

The bill requires that Missouri elementary and secondary schools—and even introductory science classes in public universities—give equal textbook space to both evolution and intelligent design (any other "theories of origin" are allowed to be taught as well, so pick your favorite creation myth—I'm partial to the Russian raven spirit.) "I can't imagine any mainstream textbook publisher would comply with this," Meikle says. "The material doesn't exist."

The bill also establishes a nine-person committee (who must work for free) responsible for developing ad-hoc textbook material until appropriate textbook material is found.

Another bill introduced in the Missouri House, HB 179, has more in common with anti-evolution bills that have been proposed this year in states like Montana and Colorado. It asks teachers to "create an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that encourages students to explore scientific questions"—but doesn't explicitly mention intelligent design. This is hardly the first time the Missouri House has tried to get evolution theory out of the classroom. Brattin and other cosponsors tried to get similar legislation passed last year, but the bill died in committee. In 2003, another bill with near-identical language to to HB 291 was sponsored by Rep. Robert Wayne Cooper (R-Mo.), but it also said that teachers who didn't comply would be fired. It was so controversial that more than 450 Missouri scientists and educators supported a statement that said "intelligent design...isn't science."

Brattin argues that there are "numerous college professors within biology, school science teachers" who are "banned from the science community" because they want to teach other theories of origin. The National Center for Science Education's Meikle agrees—the bill really could "open the door for teachers who are opposed to evolution to bring in creationist materials." That's why his group is "hoping it doesn't pass."

Former Target Store Manager to Oversee Nation's Nuclear Security

Retired Air Force Colonel Steve Asher also ran a missile base that later flunked key security tests.

—By Dana Liebelson

| Wed Feb. 6, 2013 9:27 AM PST

Ever since last summer, when a 82-year-old nun broke into the Y-12 nuclear weapons complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the National Nuclear Security Administration has scrambled to improve its leadership and beef up security at America's nuke facilities. Now it appears the agency has found the man for the job: The weekly trade publication Nuclear Weapons & Materials Monitor reported last week that the NNSA has named as its acting head of nuclear security Steve Asher, a retired Air Force colonel who less than four years ago was working as a "team leader" at a Target store in Spokane, Washington. Prior to that, he commanded a missile base in Montana that flunked a nuclear security test within five months of his departure.

This November 2009 video, dug up by the Project on Government Oversight (where I used to be a fellow), shows Asher hawking Black Friday bargains: "A lot of folks were being thrifty in their shopping this year, and so we sold more of our $1.99 towels than we expected!" (Click the screenshot for the link.)

Asher's new title is acting chief of defense nuclear security and associate administrator for defense nuclear security, which puts him in charge of developing and implementing security programs at nuke sites nationwide. He has only worked at NNSA since late last year, when he was brought in as a security consultant, Nuclear Weapons & Materials Monitor reported. According to NNSA spokesman Joshua McConaha, Asher will have to apply for the permanent position, just like any other candidate. "Asher was recruited into Target's executive ranks after serving 33 years in the US Air Force," he says. "There are very few people in the United States who have more experience."

[Read the full article]

Timeline: The Boy Scouts' Long History of Anti-Gay Discrimination

The Boy Scouts of America have been fighting gay members for decades.

—By Dana Liebelson

| Wed Feb. 6, 2013 4:06 AM PST

Boy scouts and their families deliver 1.4 million signatures protesting the ban. GLAAD

On Wednesday, the national board of the Boy Scouts of America delayed its decision on whether to end the organization's national ban on gay Scouts and scoutmasters until May, citing the need for more deliberation. BSA's gay ban has caused several of its major sponsors to pull funding in recent years, and the organization announced on January 28 that it would consider ending the policy; the board has been deliberating the decision since Monday.

"We all understand that BSA is under pressure from opposing sides of the issue, but they have had plenty of time to think about this," says Theresa Phillips, committee chair of Pack 442 in Maryland, which was forced to take down its non-discrimination statement last month. "The Boy Scouts needs to wake up and realize gay and lesbians have just as much of a right to be part of the scouting program as anyone else."

Even if the Boy Scouts decide later this year to overturn the ban, the decision on whether to allow gay members will be left to local troops—a move that gay advocates say is a cop-out, as local troops would still be allowed to discriminate.

The Boy Scouts have a long history of discrimination against gay members—and over the years, gay people aren't the only minority group the Scouts have excluded. Here's a timeline you won't find on the Boy Scouts' website:

The GOP's Plan to Rig the Electoral College, Explained

How the GOP could win by losing.

—By Dana Liebelson

| Thu Jan. 31, 2013 10:44 AM PST

Read on for essential background on the escalating conflict or click here for the latest update. Previous updates are here:

UPDATE 1, Tuesday, February 5: Paul Ryan says electoral rigging is a bad idea, PA pushes forward with legislation

Ever since the 47 percent dashed Mitt Romney's White House dreams, GOPers have been trying to figure out what went wrong, and how to stop it from happening again. Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz suggests that Republicans stop reading the New York Times. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fl.) is seizing the opportunity to reform his party's stance on immigration. But other GOPers are pitching a solution that will sound familiar to anyone who witnessed the 2010 GOP gerrymandering effort or the ensuing voter fraud wars: If you can't win, change the rules—in this case, the rules of the Electoral College. Here's what you need to know.

They're changing the rules of the Electoral College? What's the Electoral College? You don't personally elect the president of the United States, the Electoral College does. Each state has a number of electoral votes equal to the state's number of US senators and representatives—Montana has 3, New York has 29, Texas has 38, and giant California has 55. Washington, DC, is the only nonstate with electoral votes; it gets three. There are 538 electoral votes total, and you need 270 to win. When a presidential candidate wins the popular vote in a state, he or she gets all of that state's electoral votes—except in Maine and Nebraska. (More on that later.) This last bit, called the winner-take-all rule, is what Republicans have been trying to change.

Okay, but how does the plan work? The GOP doesn't have one "master plan" to rig the electoral college. Instead, lawmakers are considering a couple of different versions of a plan that would tie electoral votes to congressional districts. Ready to geek out? Okay. The plan would award one electoral vote to the winner of the popular vote in each congressional district. That would leave two leftover electoral votes, representing the state's two senators, up for grabs. In Virginia's plan, the two bonus votes would have been given to the candidate who won the most districts (that proposal was killed on Tuesday); in other versions of the proposal, two bonus votes would go to the winner of the statewide popular vote.

The only problem? Congressional districts aren't created equal. In 2010, the GOP went on a massive gerrymandering spree that allowed Republicans to keep their House majority in 2012 even though more Americans voted for Democrats. Tying electoral votes to these gerrymandered districts would give the GOP a huge advantage in states that are expected to go blue on the presidential level. This could discount the votes of those Americans who live in urban areas, particularly minority groups. (Blogger Paul Bibeau found that the Virginia plan would make a Democrat vote worth 3/5 of a Republican one.)

This would give Republican presidential candidates a bunch more electoral votes without forcing them to win over any new voters. Six states—Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—have considered the idea, but it's so controversial that the proposals have lost steam in all but the last two states. "The people supporting this were hoping to do it without anyone noticing, and they thought it was too complicated for people to understand," Ian Millhiser, a senior constitutional policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, notes.

[Read the full article]