Yahoo! Just Exposed One of the FBI's Most Secretive Tricks to Unethically Obtain Your Info
For the first time since the implementation of the USA Freedom Act, Yahoo published three National Security Letters — perhaps the most secretive and contentious method the FBI has for obtaining information on individuals — after the lifting of repressive and equally-contentious gag orders.
Mainstays of the USA PATRIOT Act, National Security Letters (NSLs) generally request customer data information from businesses such as banks, internet service providers, travel agencies, and phone and telecommunications companies — without a warrant required. Worse, NSLs include onerous, mandatory orders prohibiting their recipients from disclosing to anyone — including coworkers, friends, and family — that they even received the letter.
Advertisment
"Yahoo has always maintained a strong commitment to protecting our users' safety, security and privacy," the company said in an announcement of the disclosure. "The release of these documents and information regarding NSLs today is consistent with our commitment to share as much information as we legally can regarding government data requests. We believe there is value in making these documents available to the public to promote an informed discussion about the legal authorities available to law enforcement."
"Each NSL included a nondisclosure provision that prevented Yahoo from previously notifying its users or the public of their existence," the company ominously stated.
Largely due to these mandatory nondisclosure orders, gauging exactly how many NSLs have been issued remains impossible — though as of 2013, the Obama administration admitted an average of 60 per day were being issued. Alarmingly, in its latest transparency report, Apple claimed the number of "national security orders" — including NSLs — had doubled in just six months. Yahoo said it plans updates to its own transparency report as additional nondisclosure orders are lifted.
Though they haven't received quite the notoriety of more sweeping surveillance programs — perhaps due to the extensive reporting after revelations from Edward Snowden — NSLs are at least equally troubling. As EFF previously noted, "in march 2007 the Department of Justice's inspector general released a report confirming extensive misuse of NSLs in a sample of four FBI field offices. An internal audit by the FBI confirmed that the problem was far more extensive than first thought."
So insidious are NSLs, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) once described them as "one of the most frightening and invasive" facets of the PATRIOT Act.
Essentially anything surrounding the account of the user targeted by the FBI must be disclosed, except for the actual content of communications. But plenty of information can be derived, without having to delve into the content, Vocativ noted, as metadata could include "the dates when an account was opened, IP addresses used to log in, any physical address or phone number associated with the account, the credit card number it used to pay for any service, any listed aliases — pretty much anything a user gives when they create an account."
"Our understanding is that the vast majority of NSLs of these kind that are issued go to tech companies, and that it's a basic tool that the FBI uses to start investigations involving people's communications," Andrew Cocker, staff attorney at EFF, toldVocativ in discussing NSLs specific to companies like Yahoo.
Yahoo's decision to disclose these NSLs marks the company's "ongoing commitment to transparency." A minor concession in the Freedom Act requires the FBI to periodically assess whether gag orders should remain in place. In the case of Yahoo's three NSLs, the termination of ongoing nondisclosure indicates the FBI completed those investigations.
"We believe this is an important step toward enriching a more open and transparent discussion about the legal authorities law enforcement can leverage to access user data," Yahoo stated.
While the Freedom Act basically continued many of the same programs from the PATRIOT Act that had expired, minor changes like the requirement to review FBI nondisclosure arrangements provide a degree of transparency desperately needed. Now, thanks to Yahoo, NSLs became a little less secretive.
Audit Firm Charged With Fraud Relating to Auditing of Penny Stock Companies
A California-based audit firm is being charged with conducting flawed audits and reviews of financial statements, which are critical sources of information for investors.
The SEC's Enforcement Division alleges that Anton & Chia LLP and its accountants ignored numerous indications of fraudulent financial reporting by three of the firm's audit clients – microcap companies Accelera Innovations Inc., Premier Holding Corp., and CannaVEST Corp. For example, Accelera's public filings allegedly included revenue, assets, and liabilities from an entirely different company. The Enforcement Division alleges that instead of standing in the way of Accelera's fraud, Anton & Chia facilitated it.
Accelera Innovations Inc.,Premier Holding Corp., and CannaVEST Corp. have been charged with fraud by the SEC. The Enforcement Division is alleging that certain conduct by Anton & Chia in connection with the audits was fraudulent, charging the firm with violations of Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act.
Anton & Chia's co-owners Gregory A. Wahl and Georgia Chung as well as former partner Michael Deutchman and former audit manager Tommy Shek are being charged along with the firm for their roles in the audits and/or interim reviews. The case will be scheduled for a public hearing before an administrative law judge, who will prepare an initial decision stating what, if any, remedial actions are appropriate.
"Auditors are crucial gatekeepers whose careful oversight of financial statements helps ensure that public companies provide accurate information to investors," said Stephanie Avakian, Co-Director of the SEC's Enforcement Division.
Steven Peikin, Co-Director of the SEC's Enforcement Division, added, "As alleged in the order, Anton & Chia and its accountants left investors with false assurances that financial information for three microcap companies had been properly audited or reviewed. They had the opportunity to stop multiple frauds in their tracks but failed to do so."
Anton & Chia partner Richard J. Koch and former partner Rahuldev Gandhi settled SEC charges for their roles in the audits and interim reviews. They each agreed to pay $15,000 penalties and be suspended from appearing and practicing before the SEC as an accountant, which includes not participating in the financial reporting or audits of public companies. Gandhi is permitted to apply for possible reinstatement after three years and Koch can apply for possible reinstatement after two years.
The charges announced today are the product of multiple SEC investigations. The investigations were conducted by Ariella O. Guardi, Christopher H. White, Pesach Glaser, Leslie Kazon, Bennett Ellenbogen, James Addison, Jennifer T. Calabrese, and Christopher Conte, and were supervised by Charles J. Kerstetter, Michael Paley, Rhoda Chang, and Victoria A. Levin.
The Enforcement Division's litigation will be conducted by Alyssa A. Qualls, Steven C. Seeger, David J. VanHavermaat, Leslie Kazon, Ariella O. Guardi, and John E. Birkenheier.
A new rule will allow the Department of Homeland Security to gather social media information for immigrants, including "social media handles, aliases, associated identifiable information, and search results." While this might seem like a normal update to the vetting process for incoming visitors or visa applications, the rule would reportedly also apply to people who have already obtained a green card or completed the naturalization process.
Update Your Status
Buzzfeed first reported on the new rule, which was published in the Federal Register last week, and will go into effect October 18. DHS at that point will expand the categories of information it collects under its Alien File, Index, and National File Tracking System of Records to include "social media handles, aliases, associated identifiable information, and search results." And there are concerns as to the privacy implications of the new rule as well as its efficacy.
"We see this as part of a larger process of high-tech surveillance of immigrants and more and more people being subjected to social media screening," Adam Schwartz, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation told BuzzFeed News. "There's a growing trend at the Department of Homeland Security to be snooping on the social media of immigrants and foreigners and we think it's an invasion of privacy and deters freedom of speech."
Buzzfeed also reports that an Office of Inspector General report published in February found DHS pilot programs for using social media to screen applicants for immigration benefits "lack criteria for measuring performance to ensure they meet their objectives."
Like This Page
In May, the Trump administration authorized a new questionnaire for U.S. visa applicants that requests social media handles going back five years. So while we may know what information immigration officials want and how they will access it, how that information will be used in making immigration decisions remains to be seen.
We cover some strange and stupid crimes here on Legally Weird, so it's always nice to have an opportunity to look back on the strangest and the stupidest. And the year-end gives us just that opportunity.
So here are five of the dumbest crimes and criminals we've written about this year, for your reading pleasure.
The first rule about doing crime is to avoid police detection. And it's pretty hard to avoid detection if you're the one texting the cops offering to sell them crystal meth. The 37th rule of doing crime, coincidentally, is don't exchange phone numbers with the police officer that arrested you, just to avoid texting him offering to sell him crystal meth years later.
We all get excited when we're expecting. Not all of us build a binary, color powder-filled explosive target that we fire a bullet into to reveal the gender of our coming children. We also don't all call the cops to confess to exploding said target without a permit, either.
Do we need to revisit rule number one? Doing "Whip-its" in a hospital parking lot with a gun in the car is certainly not avoiding police detection. But the real dumb part of this crime is inhaling nitrous oxide in the first place.
The cops are on social media. Don't put your crimes on social media. First rule of doing crime, people. And yes, capturing a baby gator, blowing smoke into its face, feeding it beer, and drinking beers off its tail is a crime.
If I asked where two people who shot themselves and faked a home invasion in order to sue their property manager were from, your first guess would be Florida, right? And if I asked who undercut their claim of having $7,000 stolen from a safe by saying the pair don't have "two pennies to rub together," your first guess would be one of their dads, right:? Good guesses, both.
Over the last decade, there has been mounting concern for the safety of teachers and students in the American public school system. This is particularly true of urban high schools, where students must walk through a metal detector before entering the building. School violence has become epidemic, and educational researchers have looked long and hard for a solution to the problem.
School administrators and elected officials bear the responsibility of keeping students safe during school hours, and a number of districts have implemented violence prevention programs. School security has become a top priority, and while improved security measures may have contributed to a decline in school related deaths, it has not been without significant changes in the school environment.
The added security has effected the traditional school environment by disrupting the chain of command within public institutions. The presence of school security guards appears to have a negative impact on the overall school climate. The presence of security guards disrupts traditional roles within the schools, and teachers report feeling at odds with security personnel. Increased security tends to fragment the school environment, and teachers report feeling a false sense of security. The secured environment is an indication of how students are expected to behave.
Under these conditions, it is not surprising to learn that students also report pervasive feelings of fear and do not feel secure despite the added presence of security personnel on school grounds. For these students, school is a mere extension of the violent communities in which they live.
Studies consistently report lower academic achievement in these neighborhoods. Children growing up in urban neighborhoods have a much higher incidence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Most researchers believe this to be the direct result of living in stressed communities plagued with street crime and violence.
Despite the severe implications of this realization, there is virtually no research on how pervasive fear affects the academic performance of urban adolescents. Previous research has found that people who suffer from acute stress process information differently (Sapolsky, 1996; McNally, 1995; Metcalfe & Jacobs, 1996). Individuals who feel threatened by their environment are acutely aware of their surroundings and have a heightened sensitivity to visual cues. As a result, they tend to hyper-focus on potential sources of threat, and shift into a different cognitive gear.
Individuals under stress not only store information differently, but their ability to retrieve information is also largely dependent upon emotional states (Metcalfe & Jacobs, 1996; Sapolsky, 1996; Perry, et al, 1996). Interestingly enough, information learned in song, rhyme, or rap is more easily retrieved in a state of high arousal. If this is in fact true, then popular culture may affect adolescents considerably more than previously believed. In addition to helping us understand the cognitive framework of individuals under stress, this can help us to find alternatives teaching methods to help urban schoolchildren who have not responded to traditional teaching methods.
Research has found the school climate to be a critical factor in reduction of school violence (Walker, 1995; Sabo, 1993). Disruptions in the traditional organization structure places additional stress on the school climate. The effect of school violence on teacher relationships is not known. In response to the public outcry for action, school boards implemented violence prevention programs and zero tolerance policies long before there was a chance to evaluate the severity and prevalence of the problem. The literature tends to focus on classroom management and violence prevention programs (Ascher, 1994; Walker, 1995).
Literature on school violence tends to focus on statistics and incident reports that do not provide an adequate understanding of school related violence. The research on school violence fails to address the importance of the organizational culture and the various components that are critical to effective schools. It is not surprising that students are unable to learn in this environment.
Teachers have become fearful of their students, and students fear each other. The presence of school security will certainly affect the organizational balance of American public schools, and sensitizes all members of the school environment to the roles they are expected to play. Many teachers feel a social responsibility and commitment to their schools, and feel they have a direct impact on the livelihood of their student body.
Together, the urban public school and the community it serves are a constant reminder of the poor living conditions and social reality of urban America. Students understand what is expected of them, and teachers are sensitized to conduct which reinforces their experience. Since urban communities have many different sources of stress, it is important to examine how school policies contribute to the learning environment in public schools.
All you need to know about this Frisky Penguin is that there's a lot more beneath the surface, and you will never know me from a few random tweets or a random pic here and there.
If I want your opinion, I'll ask. If I respect you you'll know.
If you think I was angry before I went into the hospital? You should see me now!
Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic Photo Ark
South Georgian King Penguin
A pair of South Georgia king penguins, Aptenodytes patagonicus patagonicus, show off their brilliant plumage. King penguins have four layers of feathers and huddle together for warmth.
Macaroni Penguin
The macaroni penguin, Eudyptes chrysolophus, gets its name from its trademark yellow and black crest, which resembles a style of hat from 18th-century England.
Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic Photo Ark
Little Blue Penguin
Two baby little blue penguins, Eudyptula minor, sport brown fuzzy feathers. The nocturnal species nests on land, often near human settlements.
Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic Photo Ark
King Penguin
The king penguin, Aptenodytes patagonicus, is an excellent diver, going as deep as a thousand feet in search of prey.
Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic Photo Ark
African Penguin
Also known as the jackass or black-footed penguin, the African penguin (pictured at the Bramble Park Zoo) live in large colonies along Africa's southwestern coast, from Namibia to South Africa.
Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic Photo Ark
Chinstrap Penguin
Five chinstrap penguins, Pygoscelis antarctica, gather at the Newport Aquarium. Named for the distinctive black band under their chins, chinstraps are the most abundant Antarctic penguin, breeding in huge colonies on the continent and islands in the South Atlantic.
Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic Photo Ark
Fiordland Crested Penguin
Considered endangered in New Zealand, the Fiordland crested penguin (pictured at the Taronga Zoo) is often preyed upon by introduced predators, such as the stoat.
Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic Photo Ark
Little Blue Penguin
A little blue penguin seems to pose at SPCA Bird Wing, a bird rehab center in Auckland, New Zealand.
Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic Photo Ark
Southern Rockhopper Penguin
Rockhoppers are found bounding—rather than waddling, as most other penguins do—among the craggy, windswept shorelines of the islands north of Antarctica, from Chile to New Zealand.
Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic Photo Ark
Humboldt Penguin
Found off Peru and Chile, this species has been steadily declining and is now considered vulnerable to extinction by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Extreme weather and shifts in prey seem to be driving the decline.
Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic Photo Ark
Adélie Penguin
An Adélie penguin poses at the Faunia Zoo in Madrid, Spain. Both male and female penguins help rear the young and, without close inspection, the two sexes are nearly indistinguishable.
Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic Photo Ark
Gentoo Penguin
The long-tailed gentoo penguin, Pygoscelis papua, is most easily distinguished by the white, bonnet-like marking on its head.
Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic Photo Ark
With their charismatic nature, signature tuxedo look, and unique mating rituals, penguins are among Earth's most beloved creatures.
The 18 species differ greatly in size, from the four-foot-tall emperor penguins, regal birds native to the rugged coastlines of Antarctica, to the little blue penguin of southern Australia and New Zealand, which grow to just 13 inches tall. (See "On World Penguin Day, Could There Be a More Adorable Bird?")
Many penguins thrive in harsh climates, such as the Adélie, which has survived in Antarctica for nearly 45,000 years. Flightless and aquatic, penguins live almost entirely in the Southern Hemipshere, where they chase after small prey with expert diving and swimming skills.
Penguins are known for their remarkable relationship habits—for instance, the birds are largely monogamous despite spending most the year apart. During mating season, males will seek out the same female every year, despite the crowds of hundreds or even thousands of other birds that live in their colony.
Unfortunately, some penguins have fallen victim to the effects of climate change. Antarctic researchers believe that climate change will reduce their nesting habitat and supply of food, particularly krill.
Warming seas and rising regional air temperatures have already caused penguin populations to plunge by as much as 50 percent in the past three decades in the West Antarctic Peninsula and Scotia Sea.
Related Stories
For January 20, Penguin Awareness Day (not to be confused with World Penguin Day on April 25), we put together our best photographs of these gorgeous, comical birds.
Pentagon Suggests Countering Devastating Cyberattacks With Nuclear Arms
The Nuclear Posture Review was written at the Pentagon and is being reviewed by the White House.Charles Dharapak/Associated Press
WASHINGTON — A newly drafted United States nuclear strategy that has been sent to President Trump for approval would permit the use of nuclear weapons to respond to a wide range of devastating but non-nuclear attacks on American infrastructure, including what current and former government officials described as the most crippling kind of cyberattacks.
For decades, American presidents have threatened "first use" of nuclear weapons against enemies in only very narrow and limited circumstances, such as in response to the use of biological weapons against the United States. But the new document is the first to expand that to include attempts to destroy wide-reaching infrastructure, like a country's power grid or communications, that would be most vulnerable to cyberweapons.
The draft document, called the Nuclear Posture Review, was written at the Pentagon and is being reviewed by the White House. Its final release is expected in the coming weeks and represents a new look at the United States' nuclear strategy. The draft was first published last week by HuffPost.
It called the strategic picture facing the United States quite bleak, citing not only Russian and Chinese nuclear advances but advances made by North Korea and, potentially, Iran.
"We must look reality in the eye and see the world as it is, not as we wish it to be," the draft document said. The Trump administration's new initiative, it continued, "realigns our nuclear policy with a realistic assessment of the threats we face today and the uncertainties regarding the future security environment."
The Pentagon declined to comment on the draft assessment because Mr. Trump has not yet approved it. The White House also declined to comment.
But three current and former senior government officials said large cyberattacks against the United States and its interests would be included in the kinds of foreign aggression that could justify a nuclear response — though they stressed there would be other, more conventional options for retaliation. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the proposed policy.
Gary Samore, who was a top nuclear adviser to President Barack Obama, said much of the draft strategy "repeats the essential elements of Obama declaratory policy word for word" — including its declaration that the United States would "only consider the use of nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the United States or its allies and partners."
But the biggest difference lies in new wording about what constitutes "extreme circumstances."
In the Trump administration's draft, those "circumstances could include significant non-nuclear strategic attacks." It said that could include "attacks on the U.S., allied, or partner civilian population or infrastructure, and attacks on U.S. or allied nuclear forces, their command and control, or warning and attack assessment capabilities."
The draft does not explicitly say that a crippling cyberattack against the United States would be among the extreme circumstances. But experts called a cyberattack one of the most efficient ways to paralyze systems like the power grid, cellphone networks and the backbone of the internet without using nuclear weapons.
"In 2001, we struggled with how to establish deterrence for terrorism because terrorists don't have populations or territory to hold at risk. Cyber poses a similar quandary," said Kori Schake, a senior National Security Council and State Department official during President George W. Bush's administration, who is now the deputy director general of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
"So if cyber can cause physical malfunction of major infrastructure resulting in deaths," Ms. Schake said, the Pentagon has now found a way "to establish a deterrent dynamic."
The draft review also cites "particular concern" about "expanding threats in space and cyberspace" to the command-and-control systems of the American nuclear arsenal that the review identifies as a "legacy of the Cold War." It was the latest warning in a growing chorus that the nuclear response networks could themselves be disabled or fed false data in a cyberattack.
So far, all of the United States' leading adversaries — including Russia, China, North Korea and Iran — have stopped well short of the kind of cyberattacks that could prompt a larger, and more violent response.
The Russians have placed malware called "Black Energy" in American utility systems, but never tried to cause a major blackout. They have sent cable-cutting submarines along the path of undersea fiber optic lines that connect the continents, but not cut them. North Korea has attacked companies like Sony, and used cyberweapons to cause chaos in the British health care system, but never directly taken on the United States.
Still, the document recognizes that American, Russian and Chinese strategies have all been updated in recent years to reflect the reality that any conflict would begin with a lightning strike on space and communications systems. During the Obama administration, for example, a secret program, code-named "Nitro Zeus," called for a blinding cyberattack on Iran in the event negotiations over its nuclear program failed and Washington found itself going to war with Tehran.
There are other differences with the Obama administration policy.
The draft strategy embraces the American production of a new generation of small, low-yield nuclear weapons — some of which were under development during the Obama administration. Some experts warn that such smaller weapons can blur the distinction between nuclear and non-nuclear weapons, and, as a result, be more tempting to use.
And it states outright that Russia is testing its first autonomous nuclear torpedo, one that American officials believe would be guided largely by artificial intelligence to strike the United States even if communications with Moscow were terminated. It was Washington's first public acknowledgment of such an undersea weapon, a prototype of which was first envisioned in the 1960s by Andrei Sakharov, the physicist who later ranked among the Soviet Union's most famous dissidents.
The torpedo's development was detected by the Obama administration and has been widely discussed in defense circles, but never publicly referred to by the Pentagon as a significant future threat.
Mr. Trump has rarely publicly criticized President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia for Russia's aggressions around the world. But the Pentagon document describes Moscow's actions as so destabilizing that the United States may be forced to reverse Mr. Obama's commitment to reduce the role and size of the American nuclear arsenal.
Russia is adopting "military strategies and capabilities that rely on nuclear escalation for their success," Defense Secretary Jim Mattis wrote in an introduction to the report. "These developments, coupled with Russia's invasion of Crimea and nuclear threats against our allies, mark Moscow's unabashed return to Great Power competition."
In most cases, the Trump administration plan would simply move forward nuclear weapons that Mr. Obama had endorsed, such as a new generation of nuclear cruise missiles — low-flying weapons with stubby wings that, when dropped from a bomber, hug the ground to avoid enemy radars and air defenses.
But the strategy envisions other new nuclear weapons. The draft policy calls for "the rapid development" of a cruise missile to be fired from submarines. Mr. Obama had retired that class. It also calls for the development of a low-yield warhead for ballistic missiles fired from submarines.
It is relatively easy for presidents to change the country's declaratory policy on the use of nuclear arms and quite difficult for them to reshape its nuclear arsenal, which takes not only vast sums of money but many years and sometimes decades of planning and implementation.
The price tag for a 30-year makeover of the United States' nuclear arsenal was put last year at $1.2 trillion. Analysts said the expanded Trump administration plan would push the bill much higher, noting that firm estimates will have to wait until the proposed federal budget for the 2019 fiscal year is made public.
"Almost everything about this radical new policy will blur the line between nuclear and conventional," said Andrew C. Weber, an assistant defense secretary during the Obama administration who directed an interagency panel that oversaw the country's nuclear arsenal.
If adopted, he added, the new policy "will make nuclear war a lot more likely."
One of the document's edgiest conclusions involves the existence of a deadly new class of Russian nuclear torpedo — a cigar-shaped underwater missile meant to be fired from a submarine.
Torpedoes tipped with nuclear arms were common during the Cold War, with the Soviet Union pioneering the weapons and developing them most vigorously. One Soviet model had a range of miles and a large warhead.
Mr. Sakharov, a famous Russian dissident in the 1970s and 1980s, envisioned a giant torpedo able to travel several hundred miles and incur heavy casualties with a warhead thousands of times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. Though his vision was rejected at the time, the new review discloses that Moscow has resurrected a weapon along the same lines.
The document calls it "a new intercontinental, nuclear-armed undersea autonomous torpedo." In a diagram labeled "New Nuclear Delivery Vehicles over the Past Decade," it identifies the torpedo by its code name, Status-6.
News stories have reported the possible existence of such a weapon since at least 2015, but the document's reference appears to be the first time the federal government has confirmed its existence. The long-range torpedo with a monster warhead is apparently meant to shower coastal regions with deadly radioactivity, leaving cities uninhabitable.
My day job is seeing things people can't or choose not to see. In other words, I'm a psychiatrist. I don't say it to be boastful, but rather to illustrate my burden. While I take great pride in my service to my patients, I'm also forever incapable of turning off my clinical skills when I leave work. I notice speech patterns, eye contact, facial movements, tone, alertness, processing speed, linearity of thought, affect, mood, memory, insight, judgment, and risk of harm to self or others, in every single human interaction I witness or experience. I also can't help but recognize when people employ maladaptive coping skills and defense mechanisms in response to life's challenges.
Needless to say, I have concerns about Donald Trump.
In my spare time, I use my thinking cap to process the latent psychosocial content in the politics of the day on Twitter. Ironically and somewhat tragically, I often de-stress best by doing a mental status exam on my news feed. I immerse myself in the painful public policy process to process the private pain disclosed in my office, but somehow it's always felt like leisure instead of work. That was until Donald Trump announced he was running for president. Suddenly I find myself confronted with public behavioral disturbances that more closely resemble the DSM than they do politics as usual. I've written extensively about the political aspects of Trump's many disqualifying attributes, from his peddling in the privileged politics of personal insult, to his disingenuous minority outreach, and his exploitation of the poorly informed; but now it's time that we discuss his mental health.
I'm not here to formally diagnose him from afar, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't beginning to feel somewhat derelict watching an emergency unfold without meaningful, life-saving intervention taking place. I make my living treating acute and sub-acute mental and behavioral health emergencies, which means people don't end up on my radar unless they've comported themselves in ways that are generally determined to be unstable and unsafe. In some cases it's florid psychosis, dementia, or mania, and in others it's severe depression and suicidality, or unbridled poly substance abuse or personality disorder. No matter the etiology, my duty is to determine if the mental status changes in question represent a lack of stability and/or portend a heightened risk to individual or public safety.
When I hear and see Donald Trump, I hear and see an emergency.
Psychiatrists are granted the authority to commit patients involuntarily to treatment based on three guiding principles: harm to self, harm to others, and evidence of significant mental deterioration to the extent that the individual is unable to practice self care in his/her own best interest. While the former risks can be ascertained by explicit threats made by the patient, the latter evidence is often gleaned from self-reported or eyewitness accounts of the patient's concerning behaviors. To date, I have personally witnessed Donald Trump make threats against not just individuals but entire sovereign nations, and heard eyewitness accounts from individuals who report victimization at his hands. It is widely held public knowledge that he rarely sleeps, and spends the wee hours of the morning in fits of rage out of proportion to his perceived slights. It is widely known that he hasn't supplied comprehensive medical records, has a family history of Alzheimer's in a first degree relative, and that his children have yet to allow him alone with anyone but themselves. It is widely known that he has yet to demonstrate sufficient knowledge of any of the major issues facing America or the world, and that he immediately becomes defensive and accusatory when confronted with the expectation that he should if he wants to be president. As Hillary Clinton so aptly stated, he's easily baited and temperamentally unfit. If Donald Trump were a patient in the ER, I would be expected to intervene.
And yet, we as a nation stand paralyzed and in awe of a slow moving train wreck in progress. I can't help but be reminded of the numerous families that remain apprehensive and reluctant to agree to proactive measures, even in the face of the crisis that has befallen them. Despite the reality that no one's gotten any sleep or peace, and their loved one is on a rampage destined for destruction, they hesitate to act and often inadvertently prolong everyone's suffering in the process. They contain the dysfunction for as long as they can, rather than face hard truths about their new reality. As such, these families are a microcosm of America in the aftermath of Election 2016.
How do we reconcile the fact that 52 percent of voters over age 45 selected Donald Trump at a time when the aging Baby Boomer cohort will become more heavily reliant upon the Social Securityand Medicare that the Republican party is determined to privatize and destroy? Why aren't they able to practice self care in their own best interest, and why are we as a nation standing idly by while they endanger us all? Lady Liberty is ailing, yet we allow her to languish. At what point do we take the keys away from people who continually drive us into a ditch in the interest of individual and public safety? It is no coincidence that half of Fox News viewers are 68 or older, or that they've fallen prey to fake newspropagated in service of the Republican party, as evidenced by their disastrous decision on November 8. As a nation, we've allowed our parents and grandparents to be exploited by political forces that use their votes to inflict harm upon the social safety net, and the general welfare. We continue to allow ourselves to be lead astray by deferring to the political will of people who lack sufficient insight and judgment to choose progress over propaganda.
Yet again, our country and the world have been entrusted to a man who hasn't demonstrated the mental and behavioral stability to keep himself, let alone the rest of us safe. After eight years of steady, even-handed leadership from a president often labeled too "professorial," "calm," and "aloof," it's a wonder we haven't yet drawn a connection between his stability and our prosperity.
It's also a wonder that people who claimed to be suffering from severe anxiety just voluntarily committed themselves to strife at the hands of Instability-in-Chief, and we aren't yet treating it like the emergency it is.
