ACLU Says No Deal on an Unconstitutional FISA Compromise (6/5/2008)

“As news continues to trickle down from Capitol Hill regarding a deal on surveillance legislation, the American Civil Liberties Union once again voiced its fervent opposition to any attempt to undercut the Fourth Amendment or allow the telecommunications companies to gain blanket immunity for illegal spying. Before the Memorial Day recess the ranking member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Senator Christopher Bond (R-MO) floated what he claims is a compromise on surveillance legislation that will allow for sham court proceedings, virtually guaranteeing immunity to telecommunications companies. The ACLU strongly opposes this unconstitutional proposal.”

Wow, it’s been an eventful afternoon. Nothing of lasting impact, but a strange collection of improbable events.

I spent the day at Savvis’ office in Herndon. This is my first time traveling since I fell ill late last year, so it’s a bit of an event for me. But the office, hotel, my meetings, etc, went as expected. As the day came to a close today I kept working, trying to get some bandwidth data downloaded onto my laptop before leaving, and running late a little too much for my comfort zone. I’m the sort of traveler that needs a large time buffer before a flight leaves to feel comfortable. But honestly, I told myself, I had plenty of time if everything went ok. No need to worry.

So I drove to Dulles airport, stopped by the overcrowded gas station to refuel my rental car, and rearranged some things in my luggage to lighten the load. Then as I drove toward the National rental lot I got rear-ended. I was turning right onto the street where all the rental companies are located, which those of you familiar with Dulles might recall is a wide turn ramp with a yield sign. I yielded to an oncoming police car. The vehicle behind me didn’t yield at all…

The police asked me if I was ok. Apparently the hit caused my vehicle to jump off the ground. I was driving a Jeep Liberty SUV and the other guy was in a little Honda; he ran under my rear bumper and popped my rear tires off the ground. I was fine, I told them, just a bit shaken up. So we pull into a lot and fill out reports. The police wrote “At Fault” on the other guy’s report which kind of made me feel good. I asked him if he was ok and shook his hand, and he apologized. Everybody was ok, so I was content.

National rental was good about it. Nobody spoke English as a first language, so explaining the accident was lengthy. But they were all nice about it, so again I was content. But of course by the time all the reports and claims were done I was pushing it to make my flight in time. So as I rode the shuttle to the terminals I double-checked my Blackberry to make sure I knew when my flight was. And lo and behold, it is delayed. Kind of fortunate, I guess. Usually not so fortunate, but this time I was glad.

I checked in and checked my main bag. I went through the premium security line (I’m AA Platinum, yay) and found myself behind 30 or 40 pre-teens wearing bright green t-shirts. I don’t know what this is all about, but they’re clearly not going to make things go quickly. So the attendant grabs me and sends me down to another line where things go more smoothly. Until, that is, I’m reassembling myself on the far side of the metal detectors (you know, putting on my belt and shoes, dropping phones back into pockets, etc), at which point my awesome Booq backpack that I’ve been carrying every day for about 8 years breaks. Not terribly, mind you, but the zipper pulled away from the seam leaving a hole in the top. I’ve been looking for a bag that might replace this one for the past 5 years, bought and tried a few (which my wife teases me about on a regular basis) none of which met my standards. So now I don’t know what to do. Maybe I’ll just have to replace it, or maybe I can sew the zipper back on without making the bag look like a franken-bag. (Or maybe that would be cool; I can’t decide)

Anyways, to finish off my journey I take the weird tram thing that Dulles uses to shuttle passengers between terminals over to terminal D where my flight is. There are like 50 people with me. But as we emerge a short woman picks me out of the crowd and asks me if I’m on the flight to St. Louis and if my name is Schliesser. I don’t know how she knew me, but it was freaky. She tells me that the Admirals Club is closing early so she made arrangements for me at the British Airways club. Pretty nice, I guess. But I’m still freaked out by her picking me out like that.

So now I’m sitting in the British Airways lounge and I have to say that it’s nice. A bit more roomy than the Admirals Club here at Dulles. And they have an open bar. (Like the Admiral’s Club at Heathrow; just walk up and pour your own drink.) If I start traveling back and forth to Oxford again I’m going to have to look into membership here.

But for now I’m drinking a whiskey and Coke, eating Walker’s shortbread, letting my nerves settle down, and rambling on to you while I wait for my flight. Maybe next time I’ll have something more meaningful to say.

This would seem to explain the reason Bear Stearns was bailed out, and why the survival of these sort of institutions is so critical in our economy these days… It’s sick and twisted, in my opinion. I think I’d rather stick to buying lottery tickets than financial derivatives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_default_swap

“Warren Buffett famously described derivatives bought speculatively as “financial weapons of mass destruction.” In Berkshire Hathaway’s annual report to shareholders in 2002, he said “Unless derivatives contracts are collateralized or guaranteed, their ultimate value also depends on the creditworthiness of the counterparties to them. In the meantime, though, before a contract is settled, the counterparties record profits and losses -often huge in amount- in their current earnings statements without so much as a penny changing hands. The range of derivatives contracts is limited only by the imagination of man (or sometimes, so it seems, madmen).” The same report, however, also states that he uses derivatives to hedge, and that some of Berkshire Hathaway’s subsidiaries have sold and currently sell derivatives with notional amounts in the tens of billions of dollars.

“The market for credit derivatives is now so large, in many instances the amount of credit derivatives outstanding for an individual name are vastly greater than the bonds outstanding. For instance, company X may have $1 billion of outstanding debt and $10 billion of CDS contracts outstanding. If such a company were to default, and recovery is 40 cents on the dollar, then the loss to investors holding the bonds would be $600 million. However the loss to credit default swap sellers would be $6 billion. In addition to spreading risk, credit derivatives, in this case, also amplify it considerably.”