Categories
First Amendment rights privacy regulation

The War Against Anonymity

Mexico, privacy, cell phone

The Mexican government wants to stop people from using cellphones anonymously.

Every mobile phone number in Mexico — some 127 million — must now be biometrically tied to the owner’s identity. Cellphone owners must register their numbers by June 30 or lose signal.

The ID card to which numbers must be linked will in turn be linked, via QR code, to a national registry of biometrically verified records.

Who needs anonymity? Just criminals?

Criminals do use throwaway “burner” phones when committing crimes. They won’t necessarily be stymied now. Would they hesitate to steal other people’s cell phones, treat them as burners, then throw them away?

Maybe victims would act fast enough to get lost and stolen phones deactivated before thieves could use them, maybe not. Criminals may have several ways to circumvent the new law. 

We must remember, after all, that criminals are willing to commit crimes.

The safety of journalists, dissidents hiding from other governments, targets of abusers and stalkers, and anyone with good reason to keep his identity separate from his phone will be endangered by Mexico’s new mandate.

Some may say that Mexico’s ID database is inaccessible by all but authorized, benign, unbribable government personnel. One problem with this fairy tale is that not long ago, a cyberhacker used AI to steal 195 million taxpayer and other records from the Mexican government.

Not the first time hackers have grabbed “secure” data. And what has happened again and again and again and again, can happen again.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Categories
Thought

Bertrand Russell

Common sense, do what it will, cannot avoid being surprised occasionally. The object of science is to spare it this emotion, and create mental habits which shall be in such close accord with the habits of the world as to secure that nothing shall be unexpected.

Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Matter (1927), used as an epigraph by A.E. Van Vogt to The World of Null-A (1945; 1948; 1953), author cited as “B.R.”
Categories
Today

Adam Smith

On March 9, 1776, Scottish philosopher Adam Smith published An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, which became the first widely accepted landmark work in the field of economics.

The Wealth of Nations (as it is usually cited) was not the first general treatise on the subject, however; that designation almost certainly belongs to banker Richard Cantillon’s Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en Général, cited by Smith in his more famous book. It is also worth noting that Étienne Bonnot de Condillac’s systematic treatise, Le Commerce et le Gouvernement, also saw publication in 1776.

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Update

Blight Flight

Jacinda Adern, former prime minister of New Zealand, no longer lives in New Zealand. She and her family have been traveling. First to America, to teach, and then to Australia. Why?

Some say it’s a long story:

In 2017, Ardern became the world’s youngest-serving female leader, aged 37, and went on to make history as the second woman to give birth while holding elected office.

Over the next six years, her leadership was defined by a series of national and international crises including the Christchurch attack and Covid pandemic. At a time when major western powers were lurching to the right, Ardern’s brand of politics made her a global icon of the left.

Towards the end of her time in office, Ardern’s legacy at home became more complicated, and she faced criticism over her government’s failure to make headway on its promises to fix the housing crisis and meaningfully reduce emissions. As the pandemic wore on, a small but vocal fringe of anti-vaccine and anti-mandate groups emerged, leading to a violent protest on parliament’s lawns and threatening rhetoric directed at Ardern.

Eva Corlett, The Guardian (February 25, 2026).

But it’s not just Adern exiting Kiwi country. Many have moved westward to Australia. Why the flight? The BBC implicitly blames an inexplicably bad economy, in “Jacinda Ardern’s move to Australia renews spotlight on New Zealand’s brain drain problem” (March 2, 2026). That “brain drain” characterization seems, in relation to Adern, perhaps a bit comic.

The New York Times continues in this vein of taking note of a significant trend without considering the obvious: Ms. Adern doesn’t feel welcome in her home country any more because she messed it up so astoundingly. She abused power; acted like a tyrant.

But the Times does mention that Ms. Adern has had a book published — a common reward for stellar service against the interests of the people — called (we kid you not) A Different Kind of Power.

Ms. Adern has appeared in these pages before, usually in relation to COVID. She was a strident covidian.

Categories
Thought

Joe Sobran

As I always say, the U.S. Constitution poses no serious threat to our form of government. But it could. It could be a deadly threat indeed to the tyranny that now passes for self-government. If We the People show a little of the pluck of our ancestors, we can recover not only the Constitution but our liberty.

Joe Sobran, “Victory in 2004!” (September 9, 2003).

Categories
Today

Slavery/Anti-Slavery

On March 8, 1775, “African Slavery In America,” often described as the first known essay advocating the abolition of slavery in America, was published anonymously in the Pennsylvania Journal and the Weekly Advertiser. Thomas Paine is believed to be the essay’s author.

The first anti-slavery society was formed in Philadelphia weeks after publication, and Paine was a founding member.

Exactly 120 years earlier, a court in Northampton County of the Virginia Colony ruled that John Casor, then working as an indentured servant to Robert Palmer, must be returned to Anthony Johnson as Johnson’s “lawful” slave for life. Johnson himself was one of the original indentured servants brought to Jamestown, had completed his indenture to become a “free Negro,” and became the first African landowner in the colony. The case marked the first person of African descent to be legally recognized as a lifelong slave in England’s North American colonies. In summary: the first official chattel slave in English-speaking North America was of African descent and was owned by a man also of African descent.

Categories
Update

The Predatory Congress Protected

The perverts, rapists and bullies in Congress showed their true colors this week — and the colors? Neither “red” nor “blue”: instead, full spectrum. That is, very bipartisan:

In a controversial move, 357 members of Congress, including 175 Republicans and 182 Democrats, voted to refer a resolution that would have forced the release of records related to sexual harassment claims against lawmakers to a committee, effectively killing the measure. The resolution, proposed by Rep. Nancy Mace, R-SC, aimed to direct the House Committee on Ethics to publicly release all records of investigations into members of Congress for sexual harassment, unwelcome sexual advances, and sexual assault. Critics argue this vote is an attempt to cover up misconduct and protect predators in Congress.

“Congress Votes to Keep Sexual Harassment Settlement Records Secret,” National Today (March 6, 2026).

Thomas Massie (R-Tenn.) insists that everyone who voted to “refer” the resolution did so knowing that their voted effectively killed it. He listed the names of the few good guys on X:

Representative Mace was not amused by the weak showing:

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Mar. 4, 2026) — Today, Congresswoman Nancy Mace (R-SC) issued the following statement after both Republicans and Democrats voted to kill her resolution which would have forced the public release of Congressional sexual harassment records.

“Both parties colluded today to protect predators. They voted to keep sexual harassment records buried, and they did it together.

“Every Member who voted against this resolution voted to protect the cover-up instead of the victims.

“This is the establishment in action, always protecting itself, never the victims. Ask yourself why. Remember their names when they ask for your vote.

We don’t want to hear a single Member who voted this resolution down utter the name of a single Epstein victim. You don’t get to bury sexual harassment records in Congress and then pretend you care about victims. Pick a side.

“The victims deserved better. The American people deserved better. Every Member who voted to keep these records buried voted to protect power over people. We won’t let it go and neither should you.”

Office of Congresswoman Nancy Mace (March 4, 2026).

Paul Jacob has written about the protected creeps in Congress, for this is not a new issue by any means.

Categories
Thought

John Cowper Powys

Once liberated from ambition, a person has nothing to lose by being taken for a fool.

‪John Cowper Powys, A Philosophy of Solitude (1933)‬, p. 57.

Categories
Today

The First American Bicameral

On March 7, 1644, Massachusetts established the first two-chamber legislature in the American colonies.

One hundred thirty years later, to the day, British forces closed the port of Boston to all commerce.

Categories
crime and punishment ideological culture Internet controversy

Run Rampant

conspiracy

We live in a great Age of Conspiracy Theories.

I’m not quite on board.

As the Internet grew up, with it came all the condemnations of conspiracy theories, run rampant. The Internet, we were told, was problematic in that not only was information readier at hand than ever before, but so was it easier to share and nurture all these goofy conspiracy theories.

You know: JFK was killed by someone other than Oswald, or also by others, in addition to Oswald. 

Or . . . UFOs are real, and the government is covering it up.

Or the Rothschilds are behind it all.

You know the kind of thing I’m talking about. 

Ick.

Yet: The government now admits that UFOs are real, implying that it was, ahem, lying in the past.

Further: As we uncover the grotesquerie in the Epstein Files, we learn that he proudly served Rothschild banking interests!

So let’s not get started on the JFK assassination.

One reason conspiracy theories are prominent is that we are uncovering so many conspiracies. Actual conspiracies. Like the Wuhan lab business, or the suppression of information about the mRNA “vaccines,” or . . . must we go on and on? 

I don’t like conspiracy theories. I said I’m not on board. We need to work towards a world not built for conspiracies. This means whittling down government, with its current vast powers to take and to “give.” And siphon off wealth at each step. While sidestepping transparency.

Ask yourself: Does our political-legal environment actually discourage conspiracies?

That question almost answers itself. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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