Masha Gessen’s Article about the Difficulties of Publishing Children’s Books in Russia — Reminds Us How Valuable Our First and Fourth Amendments Are — and also — How Eager Some of Our Own Citizens and Bureaucrats Are to Intrude on both

18 February 2016 (link added, 28 September 2017)

The commie mentality is back in Russia, it seems

As evidence of this, Masha Gessen just published an illuminating article about the difficulty of publishing children’s books in the Russian Federation.

I recommend her essay because, not living there ourselves, we immediately appreciate the dark Orwellian and Catch-22 humor in what she wrote.

That said, read the excerpts that follow with America’s own paranoias in mind

Might some of us not approve of some of what the Russians have done?

See, for example, Sam Cook's overview of American (online) free speech complexities, here.

Consider, for example, protecting children from sex education. Or take the paragraph about privatizing bureaucracy for profit:

You would think that publishing a book for 6-year-olds wouldn’t entail political risks, even in a country where political risks abound. You would be wrong.

A law that went into effect in 2010 is called the law “On Protecting Children from Information Harmful to Their Health and Development.” Publishers and editors generally refer to it simply as the “law for the protection of children from information.”

Children under the age of 6 could read about violence only if it was not described in detail, the author’s sympathies were clearly with the victim, and good triumphed over evil.

Children between the ages of 12 and 16 were allowed to encounter the mention of violence and drugs as long as they were condemned and not described. Sex could be mentioned but not described, but at least the law did not require it to be condemned. Little Red Riding Hood, with its graphic references would still be too much.

In other words, Russian citizens under the age of 18 were to be protected from the details of sex and drugs and any information at all about serious illness and violent death, including suicide.

As soon as the law was passed, self-styled enforcers swung into action. In Yekaterinburg, a group of parents formed a committee to demand that a number of books be removed from stores and their publishers and authors prosecuted.

The enforcers of obscure rules, many of them left over from Soviet times, started flexing their muscles. The rules, for example, state that books for young children can be set only in san serif fonts, books for elementary school children must be set in large type, and boldface, italics and condensed fonts are banned for children of all ages.

Each book must be issued a certificate by the Institute of Health and Hygiene, where a small army of unsmiling women examine the typefaces, kerning, and leading.

There is a way out: A commercial agency will issue the certificate, but it will cost the publisher four times as much and will be valid for only one year (whereupon, if the publisher wants to continue selling the title, the certificate needs to be renewed).

In addition, the commercial certificate, while it is accepted by printers and bookstores, is of questionable legality: The law is very specific on the process of “certification by an accredited certification organ” but says nothing about the accreditation procedure itself.

This places the publishers where the government wants them: outside the law.

The moral? — Freedom erodes quickly

Compromising the principles of free speech (First Amendment) and freedom from searches and seizures that lack probable cause (Fourth Amendment) are under concerted attack even in the United States.

There is always some concerned citizen, or some paranoid security bureaucrat, who wants to build boxes for us to operate in.

Perhaps the most personally relatable thing (for Americans) in Gessen’s article is her reference to Autocratic Government’s wish for us not to know (for sure) what we can and cannot do. Autocracies do this because it allows “them” to screw with “us” at will.

The United States’ over-heavy national security apparatus seems to share some aspects of this Russian trait.

Consider, for example, the FBI’s current attempt to bash Apple into providing the Bureau with a universally useable security bypass that can access the informational content of private users’ iPhones. The FBI wants to use the key to access data on dead San Bernardino terrorist Syed Farook’s iPhone.

Tim Cook, at Apple, wrote a public letter to Apple customers outlining the corporation’s objection to the Bureau’s understandable, but arguably overbroad request:

[T]he U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone.

Specifically, the FBI wants us to make a new version of the iPhone operating system, circumventing several important security features, and install it on an iPhone recovered during the investigation. In the wrong hands, this software — which does not exist today — would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone’s physical possession.

Building a version of iOS that bypasses security in this way would undeniably create a backdoor. And while the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, there is no way to guarantee such control.

Rather than asking for legislative action through Congress, the FBI is proposing an unprecedented use of the All Writs Act of 1789 to justify an expansion of its authority.

The government would have us remove security features and add new capabilities to the operating system, allowing a passcode to be input electronically. This would make it easier to unlock an iPhone by “brute force,” trying thousands or millions of combinations with the speed of a modern computer.

The implications of the government’s demands are chilling. If the government can use the All Writs Act to make it easier to unlock your iPhone, it would have the power to reach into anyone’s device to capture their data. The government could extend this breach of privacy and demand that Apple build surveillance software to intercept your messages, access your health records or financial data, track your location, or even access your phone’s microphone or camera without your knowledge.

Note

You can also read the pertinent paragraphs of the Apple letter in Jon Russell’s TechCrunch account of the story, here. I provide the TechCrunch link in the event that the Apple letter disappears from Apple.com.

Apple’s dilemma is typical of our technical age. Government wants access to everything, so as to protect us. And at least some citizens would like to protect their privacy against government’s unceasing snooping.

Apple has a legitimate concern, I imagine, in that it would be difficult to design an operating system that would permit bypassing encryption on only one phone. If one could do such a thing, then the FBI could legitimately ask for it under probable cause circumstances, which they certainly have in this case.

On the other hand, if Apple is correct that fulfilling the FBI request would allow the Bureau access to anyone’s iPhone, then privacy problems arise.

Under those circumstances, I (perhaps among the few) would voluntarily trade more terror risk for retained privacy. Therefore, I think Tim Cook is correct. If the FBI wants to do this, they should get Congress to authorize it. Afterward, we can appeal the constitutionality of whatever unworkable, or excessively intrusive, law that this almost always autocrat-enhancing body generates.

Perhaps we are not as distant from Russian autocracy as we think.

PeteFree.com

Masha Gessen’s Article about the Difficulties of Publishing Children’s Books in Russia — Reminds Us How Valuable Our First and Fourth Amendments Are — and also — How Eager Some of Our Own Citizens and Bureaucrats Are to Intrude on both