Ongoing Investigations

Tag: american politics

  • Ethics Week 7: The New Travel Ban

    So. The travel ban.

    It’s not strictly digital humanities, but it’s definitely ethics and it’s definitely relevant to Carleton. So that’s my blog post for today: what’s happening, what does it mean, and how is it going to impact us?

    What’s happening?

    Basically, the Trump administration is expanding their limitations on visas for immigration into the United States. This policy was announced at the end of January, and it’s taking effect on February 21st, 2020. Spot check: that’s tomorrow.

    Up until now, there have been restrictions on immigration from Iran, Libya, North Korea, Venezuela, Yemen, Somalia and Syria. Citizens from those countries can’t obtain visas at all. With the new policy, there will also be limitations on Myanmar/Burma, Sudan, Nigeria, Tanzania, Kyrgyzstan, and Eritrea. Citizens from these countries aren’t barred from visiting the States entirely, but they mostly won’t be able to get permanent residency.

    What does it mean?

    The Trump administration is calling this a national security measure, though the effectiveness of the policy is in doubt. Critics are calling it out for racist policies — specifically, the appearance of four African nations on the list of newly-restricted countries after many remarks by President Trump denigrating African countries has caused a backlash.

    Legally, there are a variety of visas the United States offers. They are divided into two main categories: Nonimmigrant Visas, and Immigrant Visas. This new update to the travel ban focuses primarily on immigrant visas, which include sponsorship by a spouse or family member, sponsorship by an employer, diversity visas, and returning residents.

    The updated ban bars citizens from the affected countries (Myanmar/Burma, Sudan, Nigeria, Tanzania, Kyrgyzstan and Eritrea) from the diversity visa lottery, and only citizens from Tanzania and Sudan will be able to gain visas that would let them immigrate to the US. There are other specific restrictions of varying sorts on different countries related to which types of visas can be obtained (there are 34 varieties of nonimmigrant visa that I found, and 30 varieties which might apply to citizens of the affected countries).

    What does this mean for Carleton?

    This is going to hit Carleton specifically with regards to international students and faculty. Those who already have visas aren’t going to have them revoked, and student visas are among the nonimmigrant visas which aren’t going to be restricted, but students might think twice about applying to United States schools if they’re unlikely to be able to gain long-term residency in the country.

    Additionally, faculty visas seem to be a bit of a gray area. Employer-sponsored visas fall into the immigrant visa category, which the travel ban is restricting, but there is a non-immigrant visa called “Professor, scholar, teacher (exchange visitor)”, which is a J-visa. J-visas are specifically for individuals who are part of exchange visitor programs, which is unlikely to help with long-term employees of the college.

    The takeaway is… I’m not sure, honestly. The political science department hosts an off-campus studies program travelling to Thailand and Myanmar. International students may still be able to get visas, but it will likely be difficult and may lower the desire to attend Carleton. And employees of the college currently on an employer-sponsored visa shouldn’t have theirs revoked, but it’s unclear whether they’ll be able to renew it once it expires.

    Sources:

  • Ethics Week 5: Let’s Talk About Iowa

    My post this week was going to be about how people use libraries and the information they contain.

    Then Iowa happened.

    So this week, we’re summarizing the technological debacle that was Monday’s Iowa caucus. What happened? Did anyone expect it? How did this come about?

    A quick overview

    In brief: in the Iowa caucus, people go to their precinct and vote for the candidate they want. The precinct then reports the totals in, so they can be counted up and people can figure out who got the most votes. In the past, the totals have been reported over the phone lines, but this year, the Iowa Democratic Party decided to commission a phone app from the tech company Shadow, Inc. to report the results. The Nevada Democratic Party also helped pay for the app’s development, hoping to use it for their upcoming caucus on February 22nd (this plan has since been scrapped).

    Some important things to note, first and foremost: this project was commissioned by the Iowa Democratic Party, not the Democratic National Committee; the app was for reporting caucus results, not for voting electronically; and, while there were security concerns, the primary issues were with the app’s performance.

    The app, whose name I can’t find (various sources call it ‘the Shadow app’, ‘the app’, or ‘the app from Shadow, Inc.’), was still in development this past weekend — meaning, days before the primary. In the tech world, this might not be too unusual: it’s pretty standard for games and apps to release patches in the early days after their release date. But for voting technology, that’s not an acceptable practice.

    So what’s the problem?

    Security was the obvious concern with the app, and has been since at least mid-January, when NPR put out a piece on the app’s development. It’s hard to get a general impression of the app’s security features, because the chairman of the Iowa State Party, Troy Price, declined to give any details on tests it might have undergone, companies that might have checked it, or issues they might have found. His goal was to avoid leaking information that might entice hackers, but many cybersecurity experts say that “security through obscurity” isn’t actually an effective countermeasure against hacking.

    That said, while the app’s poor performance definitely raised security concerns (it was meant to be used on the personal devices of the volunteers running the caucus), the main issue was just that: poor performance. The app was apparently hard to find, difficult to download, and glitchy.

    While the Iowa Democratic Party claimed it would have backup procedures in place, they weren’t prepared for the volume of failures. When caucus organizers gave up on the app and decided to report results the old-fashioned way, over the phone lines, the sheer volume of calls blocked most people from getting through, which contributed to the delay in results.

    So what now?

    Well, Nevada’s not going to be using the app. Iowa’s results have been checked against a paper trail, which was pretty foreseeable given the scrutiny this incident has caused.

    There are some upsides: Iowa was considering implementing smartphone voting for this caucus, but nixed that idea a while ago. The question of election security is also front and central, and hopefully people will be more cautious of tech’s place in the democratic process going forward.

    Also, just in case you were worried about what this incident means for the company behind the app, Shadow, Inc. released a tweet stating that they “regret the delay… and the uncertainty it caused” and that “[they] will apply the lessons learned in the future”.

    And as always, XKCD has a comic for this.

    Sources

    “Iowa’s caucus app was a disaster waiting to happen”, Zach Whittaker, TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/04/iowa-caucus-app-disaster/

    “Despite Election Security Fears, Iowa Caucuses Will Use New Smartphone App”, Kate Payne and Miles Parks, NPR. https://www.npr.org/2020/01/14/795906732/despite-election-security-fears-iowa-caucuses-will-use-new-smartphone-app

    “The Shoestring App Developer Behind the Iowa Caucus Debacle”, Emily Glazer, Deepa Seetharaman, and Alexa Corse, The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-shoestring-app-developer-behind-the-iowa-caucus-debacle-11580904037

    “What We Know About The App That Delayed Iowa’s Caucus Results”, Avie Schneider, NPR. https://www.npr.org/2020/02/04/802583844/what-we-know-about-the-app-that-delayed-iowas-caucus-results

    Shadow, Inc.’s Twitter Statement: https://twitter.com/ShadowIncHQ/status/1224773796307050497

    “Voting Software”, Randall Munroe, XKCD. https://xkcd.com/2030/

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