To Stem Iraqi Violence, U.S. Aims to Create Jobs
[Paul A.] Brinkley, [deputy undersecretary of defense], who returned last night from a trip to Iraq with his team, said thousands of Iraqis lost their jobs and the ability to support their families when CPA [Coalition Provisional Authority] projections dimmed. Unrest followed the absence of work.
"After three years of unemployment in excess of 50 percent, there are no people in the world that wouldn't be undergoing violence and militias," Brinkley said. "That's human nature. And I think we have to do whatever we have to do to alleviate that problem if we are going to create stability."
So far, members of the task force have visited 26 factories in some of the worst areas of the country, traveling to Baghdad, Fallujah, Mosul, Najaf and Ramadi to inspect facilities that make cement, tile, rubber and textiles. They have identified 10 factories -- their "hot list" of facilities in both Sunni and Shiite areas -- that they think could be open and employing more than 11,000 Iraqis within the next month.
I want Jon Udell's new job -- well not exactly, but something like it. How can I make more of my time available for my philanthropic ambitions?
The vision Jon is hoping to clarify in the next month is a perfect example of how I think it's supposed to work. Pick some things you want to do for the world and find someone who will pay you to do them. I suspect there's a prerequisite of having demonstrated a level of integrity and competence in order to get someone to finance it. But that's what I'm looking for in my own life.
The interests Jon outlines are very close to my heart: how technology can support education, transparency in government, and clever business-based environmental initiatives. Although it wasn't on his immediate list, I know from following his work over the years that he's also interested in identity and information responsibility, which has my most recent interest.
Jon, while you're aiming to bring some of this excellent geeky tech to non-alpha-geeks, I'd like to add information responsibility. I think it's already there, but I'm just hoping to get it included explicitly. My recent experience with our local school system choosing biometrics to solve long lunch lines has made me acutely aware that there's knowledge in the heads of alpha-geeks that's just not widely understood. I think this intersects with your interests in identity, security, transparency in government, and your recent bits about translucent databases. And it's also gotta be interesting that this presents itself in a public school.
I think the whole information technology industry needs to take a close look at what responsibilities an organization assumes upon collecting any personal information or data. This is especially important in the case of biometrics because they're so personal -- digital encoding of our unique physical traits. Movies often make dramatic use of the numbered tattoos used by the Nazis to identify prisoners at Auschwitz. We have many cultural references to the dangers of being marked -- I'm thinking of The Scarlet Letter as a prime example from American literature. It surprises me that more people aren't alarmed by potential for abuse of biometrics.
But the issue is more broad than biometrics. I really want to get to a point where I hold the keys to all of my personal information and no one gets access to that information without my explicit permission. It's quite likely that I'll never get there personally -- my information is already out there and probably can't be taken back. But for my son there may still be hope of providing him more privacy and personal security than I will enjoy. I imagine being able to keep encrypted copies of that information accessible through a service on the 'Net. Anyone who needs my information can have their systems request information from my system. I could choose to grant limited access to specific bits of information. I might choose to delegate some authority to my doctor to disclose some information, providing I trust my doctor and his technology systems.
I know I'm an alpha-geek. Many people wouldn't want to be bothered with the granting or limited delegation of permissions. But it seems profoundly important that people be able to choose the degree to which they control their personal information. Right now, it's all in the hands of unrelated businesses and the government and a person has to go to extreme lengths to have any real anonymity or privacy in our networked world.