Denialists' Deck of Cards
choofnagle | May 25, 2007
It's time to go on the offensive. Call your opponent a ninny!
One of the best examples of this comes from--you guessed it--our friend Jack Abramoff. One of Jack Abramoff's teammembers, Dennis Stephens, once proposed to attack Gary Ruskin of Commercial Alert because Ruskin's group was criticizing "Channel One:"
From: Dennis Stephens
To: Chad Cowan
Cc: Abramoff, Jack
"Have you guys ever looked into Gary Ruskin, a Nader protege who runs Commercial Alert (which is attacking Channel One, our client)...The guy is a weasel...Someone should consider doing an in depth piece on Ruskin and his Nader…
choofnagle | May 25, 2007
At this point, the denialist must propose "self regulation" to deal with the problem that doesn't exist. Self-regulation is a set of rules that an industry generates to govern itself. The cool thing about self regulation is that it cannot be enforced, and once the non-existent problem blows over, the denialist can simply scrap the rules!
For instance, in the runup to passage of bank privacy legislation in the late 1990s, data brokers created an organization called the "Individual Reference Services Group" that proposed rules for selling personal information. After the legislation passed,…
choofnagle | May 24, 2007
Okay, everyone, practice your sneer, because it's time for the 10 of Diamonds: Bureaucrats! Everyone hates "bureaucrats," whether they ever met one or not. So, the industry denialist often plays the bureaucrat card in order to denigrate proposals that would vest decisionmaking with those fat cats in Washington (Cato has over 3,000 hits for "bureaucrats").
choofnagle | May 23, 2007
An industry lobbyist can buy time by becoming petulant. After throwing a temper tantrum, the next step is to play the 10 of Hearts. Play this card by saying that your industry is misunderstood. It is a sophisticated, nuanced entity that needs more understanding before any proposals advance.
choofnagle | May 23, 2007
The denialist is in serious trouble at this point. Whatever problem that didn't exist has continued to capture regulatory attention. It is time to devote serious resources to fighting the proposal being debated.
The denalist should have a fake consumer group or academic group at this point. It will pay off with fake research and fake experts that provide a patina of legitimacy to the denialist's points.
One of my favorite examples of the bogus research group was presented by Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren, on Georgetown University's "Credit Research Center:" "I make only a simple…
choofnagle | May 22, 2007
At this point, the consumer advocate has proceeded far along the path of moving some type of proposal. It's time to sacrifice a high-value card--the joker. The denialist throws a temper tantrum. This may sound distasteful, but it actually works.
There is a certain tone that an industry lobbyist can generate when truly pressed. It sounds porcine, and if you hear it, you'll know that the Joker has been played.
choofnagle | May 21, 2007
The 9 of Spades is different than previous confusion tactics. Remember that most legislative staffers handle many different issues, and often are not expert in any one of them. This tactic leverages incomplete information to promote confusion.
Here, the denialist simply does not offer information, or allows others to hold misconceptions if it benefits the denialist. In technology and consumer protection, this usually occurs where an industry can fix a problem, but does not want to, and so its advocates don't mention their capabilities or practices.
choofnagle | May 19, 2007
You should all be familiar with this tactic--poisoning the well. You know the trick: provide derogatory information about your opponent to undermine her arguments.
And here's a great example: In defending Channel One, Jack Abramoff's lobbyist Dennis Stephens proposed that Peter Ferrara pen an oped that "hammered the 'anti-technology' crowd:" "When I talked with Peter this morning, he was planning to draft a press release hammering the "anti technology" crowd per Jeff B's request and will also be distributing Grovers nice piece on Channel One. A nice balance, a positive piece on the good guys…
choofnagle | May 19, 2007Two more tactics for those of you who want to be an industry lobbyist, or for those who want to recognize their two-bit tactics.
With nit picking, the denialist finds one problem with a fact asserted or the proposal for reform, and then harps on the problem incessantly.
A variation on the 8 of Clubs (red herring) is "muddying the waters." This is where the denialist brings forth any information, whether specious or not, to confuse the issues.
choofnagle | May 18, 2007"Duh!" is one of my favorite lobbyist tactics. I've seen it used many times.
With "Duh!," the denalist deliberately misunderstands, misinterprets, or plays dumb when presented with others' questions or proposals. One is sometimes amazed at how smart an industry lobbyist can be until they're asked a question they don't want to answer!
In the Hewlett-Packard pretexting scandal, this exchange between Rep. Eshoo and Fred Adler, a company investigator, is an excellent "duh" moment:
ESHOO: ...If you say no, then I'll accept your answer.
ADLER: OK.
ESHOO: You said no?
ADLER: No in regard…
choofnagle | May 18, 2007Okay industry lobbyists in training, you've started just making up arguments to confuse everyone. That's a method of confusing issues. Now you should start confusing individuals' roles in the policy process. It's time to start playing government officials off each other.
If you don't like what the federal government is doing, say that it is a state issue.
Of course, if the states are active on the issue, you should argue that it is a federal issue, and that state action will create a "patchwork" of conflicting requirements. The "patchwork" argument is also an effective tool to broaden…
choofnagle | May 17, 2007Now, the debate starts to get fun. This group of Denialists' cards are all about spreading confusion. The more that one muddies the waters, the harder it is for anyone to do anything.
And so, the place to start is with the Red Herring.
The "red herring" argument is a frequently-employed and efficacious tool to confuse everyone. A red herring is a specious argument--one that sounds cogent, but isn't really responsive to the issue at hand. Just make something up that sounds good.
My favorite example of this is in the financial privacy sector. A few years ago, when California was trying…
choofnagle | May 16, 2007
This pair should sound familiar. Industry lobbyists love the idea of individual responsibility. And so they will argue that individuals should be responsible for addressing a problem (paired with the 4 of Clubs or the 6 of Clubs). But in other contexts, accountability goes out the window. They need total immunity from lawsuits.
Many technology companies have sought and obtained immunity for failure of anti-terrorism technologies. "'The unintended consequence of even a single failure in a well-intended system or device we might provide could result in significant legal exposure that…
choofnagle | May 15, 2007
The trick to using the "Jobs" card is to totally over inflate the size of your industry and the number of employees it has. It's quite a compelling argument, and sometimes it's true. But I've seen many cases where a regulation creates new jobs and economic development.
A great recent example of the 7 of Hearts was occurred in the debate surrounding adoption of the federal Do-Not-Call Telemarketing Registry. The telemarketing industry claimed that they employed 6 million Americans, and had $668 billion in sales. But the economic census showed that telemarketing only accounted for 500,000…
choofnagle | May 14, 2007Many cards in the Denialists' Deck allow one to make a bogus argument no matter the situation.
So, with the Six of Spades and the Seven of Clubs, you use one card if your industry is highly regulated, and the other if it isn't.
choofnagle | May 10, 2007Competition is magic. But this argument must be amplified! How? Easy, appeal to "innovation."
The denalist will argue that the intervention will stifle innovation. Typical 6 of Hearts arguments include "this is just a tool," and "you're banning technology."
Next is the 6 of Diamonds, a somewhat contradictory but still widely-used argument--that technology "can't be regulated." Of course, any technology can (just look at standard setting organizations), but this exercise isn't about being cogent, it's about stopping whatever intervention the denialist opposes.
choofnagle | May 9, 2007
A denialist does not soft pedal competition. It is a religious term. It is frequently employed, because any market can be described as competitive, regardless of the facts or the myriad factors that practically limit choice.
Competition solves all problems. Period. If competition doesn't solve the problem at issue, then it isn't a problem, or people really like the problem (4 of Spades, 5 of Hearts).
Because competition is magic, there are no problems to solve. And those that may exist will be solved, eventually. The denialist will say: "give competition a chance" or "sometimes a…
choofnagle | May 8, 2007Allow me to jump ahead in the Denialists' Deck of Cards, in light of Verizon's claim that giving customer records to the National Security Agency is protected by the First Amendment:
"Communicating facts to the government is protected petitioning activity," says the response, even when the communication of those facts would normally be illegal or would violate a company's owner promises to its customers. Verizon argues that, if the EFF and other groups have concerns about customer call records, the only proper remedy "is to impose restrictions on the government, not on the speaker's right to…
choofnagle | May 8, 2007
Delay always benefits the denalist. At this point, any number of delay tactics can be employed to wait and see whether consumer education will solve the problem that doesn't exist.
choofnagle | May 8, 2007The spectacle manifests itself as an enormous positivity, out of reach and beyond dispute. All it says is: "Everything that appears is good; whatever is good will appear." - Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle
You've argued that consumer education can set individuals free. Now argue that because something exists, people must want it. After all, the market is perfect, and even if it produces a seemly odious product, it's not really a problem. On the other hand, if consumers start making choices that the denialist doesn't like, the denialist will say that individuals don't really know…