Categories
Politics & government

[2787] The Bukit Aman fire

When I first learned Bukit Aman was on fire, I had a shot of adrenaline rush. I sincerely thought, finally, an uprising. Najib has been pushing everybody to the brink and I felt something drastic was bound to happen. In the air, with everything else failing, I could almost smell a revolution.

John F. Kennedy said “those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” We Malaysians are close to that point.

This is a government that has preposterously threatened various individuals of attempting to overthrow the government only for wanting the truth out of the 1MDB corruption scandal. This is also a government which thinks democratic mandate gives them a free-reign on everything and that they are free from criminal charges. With all the outrageous hyperboles and disregard for rules, we might as well have a self-fulling prophecy.

And I think I am not the only one in this country frustrated at the current turns of event. Looking around my social media network and talking to friends, I feel a lot of people would be willing to go down to the streets to register their outrage beyond typing angrily on the internet. Bersih is planning a protest next month. I dare say it will be big beyond anything I have ever seen before in Malaysia and I have been to all of Bersih protests and they were a huge collection of Malaysians regardless of the lying government media and other paid hacks lacking moral fiber said.

Alas, how disappointing it was when I found out the fire was probably just an accident. Conspiracy theories are making rounds but at the moment, I think it is safe to say it was not caused by an angry mob who had had enough. It could be as innocent as short circuit and probably not nearly as close as men and women singing ”do you hear the people sing”¦”

But the fire does symbolize something bigger than a mere short-circuit fire burning various investigation papers.

It symbolizes the failures of our institutions. Our institutions are playing the old sleepy dogs that would just look on as the robbers entered the vault. The dogs lifted up their head, and went back to sleep.

Sadly, these institutions were created to serve us the public. To protect us. But they are now protecting the groups abusing us.

So let it burn. Let the police headquarters burn to the ground. They, their farcical crime index and their transformation labs are no use to us.

Categories
Humor Politics & government WDYT

[2786] Help the government find Jho Low!

Folks, the PAC wants to question Jho Low but the Ministry of Finance cannot find him. Let us help our beloved government find him!

Where is Jho Low?

  • Hong Kong (6%, 2 Votes)
  • Cayman Islands (9%, 3 Votes)
  • Riyadh (0%, 0 Votes)
  • Somewhere in the Caspian Sea (0%, 0 Votes)
  • London (6%, 2 Votes)
  • Menara Dato' Onn (0%, 0 Votes)
  • Perdana Putra (0%, 0 Votes)
  • Ministry of Finance HQ in Putrajaya (6%, 2 Votes)
  • Pekan (9%, 3 Votes)
  • Seri Perdana (9%, 3 Votes)
  • Brisbane with Sirul Azhar (6%, 2 Votes)
  • I have never taken 1MDB funds for personal gain (25%, 8 Votes)
  • Kota Belud (6%, 2 Votes)
  • New York (9%, 3 Votes)
  • Other places (6%, 2 Votes)

Total Voters: 32

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Categories
Politics & government

[2785] 1MDB, The Edge, two wrongs, institutional failure and the transfer of responsibility

It took some time to push the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal into the open. Now that it is firmly in the spotlight, I see some are troubled by a case of two wrongs making a right.

What are the two wrongs? One is the 1MDB scandal and another is how some info was obtained.

Here is some background for the uninitiated. A huge chunk of stuff we know about the scandal originates from stolen information. This is not to say everything we know came from stolen material. A large portion comes from 1MDB’s own sloppily published annual accounts that by itself raise questions. It is these questions that lead us here today.

A former employee of PetroSaudi International (PSI was 1MDB’s partner in a failed and suspicious deal) stole vast amount of data from his employer, which eventually ended up in the hands of several third parties. One of them is the Malaysian financial newspaper The Edge. Because the newspaper bought the info (or rather, tricked the former PSI employee into giving them the data) and used it to expose 1MDB, critics of the newspaper raised a red flag and said, “hey, hang on. two wrongs do not make a right.”

They are saying The Edge should not have obtained the data. And now that it has, The Edge is in the wrong. They claim there is a logical moral conundrum here.

I am firmly in the opinion there is no moral conundrum at all. If there is, then it exists only in isolation with incredible disregard for the context we live in: that context is the environment of pervasive institutional failure.

The institutions that were responsible to keep our government honest failed to do their job. The watchmen were not just sleeping, they ignored the signs, the warnings and the whistleblowers. They failed not because they were merely incompetent. They chose to fail. Truly, when the preliminary questions were asked several years ago before the leaks happened, the government simply dismissed the concerns with a nonchalant hand wave. When they could no longer ignore the scandal, they went for the whistleblowers.

The Edge did the investigation into 1MDB. What did the police do in the meantime? Why was it possible for The Edge to get to the documents but not the police? The authority lacked the necessary curiosity to do their job. Why?

I strongly feel the official investigation only began because of the leaks. Without the leak, the reasonably question to ask is, would there have been any investigation? I believe the answer is no. It is also arguable that the investigation started only out of political pressure and the need to be seen to do something. It is not out of their sense of responsibility. Those institutions failed and responsibility be damned.

The 1MDB scandal is not the first time our institutions are seen as biased in enforcing the law without fear or favor. How many times have the police been accused of selective prosecutions? There are enough instances to create widespread trust deficit in our society. In the 1MDB case, so far, the accused who are in power are being protected.

The check and balance mechanism is not working properly and the controversy (a minor appendix to the 1MDB scandal) surrounding The Edge demonstrates exactly the institutional failure.

Running parallel to the institutional failure is the function of the fourth estate, which is to keep the public informed. The creation of an informed citizenry is a form of check and balance. The function of the press is not merely trying to sell papers. Because some in the press have done their job, the press is possibly our last hope to right any wrong. And that what The Edge, the Sarawak Report and others have done: their responsibility.

The institutional failure of our government means the authority has transferred fully their responsibility to The Edge (and others as well).

Here is another related factor to consider. If the police had done their job and obtained the info either through polite request or by force, would the supposed dilemma arise?

Now, take the institutional failure and the implicit transfer of responsibility from the authority to the press. Once that is done, is there any more dilemma?

Categories
Books & printed materials History & heritage Science & technology

[2784] Romancing philosophy

Traditions and dogmas rub one another down to a minimum in such centers of varied intercourse; where there are a thousand faiths we are apt to become sceptical of them all. Probably the traders were the first sceptics; they had seen too much to believe too much; and the general disposition of merchants to classify all men as either fools or knaves inclined them to question every creed. Gradually, too, they were developing science; mathematics grew with the increasing complexity of exchange, astronomy with the increasing audacity of navigation. The growth of wealth brought the leisure and security which are the prerequisite of research and speculation; men now asked the stars not only for guidance on the seas but as well for an answer to the riddles of the universe; the first Greek philosophers were astronomers. “Proud of their achievements,” says Aristotle, “men pushed farther afield after the Persian wars; they took all knowledge for their province, and sought ever wider studies.” Men grew bold enough to attempt natural explanations of processes and events before attributed to supernatural agencies and powers; magic and ritual slowly gave way to science and control; and philosophy began. [Will Durant. The Story of Philosophy. 1926]

Categories
Politics & government

[2783] Public officials do not deserve privacy

Privacy very is important to me. It is important not just in the practical sense but also as a matter of principle with the context that I am a libertarian. Even in the internet age when doxing and hacking are almost normal and easily done, surveillance and privacy breaches are still a concern.

Now, the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal involves a lot of violations of individual privacy. Details of individuals’ bank accounts have been leaked out. Yet, I do not take it as violation in the libertarian sense.

Does this mean I am applying double standard in this case?

No.

So, why does the privacy for these individuals weigh less than that of others’?

These individuals — public official and their close relatives — do not deserve the typical privacy protection granted to the common men and women because they are in power. They are public officials. The higher up they are on the echelon of power, the less protection they deserve and the greater scrutiny the they should come under.

If they were accorded the same protection, it would create great opportunity for corruption and makes it harder to detect actual cases of corruption. For a clean government to exist, power must always survive skepticism. And so too for men and women holding public offices.

In fact, it should be the practice for public officials to declare their income and wealth to the public in the first place to reduce the opportunity for corruption. That very practice refuses them the right to privacy as far as income and wealth are concerned.

But in Malaysia, we do not have that declaration system and the public cannot access existing incomplete, inadequate asset declaration records. And this doubly means that these individuals of power do not deserve privacy that they are demanding.

Truly, leaks targeting 1MDB and others in power are now the only means for the public to ascertain the various allegations of corruption. These allegations are no more about sensationalist tabloid gossips. They are a matter of state administration and corruption.

Worse, sadly, the leaks have more credibility than most Malaysian institutions. I hold that it is these leaks that are forcing our institutions to investigate 1MDB finally. Without the leaks, these institutions compromised as they are, would have done nothing. The leakers, whoever they are, are providing public service.

This leads to another point. Our institutions suffer from trust deficit. Years of abuse by the government have robbed our institutions from the neutrality and the credibility they need to do their job.

And on top that, there is also conflict of interest just by the way our institutions are designed. In the case of 1MDB specifically, the attorney general who is leading the investigation suffers from conflict of interest. The AG office is both the public prosecutor and the legal counsel for the government. Since the AG office itself is under the Prime Minister’s Department, I fear the political reality means the AG will act more of a legal counsel to the government than as a reliable public prosecutor.

If the lack of very public asset declaration practice, trust deficit and conflict of interest has yet to convince you why individuals of power (public officials and their close relatives) do not deserve the typical privacy protection, then perhaps the awkwardness of them using the privacy laws to prosecute the leakers and prevent the public from finding out if there is indeed has been any wrongdoing.

At the very least, there is a very strong suspicion of abuse in 1MDB, a government-linked company. Any individual benefiting from the abuse deserves no privacy protection. They, instead of the leakers, should face the full force of the law instead.