National Security Notes: Steve Jobs’ FBI File

Last week, news came out with details of the FBI files used in a background check of Steve Jobs.  Apparently, the government can release these files after the subject dies, with the exception of certain redacted text sections preserving the identity of some of the other subjects within the investigation or participating officers.

Notes on the Released File

Wired posted an article with the entire file in PDF format here.  The PDF is 191 pages long.  Analytical types may find this very interesting.

The Letter that authorized the investigation is included in PDF Page 160.  This letter was from the Director of the FBI and is dated February 21, 1991.  According to the FBI website, the Director in 1991 was William S. Sessions.  This was almost 21 years ago. 

President Bush I was considering appointing Jobs to a position on the President’s Export Council.  The PEC website (here) has the following stated purpose:

The President's Export Council serves as the principal national advisory committee on international trade. The Council advises the President of government policies and programs that affect U.S. trade performance; promotes export expansion; and provides a forum for discussing and resolving trade-related problems among the business, industrial, agricultural, labor, and government sectors.

The first paragraph of the FBI Director's letter is as follows:

Bureau has been requested to conduct a Level III background investigation of Mr. Jobs for a presidential appointment to the President's Export council, which does not require Senate confirmation.

This seems straightforward enough.  The second and third paragraphs describe some of the procedural requirements of the investigating officers:

Field Offices are reminded that the investigative status of a background investigation (BI), all deadlines and the position for which the appointee is being considered shall not be disclosed to any interviewees. If during the course of· the investigation, interviewees provide the nature of the position, that information is not to be further divulged outside the FBI.  Inquiries by interviewees concerning the nature of the position are to be handled as set forth in MIOG, Part II, Section 17-5 (5). Appointees making inquiries regarding the status of their BI are to be referred to the client agency.

Conduct investigation in accordance with guidelines set forth in airtel to all offices dated 11/29/90, captioned "Changes in Special Inquiry (SPIN) Background Investigations (.BI) and Procedures".

The fourth paragraph is completely redacted.

Here is the fifth paragraph:

Appointee is described as born on February 24, 1955 in San Francisco; California; has SSAN 549-94-3295; resides at [redacted text] and is currently president of NEXT, Incorporated, Redwood City, California.

The next paragraph gets more into the meat of what they are looking for, which includes some instructions for those performing the various interviews.

Appointee will be required to make decisions concerning policy and personnel matters; therefore, during interviews, determine if appointee has expressed or manifested any bias or prejudice against any individual or group based upon sex, race, color, religion, national origin, handicap or age.  Determine if appointee lives within his financial means. Also determine if appointee uses illegal drugs or abuses alcohol.

Note that this section does not set forth requirements of the candidate, but sets forth the scope of inquiry, probably to be used in the process of assessing the candidate.  If we break out the categories in an orderly fashion, we can determine the scope as follows:

·         Find any evidence of bias or prejudice for the following categories:

o   Sex

o   Race

o   Color

o   Religion

o   National origin

o   Handicap

o   Age

·         Find out if the candidate lives within his financial means.

·         Find out if the candidate uses illegal drugs.

·         Find out if the candidate abuses alcohol.

The next paragraph seems to imply the purpose of these subjects:

Investigation should receive immediate attention and receiving offices should telephonically advise FBIRQ of any derogatory information developed, confirm by teletype, and record pertinent interviews relating to derogatory information on FD-302s.

So, the officers are looking for derogatory information, and they fully intend to record such derogatory information on form FD-302S.

The next paragraph states that the officers need to collect all information available on the candidate for the previous ten years.  If there are any gaps in the findings, the gaps must be investigated.

Receiving offices note that the last ten years of appointee's life must be accounted for and, if during the course of investigation unexplained or unaccounted for gaps are identified, leads should be directed to the field office covering appointee's current employment to have appointee contacted and to have his activities during specific periods identified.

There is a section in the letter entitled “Leads.”  The first paragraph of this section is as follows:

San Francisco: Immediately interview appointee in accordance with MIOG, Part II, Section 17-5.6 and will report results on an FD-302.  At an absolute minimum, the FD-302 should clearly set forth the appointee's responses to those questions labeled a-m under Section 17-5.6 cited above.  Determine dated and place of birth of daughter, [text redacted] Also determine who her mother is and interview her or set lead.  [2 ½ lines of text redacted].  Obtain comments from Mr. Jobs concerning and past/current drug use and his termination from Apple Computers.

So, the instructions are to look for information concerning Jobs’ illegitimate daughter that he fathered with his girlfriend.  Again, it seems they are looking for scandalous information. 

Sidebar into the FBI Manual of Investigative Operations and Guidelines (MIOG)

Per the instructions from the letter in the section above, I took the time to find FBI MIOG Part II Section 17-5.6 questions a-m.  This particular section was not easy to find, and it was somewhat difficult to get the exact PDF file downloaded.  (It is amazing that the FBI just publishes their playbook online for the entire world to see.)  The section is as follows:

(a) Completeness and accuracy of the SF-86. The majority of the interview should not be spent reviewing the SF-86.  In most cases, it has been reviewed by FBIHQ personnel for completeness.

(b)  Personal and business credit issues, including, but not limited to, repossessions, delinquent student loans, debts placed for collection and bankruptcy. (See Part II, 17-5.8.)

(c) Unpaid tax obligations. To the best of his/her knowledge, is the applicant current on all federal, state and local tax obligations. Has he/she ever made back payment" of any such tax?  This includes, but is not limited to, income taxes, medicare taxes, social security taxes, and unemployment taxes. If tax delinquencies or back payments are identified, determine type and amount (original and current) of tax owed/paid, tax year(s) covered, efforts and/or problems in paying the tax.  Do not conduct any further investigation concerning federal tax delinquencies or back payments--FBIHQ will provide the information directly to the client agency which will consult directly with the IRS if necessary.  For state and local tax delinquencies or back payments, immediately notify FBIHQ.  If instructed to do so by FBIHQ, set forth appropriate leads to field offices to verify the information' provided by the applicant.

(d) Civil suits' as plaintiff or defendant, including divorces. Identify issues litigated.

(e) Any involvement in criminal matters as suspect or subject or any criminal charge, arrest and/or conviction.

(f) Any denials of/employment and/or dismissals, particularly in the Federal sector.  Include reasons.

(g) Any contact with representatives of foreign countries.

(h) Details of professional complaints or any nonjudicial disciplinary action, e.g., bar association grievances, better business complaints, student or military disciplinary proceedings.  Equal Employment Opportunity complaints, etc.

(i) Business/investment circumstances' that could or have involved conflict of interest allegations.

(j) Details of any psychological counseling with psychiatrists, psychologists, other qualified counselors or others.

(k) Any prescription drug or alcohol abuse, illegal drug use, to include marijuana and participation in drug/alcohol counseling/rehabilitation programs, during applicant's entire adult life (since age 18).  Identify all drugs used, when used, duration of usage, amount of drug used, place where drug was used (public or private setting), how the drug was obtained, whether or not applicant has provided drugs to anyone, if applicant has purchased or sold drugs, others having knowledge of applicant's drug use.

(l) Memberships in organizations whose policies restrict membership on the basis of sex, race, color, religion or national origin.  Determine if, in fact, the membership of the organization includes minorities (Presidential appointees, U.S. Bankruptcy, Special Tribunal, and U.S. Magistrate Judges only).  If it is determined that a candidate has been a member of such an organization within the most recent five-year period, determine the candidate's role, for example, as a policy-making officer, in such an organization; determine if any steps have been taken by the candidate to alter official or covert restrictive admissions policies; and ascertain the candidate's personal viewpoint toward such policies.  Any organizations that are determined to have potentially restrictive/discriminatory admissions policies shall be checked in field offices' indices for pertinent references.

(m) Any involvement in any organization which advocates the use of force to overthrow the U.S. Government, or any involvement in the commission of sabotage, espionage or assistance of others in terrorism.

This list is quite thorough.  It is also amazing in some of its implicit political implications.

Back to the Released FBI File on Jobs…

The second paragraph under “Leads” reads as follows:

San Francisco: Insure at least fifteen persons knowledgeable concerning appointee are interviewed.  Check Better Business Bureau concerning any complaints that may have been lodged against him or his companies. Through records and interviews, determine reason for termination from Apple Computers. Obtain details of listed lawsuits through appointee and court records, Determine dispositions and if appointee was ever personally named as a defendant. Contact the United States Attorneys' Offices wherever appointee has lived or worked as an adult to determine if any indication appointee has been involved in a matter handled by the U. S. Attorney’s Office (either criminal or civil, in closed or current files).

So, the officers are to talk to at least 15 people in San Francisco. 

This is the end of the meat of the letter from the Director of the FBI.

Throughout the FBI files, there are a few themes repeated from the several interviews with relatives and associates of Jobs:

·         Jobs’ departure from Apple Computer

·         Jobs’ legal issues with Apple Computer

·         Several people commented on Jobs’ drug use from his college days in the 1960s which included marijuana and LSD.

·         Several questioned Jobs’ honesty.

·         One or more brought into question Jobs’ sense of reality and he being able to distort reality to achieve his goals.

·         Jobs had a daughter out of wedlock.

·         Jobs did not provide for his daughter for several years, but in recent years has become more supportive.

Commentary

For any high position within the government, we are probably better off with a detailed investigation as described in this FBI file.  However, is it prudent that these files are released after the subject is dead?  Some of this information is extremely private and contains commentary from former lovers and former associates who may not have an unbiased view of the subject.  Is this appropriate to release?  The authorization letter from the Director explicitly states that one of the goals is to find derogatory information. 

On the other hand, we do not want our agencies to run amok without some oversight on these matters.  That which is hidden can be abused – especially with such a powerful agency as the FBI.

Perhaps, looking at this from another angle, this may be the price to pay for the ambition in wanting to participate in high positions within the government.  One gets a thorough background check, complete with all the gossip, lies, truth, and everything else including the kitchen sink within the file, with the full knowledge that once one dies, this information can be released to the public.  The trade-off could be seen as the price of admission to play in the government Big Leagues.  The problem with this angle is that many friends, associates and family members will be affected by this information, and perhaps they have no control over the release of this information.

Perhaps the public is now similar to a voyeur with the release of this information.  Are we better off knowing this, or is this information harmful to our souls as in we really do not have a right to know these things from a complete stranger?  Perhaps if this person did indeed assume a position of power and authority within the government, then we may be enlightened toward whether we deem his person trustworthy or not.  But, Jobs apparently did not assume this position, but we still can get our hands on this stuff.  Is this right?  Maybe not.  But, perhaps this is the price we pay to live in a society with some degree of government oversight.  It is an interesting question for political science.

Philosophy Essay: Existentialism, Part Two

This paper is a book review and a synopsis of, “Existentialism for Dummies,” written by Christopher Panza and Gregory Gale.  It is also a partial essay on Existentialism.  The author strongly recommends the aforementioned book.

The book is available at Amazon here.

This is Part Two of a Series.

Part One can be found here.

Part Two

Our unique way of existing in the world

What is the meaning of human existence?  What makes human existence unique?  What is the meaning of existence?  There are things that we may call beings, such as common objects: pencil, stove, sink, car, road, rock, book, etc.  These are objects or beings existing in the world around us.  When we move to the question of existence, the mode of language shifts slightly from “a being” to “being” or “existence.”  It is one thing to be.  It is another thing to question everything – i.e., everything in the universe and in our minds – and ask as Heidegger asked, “Why does all this exist rather than there just being nothing?”  Not only are we asking why do we exist as humans, but why does anything exist at all.  It seems that Heidegger was the first to investigate this aspect of philosophy with seriousness. 

How do we investigate existence?  Science is not the answer, since science only looks at things as objects – from the outside.  A human being is not an object that can be observed from the outside after which one can write a coherent theory on this sample or multiple samples of humans.  Again, man has interiority, or, intentionality, that is unavailable for access by any scientific instrumentation.  Technologists may invent amazing machines to perform brain scans, but they will never be able to understand how you experience a red apple.  This experience is not available to anyone or anything exterior from a person.

Engagement

The human method of existence according to some existentialists, such as Martin Heidegger, involves being engaged with the world.  Humans must exist within a social context and must live life through engagement with projects and goals.  Animals may have goals of survival, but it is not likely they have projects.  The social world and the physical world provide humans with tools and equipment to engage in the world.  Our lives are oriented socially and toward activity through projects, goals, tools, and equipment.

Space

Another aspect of existence is Space.  As expected, this concept is not the scientific sense of the term involving meters, centimeters and square kilometers.  It is the space of engaging with the world within your existential situation.  Where or how are we situated?  How are we acting with reference to our social situation, our goals, or our equipment?  Some concerns are closer to you.  Other concerns are foreign to you.  How far are you away from West Indian cooking recipes?  How close are you to the politics of your local library’s elections for Director of Procurement?  How close are you to your work and your goals?  How close are you to the concerns of your family and friends?   So, the space of our existential situation is a way of describing the connection and intensity with regard to the particulars existing within our situation.

Meaning

Existentialists claim that humans can live without many things; however, humans cannot live without meaning.  Men will give their lives in charging a military position, if they know that their mission or cause has meaning to them.  However, our lives, as we are given, have no inherent meaning; we must create our own.  Creating meaning in our lives is not an easy task since the old systems are no longer able to give us confidence in their efficacy; we must start almost from scratch.  Perhaps we can use pieces of the old systems, but we must create meaning ourselves for ourselves. 

Since we are engaged in goals and projects, we need tools.  The essence of the pursuit of something implies that we will use things available to us as tools or instruments to pursue our values.  Sometimes tools are readily available to us.  At other times, we must search for them. 

Heidegger explains that, in living in this world, it is necessary to come into contact with other beings like ourselves.  We are using tools to pursue our projects.  Some of these tools we create, and other tools are created by others.  In the first years of our lives we are completely dependent upon others for our survival.  As we become more competent, we develop the ability to create our own tools, make more choices, and interact with others in trading one value for another.

However, in our interaction with others, we risk becoming inauthentic if we simply accept the social values and social trends around us.  To go along to get along puts us at risk to pursuing the values of others, possibly to the detriment of our own.  To be authentic, we pursue our values, and we must be honest with ourselves in what we are doing, and not passively accept the values of the social situation we find ourselves in.  Sometimes this is not easy; but, being authentic is always a struggle.  It is especially a struggle if our values are much different from those within our social situation. 

Passion in our lives

Existentialists suggest that we need passion in our lives.  In the pursuit of our values, we must increase our risk, accept the struggles and fights accompanying such pursuits, and engage in life with a large dose of zeal.  We are to be engaged with the people and the things around us.  Our tools to pursue our projects, the people with which we interact in life and our work are all potential objects of our passions.  It is not exactly what you do that concerns existentialists; it is how you do it.  Life is to be worked with, fought with, wrestled with, and engaged.  It is to take your life seriously and to seriously live your life.  This passion is focused and intense.  It is focused upon being a Subject that chooses how it interacts, instead of a passive object to be acted upon.  

Finding Something Worth Dying For

We should find a cause in our lives that expresses our values, and expresses our lives.  We should find a cause such that it is worth dying for; one must find a reason to live such that one stakes one’s life upon it.  Living otherwise is undignified.  Choosing this cause will undoubtedly include some measure of mystery and risk, since we are not guaranteed success or failure.  We cannot predict how things will turn out after we make certain decisions.  Since life has a large element of absurdity, some of the consequences may be strange and senseless, thus mysterious. 

Engagement to Live in Truth

Existentialists make the bold claim that when a person engages with life in a passionate way as we have heretofore described, this person exists in the Truth.  Typically, when we loosely speak of truth, we mean objective truth.  However, existentialists are more interested in subjective truth.  Instead of something externally discovered, it is something that we appropriate and make our own.  This does not mean that we ignore objective truth.  It just means that when determining how to live our lives, we must know it subjectively.  Subjective truth implies how we are involved and engaged with the world.  When we speak of objective truth, we know about the properties of an external object.  When we speak of subjective truth, we speak of how we subjectively know something, how we are connected to something with meaning – what does this mean to me?  The objective truth says that this table is made of wood.  The subjective truth may claim that this table is a symbol of the strength of my family when I can remember them gathered around the table each night for dinner.  One can be put to a scientific test with instrumentation; the other is inaccessible to the scientific method from a physical perspective.

One paradox that Kierkegaard notices is that the more one pursues the objective truth of the object of our passions, the less passionate we become about it.  Thus, the passionate pursuit of our truth value involves some uncertainty about its objectivity.  This is another aspect of Existentialism that illustrates that risk and uncertainty are important aspects of the pursuit of our goals with passion.    

In shifting to a subjective view of the Truth, one can find a Truth that is yours and yours alone.  An objective Truth belongs to all, a subjective Truth may or may not. 

In uncovering Truth that is yours and yours alone, it is important to understand that crowds of people do not find this type of Truth.  Since subjective Truth is yours and yours alone, you must look for it apart from the crowds.  You must find this Truth within yourself.  This can be scary for those accustomed to seeking consensus from others, but living according to one’s values requires us to make the effort.

Modern Temptation Toward the Easy Life

Modern life is dull.  It drains us of passion. We are encouraged to pursue the easy life.  We look for ways to distract ourselves from facing existential questions and engaging existence around us.  This is the age of mediocrity where we are encouraged to pursue the average, or pursue a bourgeois life of well-being with a minimization of risk.  Simulation of engagement is another aspect of this: how many people play video games to simulate passionate and dangerous situations?  We want the feeling of danger without the real danger.  People want to attend protests, but they do not want to risk arrest, jail or death; feeling like one makes a difference instead of actually making a difference.  Often people get together and write up revolutionary documents, publish them, and then go home feeling as though they made a difference.  Often, playing it safe in our modern age seems like the smart move.

Media as an Instrument of Untruth

Kierkegaard attacked the media.  He saw the crowd as a threat to subjective Truth.  However, with printing, one gets wide distribution of the voice of the crowd or the “public.”  Media tempts us to get involved on issues and subjects about which we know very little, and about which we would care little otherwise.  Often media issues are very far removed from issues that are concrete to us and “close to home” to the point where we neglect many things “at hand” in our lives for things far away and often irrelevant to us.  The media also gives the crowd an appearance of strength, and even Truth, which makes it extremely dangerous.  It is easy to deal with others’ issues since it does not involve any risk; it illustrates another case of moderns not confronting the issues in front of their own lives.  The press invites us to spend time and effort on fake issues, and in the meantime, the minutes of our lives slip away on unimportant things at the expense of our values.  Also we are spread so thin among a variety of issues to the point where we cannot focus a sufficient amount of time on a single issue so that we know the issue competently; this produces superficiality about subjects about which we know little, and upon which we are tempted to pontificate. 

Business Notes: Drug Companies’ Hard Times, Lilly, Zyprexa, etc.

Indianapolis Business Journal on Lilly's Declining Revenue

Note: I worked in the Medical Device field for 7 years before I became involved in the Energy sector.

Losing patent protection of one drug that treats bipolar and schizophrenia affects the salaries of 38, 000 employees at one of the biggest drug companies in the world.  Many drug and medical device companies are hooked up into a pipeline of cash from the government and insurance companies.  The increasing pressure from the government and insurance companies to cut medical costs of a mass produced product seriously affects the bottom line of large companies.  Lilly, being in the Pharmaceuticals, is just one of many companies in the same situation.  I can probably think of other Medical Device companies suffering a similar fate.

An article last year from Daily Finance here explains,

Once drugs lose patent protection, lower-price generics quickly siphon off as much as 90% of their sales. For consumers, the savings from generics can be substantial, as this price table of the top 25 brand-name drugs with available generic counterparts highlights. According to pharmaceutical analyst Sophia Snyder at research firm IBISWorld, generics now average about 30% of the price of the brand-name originals.

Daily Finance includes a table:

Patent Expiring in 2011	Condition	Company	2010 U.S. Sales
Lipitor	cholesterol	Pfizer	$5,329,000,000
Zyprexa	antipsychotic	Eli Lily	$2,496,000,000
Levaquin	antibiotics	Johnson & Johnson	$1,312,000,000
Concerta	ADHD/ADD	Johnson & Johnson	$929,000,000
Protonix	antacid	Pfizer	$690,000,000

See full article from DailyFinance:http://srph.it/eNsmU9

Look at the sales figure for Lilly’s Zyprexa.  It is about 2.5 billion dollars.  This is serious cash.  This kind of cash disappearing by even 50% will not go unnoticed in the local economy in which the business participates.  There are 38, 000 employees.  Also think of the supply chain of the company, and this figure could have an affected population of perhaps 5 times to 10 times the Lilly number. 

The article continues,

Zyprexa's patent is set to expire in October, and according to Snyder, Lilly is one of the worst positioned companies to compete after the patent cliff.

So, the patent already expired this past October (2011).

The pressure to increase revenue or cut costs also seems to push these companies toward actions that are allegedly in violation of FDA regulations.  One must remember that there is not “freedom of speech” in the marketing of medical devices or pharmaceuticals.  This may shock some Americans.  Yes, you read that right; I will repeat, there is no “freedom of speech” in the marketing of medical devices or pharmaceuticals.  You cannot promote your product if it is not approved by the FDA for that particular use of the product.  If you do, the FDA can pretty much arrest you.  However such large companies with diverse populations may have a few people here and there who may not be aware of the regulations, or may even not care, and thus, we may expect cases where people are tempted to bend the rules to “make the numbers” for the quarterly earnings statement.  Read on.

Back in 2009, Lilly’s newsroom here, explains,

The misdemeanor plea is for the off-label promotion of Zyprexa between September of 1999 and March of 2001. Specifically, the plea states that Lilly promoted Zyprexa in elderly populations as treatment for dementia, including Alzheimer's dementia, although Zyprexa is not approved for such uses. As part of this agreement regarding the criminal investigation, Lilly has agreed to pay $615 million.

Under terms for the resolution of the civil investigations, Lilly has agreed to make payments totaling nearly $800 million. Approximately $438 million will be paid to the federal government and approximately $362 million will be made available for payment to settling states. As previously reported, Lilly took a charge of $1.415 billion, or $1.29 per share, in the third quarter of 2008 in connection with this investigation. The 2008 charge will be sufficient to cover the payments announced today. The company is now finalizing the tax treatment of these payments, and will communicate this impact when the company announces fourth quarter 2008 financial results on January 29, 2009.

So, we have large corporations with hordes of employees and families (38, 000 at Lilly) depending upon them.  We also have a pipeline of revenue from the government and insurance companies supplying the cash to these large companies.  Thus, we have all these wonder drugs as a consequence of all this revenue and the hard work of employees who have to navigate the heavy regulations and internal bureaucracy necessary to support the functioning of any pharmaceutical or medical device company.  These employees are no slackers, and they are usually smart and highly skilled.

However, with the explosion of the elderly population with the retiring of the Baby Boomer generation, and with the medical needs of the elderly, what will we do?  Can we afford this coming explosion of medical spending?  How will the families of these companies cope when the revenues are no longer predictable for the company and the managers begin firing people?  How will the local economies react to large numbers of people looking for jobs? 

Are we reaching the end of an era of wonder drugs, to be followed by an era of just manufacturing and distribution of drugs without much research and development?  This sounds plausible with our economic realities.  If the insurance companies keep on cutting costs to survive, the government trims spending on health care, and then drug and medical device companies have to cut spending as a result, I am afraid there will not be much infrastructure left to support research and development to the level we have become accustomed to in the last 50 years or so.