Janine Wedel - Unaccountable - How Elite Power Brokers Corrupt Our Finances, Freedom, and Security

According to Dumas, corruption “occurs whenever individuals use for their own personal agendas, the authority, power, or information that was given to them for the purpose of furthering the interests of others, to the detriment of those others.” 21I would add that the act need not be to the detriment of those particular others; the authority, power, or information could be used to the detriment of quite different others and still breach the public trust.

Of course, corruption as violation of the public trust cannot serve as a universal definition because, at least to some degree, the “public trust” itself is culturally defined. Still, seeing corruption as a violation of the public trust (recognizing, of course, that “public” is always defined indigenously, a term with variable meaning across time and place), upends the traditional approaches of the anticorruption industry and shines a spotlight on highflier power brokers whose activities are legal yet violate the public trust. 22

Seeing corruption as a violation of the public trust can help clarify and call it out. But caution is warranted. Although the modus operandi of many of today’s top power brokers renders them virtually unaccountable to government or corporate institutions and the public, it does not necessarily make them unethical or corrupt.

Why suggest reconceptualizing corruption at all? Because, clearly, the potential of shadow elites and shadow lobbyists for violating the public trust on a colossal scale is huge, with the possible consequences of their actions just as colossal.

READING THE WORLD IN THE AGE OF UNACCOUNTABILITY

So, what can we do?

There are ways for governmental and corporate authorities, journalists, and the public to take action that won’t lead to an awkward airport encounter like mine.

We need to begin to connect the dots and challenge the unaccountable. As a result, we will be better equipped to assess the motives and message of the pundits, politicians, and consultants we encounter—whether in the media, social-networking outlets, town-hall meetings, or other venues—and to combat the new corruption.

First, citizens, those in the media, and those in government making public-policy decisions need to know how to spot a power broker who is spinning an agenda. As we noted in Chapter 5, we are increasingly getting news on our mobile devices, on the go. This seems like a particularly challenging environment in which to examine sources of information. One thing I’d encourage might be called “One Click More.” As you are reading something that appears fishy, take one click more (likely you’ll need more than one click, but at least one will get you started).

When you see a power broker pontificating on a topic, do you have a hard time figuring out who he is and who funds him? You might have had a clear idea of who he was a few years ago, say, when he was Homeland Security chief or secretary of the Treasury, but what is he now?

Here is an accountability red flag to watch out for: when someone is described as a former official, it is imperative to understand where they are currently and what stake they might now have in the topic at hand. You can take that one click more to a Wiki page and test yourself: could you sum up this person’s career easily? Is the list of titles and affiliations daunting? If so, this doesn’t mean this power broker is necessarily corrupt, but you should then know that he has a lot of irons in the fire. Even Wikis can be a bit misleading; they nearly all feature the public-service part of a résumé front and center, even if that service was years—even decades—ago. So make sure you scroll down to find the most current roles.

Another title to watch out for is “consultant.” Many of us are consultants, yet the moniker can be a red flag. What is a consultant, exactly? Are there laws governing their activities? Do they have a clearly articulated code of ethics? Often the answers are no and no. I can tell you from my own experience that consultants can perform innumerable roles, and their agendas are often far from clear. Consultants are getting paid by someone; they are not getting paid to speak to a reporter or appear on television. So why are they doing so? Often it’s because they have an agenda to push, their client’s or their own. 23

Consider carefully the title “expert.” Expert can define any number of players. Michael Chertoff is likely an expert on terrorism, after his years as secretary of Homeland Security, but he is more currently a private consultant to the security business looking to sell its wares to the government. Former EPA head Christine Todd Whitman regularly expounds on energy issues in venues all over the United States, and yet she represents a variety of energy-company interests and has for years. Retired General Barry McCaffrey is an NBC News military analyst; but when he weighed in on the deteriorating situation in Iraq in June 2014, there was no mention on the Nightly News that he also runs a consulting firm. 24An expert might also be an academic; if that’s the case, it can be illuminating to Google the sources of his/her research funding. People from think tanks are often called experts. If that’s the case, it’s worth Googling whether the think tank is known as having a particular agenda and finding out who funds them.

Very often these days, corporations are part of the mix, even when the think tank has a very neutral, civic-friendly name. And with think-tank–like organizations popping up all over these days, it’s also smart to consider how long a “think tank” has been around. Did it appear after Citizens United opened the door for unlimited and hard-to-trace political spending? If so, you might want to probe it a bit further. What is being called a think tank might actually be little more than a vehicle for secret political cash aimed at pushing an agenda. One glaring hint might be a website that has no area to detail “who funds us.”

When you read about an important policy fight, like health care or whether to back a war, do you see names of people who might be described as “advisers,” “backroom deal-makers,” “rainmakers,” or “right-hand man,” but they don’t seem to have an official role? Often the boundary between official and private activity is not clear. (See, for instance, the financial bailout, where it was sometimes hard to figure out who worked at Goldman Sachs and who worked at the Treasury Department. Or with issues of national security and intelligence, where the lines between “private” contractor Booz Allen and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence fade.) From the 2003 Iraq invasion to the financial bailout to Obamacare, each fight (and many more such fights) had players whose unofficial positions might have been described this way, and yet they will never be held to account because they were officially “informal.”

Sadly, one must also place “philanthropist” in the category of red-flag titles. While many, if not most, appear in the media working to eliminate the scourges of poverty or war, there are now players, including Bill Clinton and especially Tony Blair, whose portfolios are so vast that they cannot be viewed as simple do-gooders. This skepticism should also be applied to little-known groups (like the think-tank–style groups) that call themselves philanthropies. They might be technically one of those so-called “social welfare” groups under the U.S. tax code, but once again they could be just a front for an agenda or “dark” campaign donations.

And of course, these days, it isn’t just the Sunday-morning talk shows and the New York Times op-ed page driving agendas. One now needs cross-platform vigilance. E-mail, Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, you name it; if you get an unmediated stream from a person in power, a former official, you should remember that just because he trumpets his twentieth wedding anniversary in one post doesn’t mean he won’t try to sell you something in the next.