Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper examines the assumption that a reduction in personal privacy is the necessary cost of improved national security. On the surface, it would seem uncontroversial that improved surveillance might assist a government in its law enforcement and national security efforts. Nevertheless, the relationship is not straightforward. First, a reduction in individual privacy may improve national security or law enforcement while creating new forms of insecurity. Second, a reduction in privacy might be an aspect of “security theatre” and might not actually produce any real improvements in national security or law enforcement. Third, a reduction in individual privacy may have distributional implications. While general security increases, certain individuals or groups may bear the bulk of the costs of the privacy reduction – for example, by being disproportionately included in the false positives turned up by government surveillance schemes. The paper will seek to make explicit the complexities hidden within the trade-off between privacy and security.

Publication Type: Oral Presentation
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Trap fishing takes place daily on the world’s coral reefs with high levels of bycatch. Due to the negative effects of this fishery, the island of Curaçao may require that all fish traps have escape gaps for juvenile and narrow-bodied fishes. To provide information on the ecological and economic implications of this proposed regulation, I conducted an experiment comparing the catch of three types of fish traps: traditional (control) traps, traps with the proposed 20cm by 2.5cm escape gaps, and traps with 40cm by 2.5cm escape gaps. Seven weeks of data were collected at three sites, representing 3,336 observations of fish. Escape gaps effectively reduce the catch of both narrow-bodied and low-value fishes, without significantly reducing the catch of high-value fishes. Fishes caught in traps with escape gaps are 21 to 26 percent longer than those in control traps. Although escape gaps do reduce the quantity of fishes caught, there is no significant difference across trap types in either the number of high-value fishes caught or in the overall catch value. Fishermen could use escape gap traps without decreasing their incomes. However, even with escape gaps, trap fishing could have negative impacts on coral reef health, as the catch of all trap types is dominated by parrotfish, ecologically important herbivores.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This essay develops a framework for evaluating the efficiency of information reporting proposals, then evaluates how several current proposals fare under it. Accordingly, it makes recommendations on which proposals warrant serious consideration as revenue raisers that would help narrow the federal tax gap.

Publication Type: Proceeding
Abstract: Frustrated with the failure of more orthodox strategies to stem the risk of mass destruction terrorism, particularly with nuclear weapons, analysts have begun to advocate threatening deterrent retaliation against states whose insecure mass destruction weapons and materials are stolen and used in terrorist attacks against the United States. After elaborating on what is here termed “deterrence of negligence,” the paper evaluates a narrowly defined question: what would be the effect of the United States enunciating, either publicly or through private channels, a deterrence of negligence policy? This question is addressed in three parts. First, the status of current unilateral and cooperative efforts to secure vulnerable nuclear materials and weapons in the two case countries, Russia and Pakistan, is detailed. Second, the contribution of a deterrence of negligence policy towards preventing a terrorist attack with mass destruction weapons prior to such an attack is assessed. Third, the contribution of the policy towards making follow-on attacks less likely in the aftermath of an initial attack is assessed. Finally, in the context of a skeptical assessment of deterrence of negligence’s ability to ameliorate the threat of mass destruction terrorism, the paper briefly considers potential alternative strategies that could either complement or substitute for it.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Social Scientists have long used a variety of unobtrusive methods in an attempt to measure implicit racial bias and avoid the reactivity of self-report methods. In written vignettes, test subjects are given identical descriptions in which the race of the person in the scenario is manipulated by a description in an effort to assess whether outcomes vary by the race of the person in the vignette. The researcher is then faced with the dilemma of how to make race salient enough to be noticed yet subtle enough so as to not call undue attention to the fact that race is what is being examined, in order to avoid social desirability effects.
To overcome this methodological problem, researchers have used images so that test subjects can concentrate on the task they are being asked to assess, while visually identifying the race of the person in the vignette. This method, however, is vulnerable to attractiveness bias/halo effects, and leaves open to question whether it is actually the race or the appearance of the person in the scenario that is being judged. When preferences are shown toward those who are more physically attractive research results may be called into serious question. What is needed is a method in which the appearance of the person(s) in the vignette can somehow be equalized.
For this session, I review the literature on attractiveness bias and halo effects and outline the potential shortcomings of most image-based vignettes and scenarios. I then demonstrate an emerging technology in which computer software is used to generate images that can be manipulated to appear either African American or Caucasian using identical facial features for each, thereby reducing or eliminating attractiveness bias and halo effects.