After keeping quiet for more than a year about the investigation, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra confirmed last week that California is suing Facebook after a state probe found it had allegedly violated privacy laws.

In documents filed with the Superior Court in San Francisco, Becerra’s office said the probe began in June 2018 in response to the scandal involving the Cambridge Analytica political consulting firm, which had been given access to the online activities of 87 million Facebook users without their knowledge. The most prominent client of the firm, which closed last year, was the Trump presidential campaign in 2015-16.

“What initially began as an inquiry into the Cambridge Analytica scandal expanded over time to become an investigation into whether Facebook has violated California law by, among other things, deceiving users and ignoring its own policies,” the court filing noted.

The possibility that California was pursuing its own probe was detailed in an Oct. 31 story in the New York Times about Becerra’s absence from a meeting of state attorneys general in September in Washington in which they discussed a coordinated probe of Facebook and Google. Becerra continues to decline to answer if his office is investigating Google.

And the attorney general said the Facebook probe would still be unrevealed if it wasn’t for the fact that the Menlo Park-based company had stopped cooperating when given subpoenas. “If Facebook had complied with our legitimate investigative requests, we would not be making this announcement today. But we must move our investigation forward,” he said at a news conference.

The state’s complaints about Facebook not following its own policies and stonewalling investigations echoed those made by officials of the Obama and Trump administrations. These practices were cited in July when the Federal Trade Commission announced it had fined the social media giant $5 billion for privacy violations.

Probe seen as foreshadowing new state online privacy law

Becerra’s announcement was followed closely on tech websites not just because it ended the mystery about what his office was doing about Facebook when so many other states were pursuing the company. It’s also because the Golden State’s lawsuit is seen as a harbinger of how aggressively Becerra will act when the state’s landmark online privacy law – the California Consumer Privacy Act – takes effect on Jan. 1, 2020. The law was signed into law by then-Gov. Jerry Brown in summer 2018.

The state law is similar to a measure adopted by the European Union that took effect earlier in 2018. The EU law says consumers can opt out from having information collected about them. If they don’t opt out, consumers must be told upon request what information has been harvested from their online browsing.

Data companies are deeply worried that California’s standards will become the model for a future federal online privacy law and for measures adopted in other states. But many other firms are worried as well.

This summer, as CalWatchdog reported, the California Chamber of Commerce and the state chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business launched a long-shot bid to get lawmakers to change their minds and either repeal or revise the state online privacy law.

Among the business groups’ complaints: The law is written so broadly that it may prevent businesses from using basic information gathered from repeat customers; and the law is so poorly crafted that it appears to bar businesses from using vast swaths of anonymized data showing online trends from a macro level. Such information is considered a crucial marketing tool.

Lawmakers passed on making any changes.

Brown budget projects deficit

Good morning. Happy Hump Day! One word this morning: Budget. 

Gov. Jerry Brown preached prudence on Tuesday as he unveiled his 2017-18 state budget, proposing no new major spending programs while taking a wait-and-see approach to the incoming Trump administration, even as other prominent California Democrats brace for the unknown.

The budget showed a $2 billion deficit — modest by historical standards, but worthy of the lawmakers’ attention — caused by an increase in government programs over the last few years and lagging revenues.

Brown said he didn’t want to “repeat mistakes of the past,” recalling the days of the state’s budget crisis. The proposed budget showed approximately $8 billion in the Rainy Day Fund by the end of 2017-18, which is 63 percent of the constitutional target, which Brown said was bigger than it seemed as he called for greater savings now. 

Independent analysts, as well as Brown’s budget experts, have cautioned against the state’s over-dependence on the wealthiest residents to fund the government. Brown lauded the state’s “progressive” tax system, where people with the most pay the most. But he said it also requires prudence.

“It doesn’t make sense to pretend we have money when we really don’t,” Brown said. 

CalWatchdog has more.

In other news:

• Politics: “A new report tallying the costs of running against members of your own party revealed that Golden State Democrats spent big in 2016 on races without a Republican. This year, ‘Democrats raised or spent a total of $90.8 million on same-party races — a 67 percent increase from 2014 when Democrats spent $54.3 million,’ according to the study.” CalWatchdog has more. 

• Responsive Government: “San Diego is settling a lawsuit that accused the city of illegally limiting public comment at City Council meetings for at least 13 years.” The San Diego Union-Tribune has more. 

• Campaign Finance: “Now a handful of Los Angeles lawmakers are calling for a ban on such donations from real estate developers, saying they want to counter the perception that money drives those decisions.” The Los Angeles Times has more. 

• Tech: “Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, are strengthening their political connections, at least when it comes to philanthropy. On Tuesday, the couple announced that two well-known political figures among both Democrats and Republicans will lead policy and advocacy efforts at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which they formed to fund philanthropic causes.” The San Jose Mercury News has more. 

Legislature:

• Gone till Friday at 9 a.m.

Gov. Brown:

• No public events announced. 

Tips: matt@calwatchdog.com

Follow us: @calwatchdog @mflemingterp

New follower: @KesiAlexx

So far, Donald Trump has divided the Republican Party, taken large numbers of voters away from the Democrats, and infused some Americans with optimism but others with despair. Now, he has also laid bare latent political fractures within Silicon Valley, often seen as a more monolithic culture than it is. 

Contempt and caution

While some leading tech figures have been supportive or tolerant of Trump and his movement, others have responded to his election by expressing the strongest possible opposition — including a call for secession. After a tweetstorm throwing support behind the nascent movement to peacefully withdraw California from the Union, Uber investor and Hyperloop cofounder Sherwin Pishevar told CNNMoney the radical idea was “the most patriotic thing I can do. The country is [at] a serious crossroads.”

“Within hours, several other tech founders offered their support for the plan. ‘I was literally just going to tweet this. I’m in and will partner with you on it,’ Dave Morin, an investor and founder of private social networking tool Path, tweeted in response to Pishevar. ‘I support you in this effort let me know what I can do to help,’ Marc Hemeon, a former Google employee and founder of Design Inc., wrote on Twitter.”

Earlier this summer, nearly 150 tech CEOs, founders, authors and investors signed an open letter rebuking Trump. “Donald Trump articulates few policies beyond erratic and contradictory pronouncements. His reckless disregard for our legal and political institutions threatens to upend what attracts companies to start and scale in America. He risks distorting markets, reducing exports, and slowing job creation,” they wrote. “We stand against Donald Trump’s divisive candidacy and want a candidate who embraces the ideals that built America’s technology industry: freedom of expression, openness to newcomers, equality of opportunity, public investments in research and infrastructure, and respect for the rule of law.”

Nevertheless, the attitude among Silicon Valley’s heaviest hitters has been markedly different. Elon Musk waited until just before Election Day to tell CNBC he had doubts about Trump. “I think a bit strongly that he is probably not the right guy,” he said, suggesting that Hillary Clinton’s policies on the economy and the environment were “the right ones” for the current uneasy political climate. “However, the election results are unlikely to have much bearing on the future of Tesla, he said,” the network added. 

From outlier to influencer

Peter Thiel, meanwhile, has emerged as perhaps Donald Trump’s most respected and powerful supporter outside of Washington, D.C. Thiel “was one of the few businesspeople — and the only prominent one in technology — to publicly support Mr. Trump’s presidential run,” the New York Times recalled. “Mr. Thiel spoke at the Republican convention and later gave $1.25 million to support the Trump campaign. That is not much, as presidential donations go, but it happened when the candidate was widely perceived to be floundering. In the process, Mr. Thiel was denounced by much of Silicon Valley. There were calls for Mr. Thiel to step down from Facebook, where he serves on the board, and Y Combinator, a start-up incubator where he is a part-time adviser.” Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg weathered stiff criticism when he insisted that Thiel should not face retaliation or ostracism because of his support for a presidential candidate.

Now, as Thiel told the Times, he’ll have Trump’s ear in an informal advisory role — important, according to Thiel, because Trump’s task is so daunting. Calling for “all hands on deck,” Thiel cautioned against some of his colleague’s frustrated impulses. “At the end of the day, it would be crazy to simply spend four years issuing denunciatory tweets on Twitter,” he said. “For a day or two, that’s fine. But I hope Silicon Valley will be more productive than that.”

Another unflattering story from Donald Trump’s recent past, this one playing out in California, has fueled a fresh round of criticism against his character and his campaign. 

“After the Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes opened for play in 2005, its world-famous owner didn’t stop by more than a few times a year to visit the course hugging the coast of the Pacific,” according to the Los Angeles Times. “When Trump did visit, the club’s managers went on alert. They scheduled the young, thin, pretty women on staff to work the clubhouse restaurant — because when Trump saw less-attractive women working at his club, according to court records, he wanted them fired.”

Former Trump employees, the Times noted, have come forward to corroborate these claims in declarations filed four years ago “in a broad labor relations lawsuit brought against one of Trump’s development companies in Los Angeles County Superior Court.”

The timing of the revelations has fed into a narrative that Clinton supporters believe can help restore momentum to their candidate’s campaign. “While Trump has said he has ‘great respect for women,’ he has degraded them with insults,” the San Francisco Chronicle observed.

“He has called talkshow host Rosie O’Donnell ‘fat’ and ‘a slob’ and Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly ‘a bimbo.’ […] Hillary Clinton addressed her opponent’s record with women, telling the story of former Miss Universe winner, Alicia Machado, who said Trump called her ‘Miss Piggy’ when she gained weight.”

Flat polls

Trump’s remarks have not sunk his campaign to date; in some instances, they have buoyed up his own supporters. (Machado, for instance, has come under fire for her involvement in potentially criminal misdeeds.) But despite the dramatic ups and downs of the Trump and Clinton campaigns, which have put the candidates far apart in opinion surveys one moment and much closer the next, Trump has not been able to come within striking distance of Clinton in the Golden State. “Clinton now leads 59 percent to 33 percent among likely voters, up from 57 percent to 32 percent three weeks ago,” the Orange Country Register recently noted, citing a survey conducted by the Southern California News Group and KABC/Eyewitness News.

The mogul did recently score an endorsement from the Santa Barbara News-press, but that achievement mixed good news with bad news for the campaign. “Not only is it Trump’s only endorsement from a California paper, it’s one of the few anywhere in the nation,” the Chronicle reported. “So far, he’s gotten official endorsements from the National Enquirer, New York Observer and New York Post.”

Driving support and opposition

“Still, if polls represent the general — voting and nonvoting — population, then some 14 million Californians of all ages want Trump to win,” Victor Davis Hanson noted in the Los Angeles Times, “a far greater number than found in most die-hard red states. They resemble Trump supporters elsewhere, but they seem even angrier, in part because they are an emasculated political minority.”

“Trump supporters in rural California are quite different from the stereotyped Republican Party of the last two elections. The welder who recently worked on my gate had no empathy for ‘wealthy white people’ — I suppose like Jeb Bush or Mitt Romney. Yet he was tired of hearing of ‘white privilege,’ an insult leveled by those who enjoy quite a lot against those who have none.”

In a striking symbol of the limits of Trump’s appeal in California, however, organizers behind FWD.us, the Mark Zuckerberg-launched immigration reform lobbying firm, credit Trump’s willingness to attack the political establishment on the issue with powering their rise to prominence. “Today, after a few years of disappointments, bad press, and high-profile departures, FWD has found its footing as a major player in the immigration debate,” Wired reported. “A lot of it has to with the activists and grassroots workers who staff FWD.us’s nine field offices. And a lot of it also has to do with a politician whose anti-immigration policies are so radical, and so extreme, that he’s done more to galvanize bipartisan support for immigrant rights than all of Silicon Valley’s billionaires combined: Donald Trump.”

By Ed Ring

The San Francisco Bay Area is one of the most liberal metropolitan areas in America. Democrats are typically favored over Republicans in elections by margins up to 50 percentage points. The SF Bay is also perhaps the wealthiest region in America, with a GDP of over $500 billion, and more than 10 percent of the nation’s billionaires. Not least, as the global center of information technology, attracting top talent from around the world, the SF Bay region probably has one of the smartest populations in America.

So when are they going to take on their public sector unions?

One of the Silicon Valley’s newest billionaires is Facebook Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who burnished his liberal credentials a few years ago by hosting President Obama at a town-hall meeting at Facebook headquarters. But earlier this year Zuckerberg committed to raising funds for embattled New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who has vaulted to the national stage because of his refusal to bow to the demands of public sector unions.

Could it be that public sector union reform is a bipartisan issue? A lot of Democrats agree with that thought, mostly in private; but they aren’t billionaires, and they aren’t raising funds for Gov. Christie.

It’s important to reflect on what this could represent, because Silicon Valley has been relatively absent from politics until recent years. As a source for political fundraising, it is probably the biggest ATM machine in the nation, but in terms of aggressively lobbying to influence policy in California, it’s been punching way under its weight. At the risk of being presumptuous, one might argue the two primary reasons the Silicon Valley leadership are almost all Democrats is because they are social liberals, and because they have never encountered serious attempts at union organizing at their companies. But unions are alive and well in the Silicon Valley in the public sector and the high-tech billionaires are starting to take notice.

Education

The first example of this is public education, where the teachers’ unions exercise veto power over virtually any innovations affecting education policy in California. This has already led to clashes between teachers’ unions and members of the business community, nearly all of them faithful Democrats, who want a better trained workforce.

The second example is more recent, and concerns the troubled finances of local governments. Public sector unions have been unrelenting in their push for higher tax revenues to sustain services, which in turn is calling attention to the pay and benefits of unionized civil servants. Here are calculations from a recent California Public Policy Center study showing the median total compensation for San Jose city employees, using detailed data provided by their payroll department:

San Jose police officer, 2011 median total compensation = $189,411
San Jose firefighter, 2011 median total compensation = $205,557
San Jose other city employees, 2011 median total compensation = $120,092

By contrast, the average 2010 household income in San Jose was $76,495.

A veteran firefighter who (taking into account vacation) works two 24-hour shifts per week before overtime, and makes more than $200,000 per year in total annual compensation, may not seem extraordinarily well compensated to a billionaire. But to a self-employed veteran of Silicon Valley start-ups, who enjoys no job security, has no pension, struggles to maintain continuity of health insurance and pays (including “special assessments”) property taxes at a rate of 1.5 percent on homes that cost over $500 per square foot — it is unfair, extravagant, expensive overkill.

The billionaire business leaders of Silicon Valley are smart enough to know it is economically impossible to pay every skilled worker total compensation averaging between $150,000 and $200,000 per year. And the information technology industry is itself living testimony to the power of innovation to lower the cost of living. The irony is real; if public sector employees made less, and if their unions didn’t ceaselessly lobby for inefficient work rules designed to increase headcount, they could afford to make less. Implementing measures to lower the cost of living through increased private sector competition and more efficient government is the solution — and a big part of doing this requires confronting public sector unions.

Success and failure

Mark Zuckerberg parlayed world-class talent, a brilliant vision, hard work and fortuitous timing to build one of the most spectacular success stories Silicon Valley has ever seen. But for every start-up entrepreneur and the employees who join them to achieve such glory, there are thousands more whose ventures languish or fail. This is the harsh but necessary essence of Silicon Valley culture, the rich innovation ecosystem that the world tries to emulate.

For Silicon Valley’s wealthiest citizens not to confront the public sector unions who control our cities and counties is to turn their backs on the vast majority of workers who helped get them to where they are today.

Forming a coalition to reform public sector unions will not be easy. In California’s current political landscape, consultants who take on anti-union campaigns risk being blacklisted. Donors risk harassment at their homes and businesses. Companies risk being targeted with a “corporate campaign,” where the unions launch a multi-pronged attack directed at employees, shareholders, clients, vendors and the media. In private meetings, union operatives openly threaten the leadership of business associations to follow their agenda. But even California’s all powerful public employee unions cannot withstand a sustained and determined reform effort led by Silicon Valley’s elite.

For Democrats, advocating for union reform is problematic. Unions provide much of their financial support, even in the wealthy, Democratic Silicon Valley. But reform is inevitable because without it, schools will continue to deliver sub-optimal results and more cities and counties will go bankrupt. Democrats are destined to be as bitterly divided over the public sector union question as Republicans currently are over social issues.

Along with declaring his support for Christie, Zuckerberg has formed a political organization to promote education reform, immigration reform, increased spending on research and economic growth. He may wish to consider adding to his political list public sector compensation reform, and public sector union reform. It is an innately bipartisan imperative on which liberals and conservatives alike may find common cause.

Ed Ring is the executive director of the California Public Policy Center, and the editor of UnionWatch.org

By Chris Reed

Will 2013 be the year that unionized faculty members at UC, CSU and the state’s community colleges finally figure out the threat that online education poses to their futures? If it is not this year, it is coming sometime soon. The same dynamics that have killed Borders, Tower Records and travel agencies, made newspapers far less lucrative and shaken up dozens of industries — easy, free/cheap online access to content and information — threaten bricks-and-mortar higher education.

“Look at the music industry. It’s been completely overturned by the Internet. My vision of the world is that everywhere will be like the music industry, but we’ve only seen it in a few places so far. Journalism is in the midst of the battle. And higher education is probably next,” is how George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen, an online education visionary, puts it.

Yes, K-12 is likely to live on in its present form because of the role schools play in the socialization process. Yes, Ivy League universities will continue to serve in their role as de facto gatekeepers for entry into Wall Street and high finance. But in Silicon Valley, the value that is placed on traditional credentials in most of the U.S. isn’t nearly as consistently strong. It is understood that learning can happen lots of ways, and hardly just in a formal classroom. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg? All college dropouts. This is not lost on the rest of California’s elites.

Jerry Brown on the bandwagon

Now more and more online education is free, and the power of education apps on iPads and other devices is becoming more obvious, and people have realized how much great educational content there is on YouTube. At the very least, we seem sure to move toward a model in which online learning is a big part of traditional education because of its efficiency and low cost.

And guess who agrees this is a great idea?

“Quoting poet Robert Frost on the benefits of innovative thinking, Gov. Jerry Brown said Tuesday that three unusual math classes offered this spring at San Jose State University hold out hope for resolving one of California’s most troublesome problems: overcrowded classes.

“‘Online is part of the solution,’ Brown told a roomful of educators at San Jose State before quoting from a 1939 essay in which Frost said, ‘Originality and initiative are what I ask for my country.’

“Although online courses have been part of college curricula for years, the three new ones – at $150 each — suggest a new and possibly cheaper direction for students, California State University and Silicon Valley.”

But when will unions figure out that convenient and inexpensive inevitably eventually means fewer well-paying jobs? When will unions figure out that the U.S. student-loan debacle also feeds the crisis atmosphere around the old bricks-and-mortar norm?

For reasons I can’t comprehend, none of this has sunk in. The UC faculty associations, the CSU faculty union and the California Community Colleges faculty union don’t seem to grasp that if good and improving higher education is free or dirt-cheap online, if a conventional degree loses its gatekeeper status in many jobs, and if huge student loan defaults keep making headlines, the status quo could wither quickly.

Cowen and many other educators, economists, philanthropists and futurists have been writing about online education for years, especially its disruptive possibilities. By contrast, read the coverage of Jerry Brown’s push to have San Jose State and Udacity team up in offering online courses on the CSU faculty union website. It suggests that this could somehow be a good thing for faculty:

“CFA President Lil Taiz agrees on the importance of asking questions about student success:

“She said, ‘It’s good the CSU is actually testing out these methods and starting on a small scale. We must find out which online tools work well (or not), for what kinds of students, and for what kinds of subject matter. There is a lot to unpack in the pedagogy.’

“CFA and CSU managers have met on how the terms of work in the first semester of the pilot accord with the faculty contract.

“’You can’t have quality learning conditions for students—online or in a classroom—without professional working conditions for the faculty. Our contract is an important piece of making sure we have fairness, equity, and quality in all aspects of CSU teaching.’”

Clueless and oblivious in the faculty lounge

Wow. The lessons of recent history don’t appear to have sunk in at all with UC, CSU and CCC faculty if profs think online education’s arrival and increasing acceptance bodes well for them.

When Jerry Brown talks about the need for UC, CSU and CCC to be more efficient, he may not be talking only about pushing students to graduate in as little time as possible and not dawdle on campus. He may actually want them to become more efficient in the way other information businesses have become efficient — by taking full advantage of technology.

When will we see this trigger the modern equivalent of a Luddite reaction?

Soon, I suspect. When the liberal governor of California’s enthusiasm for online learning sinks in, the Lil Taizes of the Golden State will have no choice but to think about its long-term implications.

By Joseph Perkins

Randi Zuckerberg made news recently when a family photo she posted on her Facebook account was reposted on Twitter without her knowledge or consent.

The big sis of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was not amused. “Digital etiquette: always ask permission before posting a friend’s photo publicly,” she admonished the culprit who trampled upon her privacy.

This is the brave new world of social media. While it offers tremendous utility to the hundreds of millions of us who have Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and other such accounts, it also poses a clear and present threat to our privacy rights.

That’s why those of us here in the Golden State who routinely use social media owe a debt of gratitude to state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, and Assemblywoman Nora Campos, D-San Jose. Both are authors of legislation, which took effect New Year’s Day, that provide new privacy protections for selected social media users.

Yee’s measure, SB 1349, prohibits California colleges and universities from requiring students, or prospective students, to disclose, divulge or otherwise provide access to their personal social media.

That not only includes electronic content appearing on a student’s Facebook, Twitter or other such account. But also blogs, podcasts, emails and instant and text messages that are accessible on the Internet.

Campos’ measure, AB 1844, makes it unlawful for employers to require employees or job applicants to disclose the user name and password to their personal social media accounts. And, like Yee’s legislation, it’s inclusive of all forms of electronic content.

There are some who suggest that the measures by Yee and Campos address problems that do not as yet exist.

Indeed, the assemblywoman acknowledged that very well may be the case with her legislation, which she described as a “preemptive measure.” And the same may equally apply to the senator’s measure.

Privacy under attack

But what is beyond dispute is that the privacy of our personal information, on- and offline, is under attack like never before.

Not only by colleges and employers seeking to snoop into the private lives of students and workers, but by every conceivable information-gathering beast individuals encounter in their day to day lives.

Indeed, why did Williams-Sonoma and other California retailers until recently require customers to provide zip codes when making purchases with a credit card?

Why does California-based 24 Hour Fitness require biometric scans of members before they work out?

And why does Pacific Gas & Electric Co. electronically swipe the driver’s licenses of all visitors to its main office?

If retailers, health clubs, utilities and others that gather personal information guaranteed that the info would never, ever be used for purposes never imagined by those who provide their zip codes, biometrics and driver licenses, if they could assure those whose personal information is stored in their data bases that it will never fall into the wrong hands, there would be no need for new laws protecting privacy.

But we have seen all too many cases in which personal information gathered for one specific purpose is used for an entirely different purpose. As in the shocking 1989 murder of actress Rebecca Schaeffer by a stalker who obtained her home address from California DMV.

And we also have seen far too many instances in which supposedly “secure” data bases have been penetrated by hackers. Like the data base maintained by Barnes & Noble, which was infiltrated this past  September by cybercriminals who made off with credit card numbers of the bookstore’s in San Diego and several other cities.

Once the personal information of students, employees, consumers or social media users like Randi Zuckerberg is out in the open, there’s really no repairing the damage done.

That’s why Sen. Yee, Assemblywoman Campos and their fellow lawmakers serve the public interest by passing laws that address the growing threats to privacy rights.

By John Seiler

Why do young nerds angling to be the next Steve Jobs still flock to Silicon Valley? That’s where Mark Zuckerberg transplanted Facebook, which he started in his Harvard dorm room. Facebook’s IPO this week pegs its value at around $100 billion.

But the Facebook owners are being gouged by the bankrupt state of California for $2 billion. If they had moved instead to Austin, Tex., or Seattle, Wash., they would have paid no state income or capital gains taxes. If they had moved to the Cayman Islands, Singapore or another tax haven and renounced their citizenship — as co-founder Eduardo Saverin has done — they could have avoided even most of the 35 percent U.S. income tax and 15 percent capital gains tax.

California also has numerous preposterous laws people and companies must follow, from banning the use of cell phones in cars to banning smoking almost everywhere. Well, I suppose the young gearheads don’t smoke — cigarattes, anyway.

My theory is that Silicon Valley is like Star City was in the old Soviet Union. If you were a budding young cosmonaut aspirant in the Soviet bloc, that was the place to be. According to Wikipedia,

“Cosmonauts of the Russian Federal Space Agency, and the Soviet space program before it, have lived and trained in Star City since the 1960s. In the Soviet era the location was a highly secret and guarded military installation, access to which was severely restricted.”

There was no question of defecting to the West. Sure, you maybe could escape across the border and be given asylum in the United States. The FBI would debrief you about your knowledge of the Soviet space program. You’d be given a new identity as Ivan Smithsky in Dubuque. You’d be a free person. But no way they’d let you become an American astronaut.

So you were stuck in Star City. The amenities there made it worthwhile. Unlike the subsistence living scraped out by most Soviets in the workers’ paradise, you would be given the best food and drink, a decent apartment or house, culture and entertainment, even access to banned literature the Soviet bosses winked at. They knew you weren’t going anywhere. You also had to put up with pervasive secrecy and being spied on.

The weather? Much better in Silicon Valley, of course. No Russian winters. But if you were a Russian wanting to be a cosmonaut, you grew up with the winters. And if you stuck with the program, retirement would be in the Crimea, with California-style weather and great local wines.

People will do almost anything to get what they want. They’ll put up with socialism, whether the Soviet or California kind.

That’s why Silicon Valley will continue attracting high-IQ future Jobses and Zuckerbergs. For as long as anyone reading this is alive.

For most of the rest of us, it’s Moscow circa 1970, Jerry Brown as Leonid Brezhnev, but with great weather.