R.I.P., PAM

People say nice things in eulogies. Now that DARPA's Policy Analysis Market -- or, in Headlinese, the "terror futures market" -- is dead, commentators are popping up to defend the idea behind it, if not necessarily how it was implemented or explained.

New Yorker columnist James Surowiecki is one who laments its passing. In a piece for Slate, he argues that it wasn't any more "immoral" than risk assessments that the government and insurance companies make every day. Moreover, he believes it would have improved American intelligence capabilities and enhanced national security:

At its core, PAM was not meant to tell us what Hamas was going to do next week. It was meant to give us a better sense of the economic health, civil stability, and military readiness of Middle Eastern nations, with an eye on what that might mean for U.S. interests in the region.

In a similar vein, Berkeley economist Hal R. Varian calls PAM "a good idea, killed by terrible public relations" in the New York Times.

Critics' objections were "generally based on misunderstandings of what was actually proposed," he says, proceeding to try and set the record straight. For example, he says that contrary to press reports, investors couldn't really have bet on assassinations.

San Jose Mercury News tech columnist Dan Gillmor writes in his weblog that PAM "was politically foolish, morally ugly and open to manipulation. But it wasn't entirely ridiculous." (Some of his readers disagree however, quite strenuously.)

Buzzworthy readers also chimed with with some thoughtful comments in response to my first post on this issue.

By the way, I'm not trying to imply that pro-PAM opinions are in the majority. In fact, you'll find many negative responses -- along the lines of this newspaper editorial -- if you look around.