The ACLU is looking into a new government program called - believe it or not - MATRIX. Here is a copy of their latest press release about their investigation:
NEW YORK—The American Civil Liberties Union today filed simultaneous state “Freedom of Information Act” requests in Connecticut, Michigan, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania about those states’ participation in the new “MATRIX” database surveillance system. It also released an Issue Brief explaining the problems with the program, which also operates in Florida and Utah.They just don't ever give up, do they?“Congress killed the Pentagon’s ‘Total Information Awareness’ data mining program, but now the federal government is trying to build up a state-run equivalent,” said Barry Steinhardt, Director of the ACLU’s Technology and Liberty Program.
“In essence, the government is replacing an unpopular Big Brother initiative with a lot of Little Brothers,” he added, noting that the program is receiving $12 million from the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security. “What does it take for the message to get through that government spying on the activities of innocent Americans will not be tolerated?”
The ACLU’s requests, which were filed under individual states’ open-records laws, come on the heels of a federal Freedom of Information Act request it filed October 17. A similar request was also filed in Florida, where the program originated. The goal of the requests is to find out what information sources the system is drawing on – information program officials have refused to disclose – as well as who has access to the database and how it is being used.
According to Congressional testimony and news reports, The Matrix (which stands for “Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange”) creates dossiers about individuals from government databases and private-sector information companies that compile files on Americans’ activities for profit. It then makes those dossiers available for search by federal and state law enforcement officers. In addition, Matrix workers comb through the millions of files in a search for “anomalies” that may be indicative of terrorist or other criminal activity.
While company officials have refused to disclose details of the program, according to news reports the kind of information to be searched includes credit histories, driver’s license photographs, marriage and divorce records, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and the names and addresses of family members, neighbors and business associates.
Raising even more issues, the Matrix is operated by a private company, Seisint Inc. of Boca Raton, Florida. Ironically, the company’s founder was forced to resign after information about his own past came to light: according to Florida police, he was formerly a drug smuggler who had piloted multiple planeloads of cocaine from Colombia to the U.S.
“Members of Congress who voted to close down TIA in the belief that they were ending this kind of data mining surveillance must demand more information about The Matrix,” said Steinhardt. “And then they should shut it down too.”
Copies of the ACLU’s state and federal FOIA requests as well as the Issue Brief about The Matrix are online at http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacy.cfm?ID=14240&c=130, and can also be accessed at www.aclu.org/privacy.
A special Web feature about the defunct TIA program is online at http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacylist.cfm?c=130.
Oh, and if you're curious - you can also check out the government's MATRIX website.
The following is a new Action Alert from the ACLU regarding legislation to roll back portions of the PATRIOT Act. The ACLU is offering to allow supporters of this new legislation (known as the SAFE Act) to send faxes to their Congressmen. If you wish to do so, please click here:
Two years after the passage of the PATRIOT Act, the movement to fix this broad and un-American piece of legislation is gaining incredible momentum. But with time running short this year, we are facing a serious deadline to persuade Congress to begin to fix the PATRIOT Act.One of the provisions of the bill - the part that prohibits the government from searching records without individualized suspicion - would also prevet anything like the "Total Information Awareness" system that DARPA had been developing from being tried again. Rather than being able to sift through vast amounts of data looking for someone who might fit a terrorist "profile", the government would have to have reason to believe that you, specifically, are possibly engaged in terrorist activity before they could just sift through your records.
Following on the House's strong vote last month to ban "sneak and peek" searches, Sens. Larry Craig (R-ID) and Richard Durbin (D-IL) have now taken the lead in the Senate by introducing the bi-partisan Security and Freedom Ensured (SAFE) Act of 2003 (S 1709). In the House, Representative Butch Otter (R-ID) has introduced a companion bill (HR 3352). This legislation would represent a significant first step toward rolling back some of the PATRIOT Act's worse excesses.
This legislation would make sure that intelligence agents cannot search library records unless there is suspicion that an individual is involved with a foreign power. It would also limit the use of sneak and peek searches by government agents. Furthermore, it would limit the government's ability to conduct widespread searches of your personal information without probable cause or individualized suspicion.The SAFE Act would not hinder the investigative powers law enforcement agencies need to keep us safe, but would instead ensure proper checks and balances on these powers to help keep us free! The SAFE Act represents our best chance this year to fix the PATRIOT Act and deserves our support.
Take Action! Urge your Members of Congress to correct the PATRIOT Acts flaws.
- The government should not be allowed to indiscriminately investigate your library records.
This legislation would amend the PATRIOT ACT to require "individualized suspicion" that the records being sought are related to someone who is acting for a foreign government or organization. It prohibits the government from embarking on fishing expeditions where they examine a large number of people’s records without any reasonable suspicion in the hopes that they might find a potential terrorist.- Sneak and peek searches should be used in rare situations, not as a standard practice.
The PATRIOT Act allows the widespread use of sneak and peek searches and delays notification indefinitely. This new legislation would limit the use of sneak and peek searches to three specific purposes. It would also ensure that the targets of these searches are notified within seven days unless a court approves extensions.- The PATRIOT Act is an attack on fundamental American values. It needs to be fixed.
The Constitution and its Bill of Rights emphasize the need for checks and balances on government agents and limits to their power. The PATRIOT Act rolled back key judicial oversight and gave law enforcement significant new powers that go beyond the war on terrorism. The passing of these new bills would be an important step in bringing the PATRIOT Act back in line with core American values.
Please visit the ACLU SAFE Act Page now, and urge your Congressional representatives to support this bill!
Copolymer wrote a piece for morons.org about a recent interview of Robert Bork by Pat Robertson. In his comments on the interview, he makes, what I think, is an excellent point about the frequent claim that the Supreme Court, though rulings like the recent one overturning the Texas sodomy law, is "making up new rights" that weren't included in the Constitution.
Something to remember the next time the argument comes up.Pat Robertson: Where does the Supreme Court come off saying that homosexuality is a constitutional right? And to think that a staunch Catholic, Kennedy, wrote that decision.There's a basic problem with this argument, and that is this: there is a huge number of things not mentioned in the constitution that people nevertheless take as their right to do or practice. Carpentry, for one. Horseback riding. Standing on a street corner doing mime shit for money. The list goes on and on. There's no constitutional right to heterosexual sex either, but never mind.
Part of Bork's answer was "One of the really terribly disturbing features of the Supreme Court...is that they are making up constitutional rights that are nowhere in the Constitution."
I just got this from the ACLU - read over it and if you agree this is an important issue, please click on the link and send a fax to your Senators:
In reaction to a strong financial privacy law adopted earlier this year in California, big banks, insurance companies and other financial firms are pressuring Congress to pass legislation that would set a low national standard for our financial privacy.Current federal law allows widespread distribution of your private information among financial institutions. Under legislation being considered by the Senate, financial institutions would be able to continue selling and sharing details of your personal financial life without your approval. This includes all of the financial and personal information that banks, mortgage companies and other financial institutions possess.
But some Senators are fighting back. A proposed amendment to the bill would restrict the amount of information available for sharing and would allow you to indicate that you do not want your information to be released.
Take Action! Help ensure your financial records are kept private and secure.
Click here for more information and to send a free fax to your Senators: http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacy.cfm?ID=13719&c=40
Imagine John Ashcroft meets Spinal Tap.
Now, go read it.
[Posting may be slow for a bit while I try to recover from laughter-induced side cramps...]
I had mentioned a few days ago about a soap I watch ("One Life to Live") doing a story on a peace activist (Marcie) getting harassed because of her anti-war stance. Since then, they've brought Marcie's brother, Ron, on the show, to try and pressure her on behalf of the family to give it up.
Ron starts by telling her how their business at their father's restaraunt has fallen off in response to Marcie's protests and business at his own shop has as well. Then he lays into her about opposing the military action when their brother is a soldier. Marcie responds that just because she diagrees - strongly - with what the government is doing with our troops doesn't mean that she doesn't support the troops themselves.
I'm on a mailing list with other fans of the show, and one of the, Brad Beam, shared one way he's found of making that same point - and I think it's good enough that I wanted to share it with the rest of you.
We all have our favorite sports teams, whether it's high school or professional. The team may be part of our community or part of our personal history, and we care intimately about the team's members.Given that it seems like many conservatives are also sports fans (why else would someone want to have Rush Limbaugh help give commentary on football games), its the kind of metaphor that might actually penetrate their skulls a bit - though whether they'd admit it or not is a whole different question.But during the course of the season, or even during a game, the coaching staff makes what we deem to be boneheaded plays. We want our team to be respected and to succeed, and we think these plays run counter to the team philosophy.
In some cases, the coaches may not have any personal experience in playing the game, or we didn't agree with the coaches' hiring. But, we care about the success of our team.
In any event, I think it's something that a lot of people may be able to relate to, and I'm glad Brad is willing to let me share it with you.
Republican Senator Norm Coleman, chairman of the Senate's permanent subcommittee on investigations has launched an investigation into the RIAA's crackdown on music piracy
In a letter to RIAA President Cary Sherman, Coleman criticized the group for issuing subpoenas to "unsuspecting grandparents whose grandchildren have used their personal computers" and others who may not know their computer is being used to download music.The RIAA says that they'll be happy to cooperate with the Senator and hope that this investigation will show that their actions are legal and legitimate.[...]
He asked the RIAA to furnish him with a list of its subpoenas; its safeguards against invading privacy and making erroneous subpoenas; its standards for issuing subpoenas; and a description of how it collects evidence of illegal file sharing.
"I recognize the very legitimate concerns about copyright infringement," Coleman said in a conference call with reporters. "This is theft. But I'm worried that the industry is using a shotgun approach."
I think it's good that someone is at least wanting to look into the RIAA's actions. I understand the concern about piracy, but I also think that the RIAA is making a bigger deal out of this than is warranted.
Not every person who downloads music from the net is attempting to get music without payingfor it. Many downloaders are trying to get music that is unable to be purchased - such as tracks from albums that are out of print or cannot be bought in the US. Others download a few tracks to see if they want to buy the entire album. I've heard from a number of people who've done that and ended up buying CD's that, had they not been able to check out the tracks beforehand, probably would have decided weren't worth the risk. I've even known people who've downloaded music off the net that were tracks on CDs they already owned, simply because it was easier and faster than ripping the CDs they have.
People like this don't usually turn around and offer the songs they have for download to anyone else, so they're neither stealing music nor are they facilitating someone else stealing it, either. The problem, of course, is how can they prove it? And what about people who rip a CD for their own use and don't offer it for download, but then sell the CD to someone else? Is that significantly different than people who used to make a cassette tape of an album before selling it to a 2nd-hand store? And how does someone who's done that prove they ever owned the CD in the first place? It may be that these are some of the reasons that they're more focused on people who offer many songs for download rather than the downloaders themselves.
At any rate, I think it'll be good for them to have someone looking over their shoulder a bit and checking on what they're doing, and how. The fact that it's a Republican is a bit surprising to me, but in a good way. Thank you, Senator Coleman.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a nifty little database with the IP numbers and usernames of people that the RIAA has filed a subpoena for in the DC District court. It's not perfect - they only have information on ones that have already been filed in the CD court, and they note that it's possible that a subpeona has been filed but they haven't gotten the information on it yet. Still, its nice to be able to check in, and it can help offer some peace of mind.
They also note that, from what they've seen, it looks like the RIAA is mainly going after people who have offered a large number of files for downloading or who run a "supernode" that can serve as a part of the backbone for P2P sharing networks.
Earlier this year, Congress passed an amendment to a budget bill that banned the used of any funds for the implementation of the "Total Terrorist Information Awareness" program being developed by John Poindexter at DARPA without further authorization from Congress. Now Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, a Democrat from Hawaii wants to suspend funding for the program all together, and currently has at least the tacit approval from Senator Ted Stevens, a Republican from Alaska, who is the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Without fanfare, senators debating defense spending for next year have proposed eliminating all money for the Pentagon's development of a vast computerized terrorism surveillance program that has raised privacy concerns.If this is passed by the Senate, there will have to be a conference with members from the House to reconcile the bills - currently, the House bill would only extend the current ban-without-further-approval for another year. Either would be an excellent move, but obviously the Senate version would do considerably more damage to the TIA program as a whole, and thus would be my choice.In the past, Congress has limited the Defense Department's ability to implement the system now known as Terrorism Information Awareness while allowing research to proceed, but the new provision goes further to ban funding outright.
"No funds appropriated or otherwise made available to the Department of Defense ... or to any other department, agency or element of the federal government, may be obligated or expended on research and development on the Terrorism Information Awareness program," the provision says.
I'm just glad, though, to see that Congress isn't just sitting back and letting this program get developed and implemented without taking the time to exercise caution about it and seriously consider if our tax dollars should really be spent on helping the Pentagon (or who knows who else) poke through every aspect of our lives.
Ok.... Well, it seem the Supreme Court has decided that porn is a big enough threat to our children that libraries should be able to be compelled to install Internet filters, whether they want to or not. This is supposed to be a way of keeping curious little kids away from all the big nasty porn sites running around in the wild hinterlands of Cyberspace.
I wonder when they're going to do something about all the porn that may be coming to kids - unsolicited, and with no effort on the kids part - to their inboxes.
If you're anything like me, you probably get several pieces of pornographic spam ever day. Sometimes I get pictures of women with their legs spread wide and the stupidest looks on their faces (which I presume are supposed to look sexy but tend to look more like someone who's constipated and sucking on a lemon), pictures of women getting ready to suck on a guys dick, pictures of guys standing with their flags flying at full-mast, women with, um.... well, lets just say if there's any truth to proteins being good for the skin, they'll have a FANTASTIC complexion soon. You name it, I get it. And while Pagans may have a reputation for being sexually liberated, I'm a bit unusual in that way. Ok, I'm pretty much a prig when it comes to porn or even "near-porn" (lets just say one of my boyfriends used to tease the daylights out of me because anytime we sat down to watch a movie that might have some kind of a sex scene in it - even a PG-13 rated one - I had to have a Newsweek handy so I could just read that while he watched the action).
Sure, it's no problem for me to delete it, and I'm old enough that even though I absolutely loathe the stuff, it's not traumatic if I accidentially see it. But I know that I never gave may name or email address to anyone who would be sending out porn ads, and I've never filled out any surveys, visited any sites, or anything else to give any indication that I'd be interested in porn ads or sites.
I mention that because I think it's important - I didn't ask for any of this stuff. I get it, though, and I know there are probably a million ways for porn pushers to get my email. Companies I've given my e-mail to may well have sold or rented their list to someone. Web crawling bots may have scooped it up off of any website where I've ever had my email address posted. Some of it is undoubtedly from programs that can just blanket a domain with emails, without knowing the specific user names (or the part before the "@" sign).
Obviously, NONE of these methods take into account how old the person in question might be. The porn pushers simply don't care. They want to get their message out to whomever they can - and if some kids get sent it, oh well.
So here's the current irony - a kid goes into the library, surfs around at the sites allowed by the filter, maybe posts a couple messages on guestbooks, leaving his email address, or something of that nature. The next time he logs on, that address has gotten scooped up by a web bot, and sold off to "Big Bobs House of Big Boobs" or some such enterprise, and when the kid goes back to the library to check his email, well, whaddya know, he's got some titty pictures to look at.
Many Internet filters try to filter out anything that might be pornographic from email, but no system like that is going to be perfect. I've been working with one on my home computer that catches about 90% of them (I can tell because it just transfers them to a different folder which I scan through to make sure it's not deleting something I actually need to read), but I still end up with several rather unpleasant surprises each day when I go through my regular mail.
So, is the next step maybe going to be to prevent anyone from sending unsolicitated pornographic images through e-mail? I have to admit, on a personal level, I'd love it, though on a political level, I don't know if I'd like the prescedent it'd set. It just seems to be an odd bit of inconsistancy, though. Trying to prevent people from seeing porn in a public library but not caring who sends it to whom through email. Hmmm...
I dunno. Any suggestions?
[Note from Kriselda: Last week I had posted an entry called "Protest Restrictions", about a man who is being prosecuted for having an anti-Bush sign in an area where only Bush supporters were being allowed to gather. From time to time, I post copies of stories from here to Blogcritics, and had done so with this one. I edited it a bit, however, to make it somewhat clearer and a bit more polished. For the sake of completeness, I'm now posting the edited version to "different strings". So, this isn't anything new, it's more just for my own records, though if you want to read it, you're certainly welcome to :)]
Back in 1999, after discovering a website parodying his campaign for the Presidency, George W. Bush famously declared that "There ought to be limits to freedom". Since his installation as President, we've come to see that he was being quite sincere when he said that. Bush does not like to be aware of anyone disagreeing with him or his policies.One current example can be found in an article published by the Economist. Brett Bursey, a long time activist, had decided to join a crowd of people greeting the President at the Columbia, SC, airport. While the majority of the people gathered were there to show support for President Bush, Bursey brought a sign with him to express his opposition to Bush's policy in regards to Iraq. The sign said simply "No War for Oil". He was arrested by the South Carolina police for trespassing, but those charges were dropped. Soon after, however, he was charged under a federal statute that allows the Secret Service to restrict access to areas near the President. This rule, apparently, isn't invoked very often, but the Justice department has pressed for the prosecution of this case, in part, at least, to test out their ability to use it more often. It seems they want to spare President Bush the trauma of having to see or hear any indication that not everyone likes him.
The prosecutors say that Mr Bursey was not in a special "free-speech zone" that was set up for protesters half a mile from the hangar. The pro-Bush people did not need to be there because they were not protesting. Mr Bursey told the cops, defiantly, that he was under the impression that the whole of America was a free-speech zone.The prosecution is being brought specifically because Bursey was standing in the crowd to protest against President Bush. As noted above, none of the pro-Bush people were considered to be trespassing, and thus none were not arrested. The only difference between the pro-Bush people in the crowd and Bursey was the opinion he was expressing. In fact, one of the officials involved in his arrest told him "It's the content of your sign." He was also told that if he wanted to protest President Bush or his policies, he would have to go to the "Free Speech Zone" a half-mile down the road, out of Bush's sight or hearing. In essence, he could only say something in opposition to the President if he said it where the President wouldn't be subjected to it.
And, if all of that wasn't bad enough, when Bursey requested a jury trial - so that his guilt or innocence could be determined by his peers - the judge presiding over the case refused his request, saying that petty offenses, such as this, are not covered by the right to a jury trial.
Eleven Congressmen have written to Attorney General Ashcroft about the situation, asking that the charges be dismissed.
In the letter to Ashcroft recently released, the members of Congress called the prosecution of Bursey for carrying his sign outside the designated free speech zone "a threat to the freedom of expression we should all be defending."From the reports I've read, there was nothing in Mr. Bursey's appearance, demeanor or actions that would indicate he was any kind of a threat to the President. He was simply a man in a crowd with a sign saying "No War for Oil". He was singled out for arrest and prosecution under federal statutes and charged with trespassing because his opinion was someplace it didn't belong. I think that's the scariest part of this story to me. What we're talking about here isn't a matter of protecting the President's physical safety. If someone wanted to hurt or kill the president, they could easily blend in with a pro-Bush crowd if they needed to. It's a matter of saying that the government is now going to discriminate against certain people if they don't like the opinion being expressed - even if that opinion is entirely legal and protected by the First Amendment - and that expressing an "inappropriate" opinion in certain circumstances can now get you charged with a federal crime."As we read the First Amendment to the Constitution, the United States is a 'free speech zone.' In the United States, free speech is the rule, not the exception, and citizens' rights to express it do not depend on their doing it in a way the President finds politically amenable ... We ask that you make it clear that we have no interest as a government in 'zoning' Constitutional freedoms, and that being politically annoying to the President of the United States is not a criminal offense. This prosecution smacks of the use of the Sedition Acts two hundred years ago to protect the President from political discomfort. It was wrong then and it is wrong now. We urge you to drop this prosecution based so clearly on the political views being expressed by the individual who is being prosecuted."
I could understand if ALL members of a crowd - both for and against the President and his policies - were required to gather in a certain area, away from where he was appearing. I wouldn't necessarily like it, but it would be treating all opinions and opinion-holders the same way. The way it is right now, though, people who support the President are being given preferrential treatment, and those who oppose him are being pushed off as far to the side as possible. That is nothing short of a violation of the basic principle of free speech - one of the foundational values of this nation - and its a travesty of justice.
UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit posted a comment to this at Blogcritics, noting that John Leo of US News and World Report has done a column on this back in May, and that he (Reynolds) had posted about it at that time. The column by Leo, however, is now only available if you purchase it from USN&WR's archives.
Reynolds also noted in his comment that this kind of behaviour has been increasing since the attempted assassination of President Reagan, including during Clinton's administration. While I'm not aware of any cases that resulted in federal charges prior to this one (and the stories I've read about this case have indicated that the law Bursey has been charged under is used only "rarely"), if that's the case, it's just as wrong for a Democrat administration to determine who can demonstrate within the sight and hearing of the President based on their opinion as it is for a Republican one. It's also high time that this issue was treated with the seriousness and outrage it deserves.
Remember back in 1999 when, during the campaign for the Presidency, George Bush was upset by a parody website and proclaimed that "There ought to be limits to freedom"? He was referring specifically to freedom of speech, and it appears that the occupying force in Iraq has decided to follow his lead. Today's Globe and Mail has a front page photo of a young Iraqi being lead off by armed troops, noting that he had "insulted occupying troops on his way to school" and had been "bound and taken away as a warning to others". [Here is a screen capture of the front page in case Globe and Mail has updated their site by the time you read this.]
This, of course, goes along with our shutting down of elections, declaring that we won't accept an islamic theocracy, banning Ba'athists from certain jobs, decreeing that images of Saddam cannot be shown in certain places, and trying to disarm the Iraqi citizens.
Last week, it was noted that we were forbidding any speech that would incite violence against the occupying troops. Are we now expanding it to include insults as well? Of course, not knowing what the kid said, it could have been something that might incite violence, but when it's reported that he's been arrested and taken away as "a warning to others", it doesn't sound like what he said was necessarily all that dangerous (otherwise, I'd expect to read that he was being arrested for "threatening" the troops, rather than "insulting" them).
Link via Eschaton
Warblogging has an absolutely incredible piece on why he's angry at our government. It was originally posted about a month ago, but I just discovered it tonight, and I cannot recommend this piece highly enough. Below are a few excerpts, but you simply must read the whole thing. It'll remind you of what you're angry about, too - and that's a good thing, because we simply cannot afford to forget.
I can't imagine a country where the Director of Homeland Security (I'm sorry, but what kind of countries call themselves a "Homeland"? I remember the "Fatherland" and "Motherland"...) says that "Liberty is the most precious gift we offer to our citizens". Come on, Mr. Ridge, the government does not "give" us Liberty! We give ourselves Liberty! We hold these rights to be "self evident", Mr. Ridge! To say that you "give" us the right implies that you can also take it away! You are doing so, but I am here to tell you that I will not stand idly by as you do so![...]
I've been ranting for quite a while now. I'm angry. I'm very angry. Perhaps most of all I'm angry that President Bush plans to exploit the memory of September 11 by spending the month of September traveling between campaign events and memorial services for people who died on that fateful day. He's been exploiting that tragedy for all it's worth since it happened, and it doesn't just make me angry — it makes me cry.
I was in New York City when the World Trade Center was hit. I woke up to a friend telling me that one tower had collapsed, that the Pentagon was on fire and that there was a car bomb at the State Department. I woke up and smelled the stench of death. I inhaled people's ashes. I inhaled the ground up concrete and steel for weeks. I hacked up phlegm impregnated with the cremated remains of people I would never know for weeks upon weeks. I watched the second tower fall from a New York City roof. I spent weeks in Union Square mourning with my fellow New Yorkers. I spent months upon months upon months walking by photographs of the missing.
President Bush is exploiting our national grief. He is using our grief to oppress Americans in the worst way since Woodrow Wilson signed the Espionage Act. He is using our grief to convince us to become "conquer monkeys" as Garry Trudaeu put it. Now he plans to exploit September 11 to get himself reelected. And I think it will work.
Lawmakers in Washington state have decided to ban the sale of some violent video games to minors. Note that it is only some and not all violent video games. Apparently some kinds of violence are ok, while others are not.
Actually, they've decided that only one kind of violence is inappropriate for minors - violence against law enforcement officers. So that's what they've now banned kids under 17 from buying. Video games depecting graphic violence against anyone else are still ok for minors to have.
Now, I'm not a fan of violent video games. In fact, I rather loathe them. My husband, on the other hand, thinks they're just dandy. He also loves really graphic horror movies, so it kind of fits as part of a theme, there, but he's also someone who gets a bit woozy at the sight of real blood, and seems pretty clear on the difference between fantasy violence and real violence, so I'm not terribly worried about him. All the same, though, I'd rather we not support companies that market extremely violent video games, so we've had more than a few intense conversations about the concept. Luckily, he likes to check out games by playing a demo first, and, so far, has found that after a bit, the "worst of the worst" are generally no fun to play, so the probem is averted.
Just because I know my husband can play violent video games without becoming a serial killer, though, doesn't mean I don't think they're not harmful in some cases. For example, there are many who blame the game "Doom" for turning Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold into the Columbine killers. While I don't think it did them any good, and probably did contribute, if only in part, to their actions, I don't believe that, by itself, and in the absence of other serious problems, it would have "made" them killers.
So, what is society to do? In the absence of any scientific proof that video games "make" kids violent, I don't think that there's much that can - or should - be done on a regulatory level. While I may be opposed to the games, I don't think the answer is banning them, or legally banning the sale to minors. This isn't an issue that that state should be involved in. It's a matter for parents, in particular, and for marketplace, in general, to regulate, though deciding what they will or won't purchase for their kids or for themselves.
In the case of Washington state's decision, I find it to be rather hypocritical. Their argument is that for kids to play games showing violence against law enforcement officers is harmful - yet they don't have the same concern about kids playing games that have them being violent against anyone else. I suppose it would be possible to make the argument that playing games showing violence against law enforcement personnel can lead to kids having less respect for them, but that same argument should apply to people in general - and I'm not aware of any rash of kids going after cops suddenly to indicate that there's a new problem developing.
Personally, I feel that games should be handled the same way that movies and music are: informative ratings that help parent judge the content of the game (which is already being done), and voluntary compliance by stores with the ratings system - meaning that stores would choose not to sell games rated "Mature" or "Adults Only" to kids. If stores fail to comply, then the community can work to bring them into compliance through economic pressure - also known as boycotts. They're a perfectly viable tool to use in a capitalistic society, and are the best way for the marketplace to let companies know what they will and won't support.
I have not had a chance to read this yet, but wanted to let you know that the ACLU has released their report on the crackdown on dissent following the 9/11 attacks.
Excerpts from a piece Howard Dean has written for Truthout. I advise reading the whole thing.
George W. Bush ran for President on the promise that he would be ``a uniter, not a divider.'' Nothing could be further from the truth. Earlier this week, Senator Rick Santorum, the third highest ranking Republican in the Senate, compared homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery. On Friday, President Bush praised Santorum as ``an inclusive man.'' With his praise, this President has once again demonstrated his willingness to follow the extremist Republican tradition of dividing our country for political gain. The President knows that his defense of Santorum's inflammatory words deeply offends millions of gay and lesbian Americans, their family and friends; his praise also raises grave concerns about this Administration's commitment to civil rights and civil liberties.[...] The issue at hand is about more than Senator Santorum's reprehensible statements, however, and the issue is also about more than the dignity and respect of gay and lesbian Americans.
The issue is whether we, as Americans, will continue to allow ourselves to be led down a path by this Administration to a country that is divided against itself by race, income, gender, sexual orientation and religion.
Senator Santorum's remarks do not exist in isolation. In January, President Bush went on national television to discuss the Supreme Court's hearing of the University of Michigan's affirmative action case. One of the most despicable moments of this President's Administration occurred when, on national prime time television, he used the word "quotas" repeatedly to describe the University of Michigan's admissions policy.
President Bush knows that the University of Michigan does not now have, and has never had, quotas. His use of the race-loaded word "quota" is intended to incite people's fears of losing their jobs, or their positions in America's leading universities, to minorities. Such rhetoric, which is designed to appease the extreme right-wing of the Republican Party and to appeal to Americans' worst instincts, betrays the guiding principle that America is a nation in which all people are created equal.
It appears that Senator Rick Santorum isn't the only one who thinks that the government has the power to regulate what happens in the bedrooms of consenting adults. According to a recent article in Slate magazine, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia seems to agree
"It's conceded by the state of Texas that married couples can't be regulated in their private sexual decisions," says Smith [the plaintiff's attorneys]. To which Scalia rejoins, "They may have conceded it, but I haven't."Scalia, like Santorum, also seems to have no problem with gays - as long as they refrain from having gay sex.
Smith says these laws say "you can't have sexual activity at all" if you are gay and Scalia objects: "They just say you can't have sexual intimacy with a person of the same sex." See? No problem. Homosexuals remain perfectly at liberty to have heterosexual sex in Texas.Scalia even uses bigamy as a point of comparison in his questioning on the matter:
Then Scalia wonders whether state statutes that criminalize rape or adultery only among opposite sexes are similarly unconstitutional. Smith argues that this is quite different from "giving all people free rein to make sexual decisions except one small group of people." Scalia retorts, "You can put it that way. You can make it sound puritanical. But lots of laws make moral judgments. What about the laws against bigamy?"Worse, Scalia also seems to think that homosexuality is somehow contagious - that it could spread from teacher to student if a gay person happened to get a job teaching school.
Smith explains that the anti-sodomy laws have pernicious secondary effects—keeping gay parents from gaining child visitation or custody or employment, for instance—and Rehnquist wonders whether, if these laws are stuck down, states can have laws "preferring non-homosexuals to homosexuals as kindergarten teachers." Smith replies that there would need to be some showing that gay kindergarten teachers produce harm to children. Scalia offers one: "Only that children might be induced to follow the path to homosexuality."When Charles Rosenthal, the attorney representing the state of Texas, seems to make a wrong turn in his arguments, Scalia seems seriously rattled.
In response to a question from Justice Anthony Kennedy as to whether Bowers is still good law, Rosenthal replies that mores have changed and that "physical homosexual intimacy is now more acceptable." Since he suddenly seems to be arguing the wrong side of the case, an astonished Scalia steps in to say, "You think there is public approval of homosexuality?"Have I mentioned before that Justice Scalia scares me? This is the same Justice who believes that democracy obscures "the divine authority behind government," and that we can tell who God wants to have be our leader, as he will have grabbed his power through some form of battle. Oh, and Scalia's also the one who, when he was recently given an award for free speech banned the broadcast media from covering it.Rosenthal catches his pass, then runs the wrong way down the field: "There is approval of homosexuality. But not of homosexual activity." Scalia wonders how there can be such widespread "approval" if Congress still refuses to add homosexuals to classes of citizens protected by the civil rights laws. "You're saying there's no disapproval of homosexual acts. But you can't ... say that," he sputters.
Remember that Scalia was instrumental in the Supreme Court's decision to halt the recount of votes in Florida, following the 2000 election, and was the author of the opinion that essentially said that no recount should be done because, if the recount showed that George Bush had not actually won the state, it might cause a credibility problem for his administration (ignoring entirely the fact that if George Bush has not actually won the state, he wouldn't have had an administration to have any crediblity to worry about). Many believe that if Chief Justice Renquhist were to retire while Bush is still in office, W will want to make Scalia the new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
That would be scary.
As for the Slate article quoted above, you should check it out, if only for the wonderfully surreal conversation near the end about immorality, teaching German, just what Texas thinks of gays in general, and the feasibility of gay politicians in Texas.
This is one of those things that you never know for sure if it's really "true" or someone with a bit of imagination and a good sense of humour, but either way it's rather amusing - and (as Atrios pointed out) Santorum has, in a way, opened himself up to questions like it. I suspect, though, that whether the "original" call is real or not, Santorum's office will be getting more than a few calls along the same line. I don't have much sympathy for Santorum if that's the case, but I do kinda feel sorry for his staff...
At any rate - go read - it's short and it's funny, and we all need a good laugh.
Jack Balkin has an excellent piece that offers an overview to the "Right to Privacy" and a look at how the changing mores of society guide how that right is implemented by the courts. Below is an exceprt, but I highly recommend reading the entire piece. (If the permalink is bloggered go to http://balkin.blogspot.com/ and scroll down to Monday, April 23 and the article titled "Rick Santorum and Homosexuality.)
The right of privacy is always responding to changing notions of what is sexually appropriate and inappropiate. Today most people in the United States (and certainly most young people) think that heterosexual sex between unmarried individuals is permissible. It was not always thus. The sexual revolution changed people's views about the morality of pre-marital sex. That, in turn, changed what people thought the state had a right to regulate. Most people now probably think that it is none of the state's business whether heterosexual couples have sex and whether they wish to live together outside of marriage.The same thing, I would submit, is happening with same-sex relations. When the Supreme Court first considered the issue in 1986 in Bowers v. Hardwick, homosexuality was only beginning to win widespread social acceptance. Not surprisingly, the Supreme Court, filled with people of a much older generation, could not muster five votes to protect the rights of gays and lesbians. What was surprising was that there were already four votes to do so. Now, with Will and Grace one of the top-rated comedies on television, it is quite clear that a very large number of people have changed their views. It is only a matter of time before the Supreme Court begins to protect same-sex relations. Whether they will do so through extending the right of privacy or through the use of the equal protection clause is yet to be determined. But they will change constitutional law to accomodate changing social mores. However, since there have been no similar changes in social attitudes about incest or polgyamy, there is no reason to think that courts will protect those practices. As I have said, the reason is not based on logic, but experience, which, as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. once said, is the real source of the life of the law..
Conservative religious groups used to have the upper hand in the debate over gay rights. But now they have seen the writing on the wall. They are, for the most part, resigned to the Supreme Court's overruling or severely limiting Bowers v. Hardwick. Santorum's comments should be understood in this light. He is giving this feature of right wing politics its last hurrah.
More Republicans have joined the call for Senator Rick Santorum to apologize for his recent remarks.
The group, Republican Unity Coalition, includes former president Gerald Ford and Mary Cheney, the daughter of current Vice President Dick Cheney. They describe themselves as a "gay-straight organization dedicated to making homosexuality a non-issue". I really like the way they put that because, really, homosexuality should be a non-issue.
Republican Senators Olympia Snowe (Maine) and Lincoln Chafee (Rhode Island) have both issued statements condemning Senator Rick Santorum's comments on sexuality and his contention that there is no right to privacy.
"Discrimination and bigotry have no place in our society, and I believe Senator Santorum's unfortunate remarks undermine Republican principles of inclusion and opportunity," said Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, according to a statement from her office.This is the second time in recent weeks that Senator Snowe has taken a noticable stand in opposition to her party's policies. Her opposition to President Bush's tax cut proposal even prompted one group, "Club for Growth", to create and ad about her comparing her to the leaders of France who tried to "stand in the way" of Bush's push for the war in Iraq. (In a nice touch of irony, Maine has a large Franco-American population, and there are reports that the ad may have actually helped strengthen support for her.)Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-Rhode Island, released a similar statement on Thursday.
"I thought his choice of comparisons was unfortunate and the premise that the right of privacy does not exist -- just plain wrong," he said. "Senator Santorum's views are not held by this Republican and many others in our party."
I hope more Republicans will follow their lead, but I'm not holding my breath. There is pressure from conservative groups such as the Family Research Council and the Christian Coalition for Republicans to stand in support with Santorum. So far, most Republicans, including President Bush, have chosen to remain silent on the issue, apparently in hope that it will quickly blow over.
"It is clear that many top GOP leaders cannot bring themselves to offer a spirited defense of marriage for fear of being accused of bigotry by Democrats and their allies among homosexual activists," said a statement from Ken Connor, president of the Family Research Council.The Christian Coalition released a statement Thursday, blasting the "liberal organizations and the liberal media" for trying to "foster a jaundiced agenda," and hailing Santorum as a "man of honor."
"Homosexuality clearly is an alternative lifestyle," said Roberta Combs, president of the group. "We stand with and support Senator Santorum."
From DailyKOS, a suggestion for the Democrats:
We all talk about the Democratic Party standing for something. Well, there it is.Well, it's one sure way to differentiate the Democrats from the Republicans, and it might help remind some people what we stand to lose if things keep going as they have been.The party of personal liberty.
It's a winner, both tactically (helping us win elections), and philosophically. Government can and should lend a helping hand. But it should also protect our individual freedoms from those (like Santorum) who would tear them away.
Do read the entire piece - he has some good points about Liberitarians and how they might just fit in with the Democrats better than the Republicans - and wouldn't that be a boost next November?
I just hope someone passes this on to Terry McAuliffe at the DNC. Or maybe a lot of someones. ;)
Arthur Silber at Light of Reason has an interesting post on the Santorum flap. In it he makes a couple of points that I wish I had recognized, because I think that they are very important. First, Santorum seems to be under the impression that the basic "unit" of society is the "stable, healthy family", NOT the individual, and second, that the governments purpose is not to protect the individual but rather to protect society. Both of these concepts fly in the face of what America is supposed to be - a pluralistic society where individuals have freedoms and it is the freedom of the individual that is necessary to protect, not society.
The entirety of the interview, and these last statements in particular, make it unmistakably clear that, for Santorum, the purpose of government is not to protect individual rights, but to protect "strong healthy families," "the basic unit of our society." Note that his idea of "strong healthy families" is one growing out of his particular beliefs, including his religious beliefs; you might have quite a different idea of a "strong healthy family," as might many millions of other people. But beyond this, Santorum could not be more mistaken: "the basic unit of our society" is the individual, not "a healthy, stable, traditional family" or any other "unit" that someone might put forth. The smallest minority is the individual -- and it is the individual's rights that government properly should protect, especially against people with views like Santorum's.When individual rights become subordinate to one particular view of society, we step away from being a free nation and begin to more closely resemble the fundamentalist theocracies that our own government decries on a regular basis. That many of Santorum's views derive from his own particular religoius belief just make the comparison that much more apt.The other element worthy of note is the breathtaking arrogance of this statement: "The idea is that the state doesn't have rights to limit individuals' wants and passions. I disagree with that. I think we absolutely have rights because there are consequences to letting people live out whatever wants or passions they desire." Please keep in mind the following: what Santorum is talking about in this interview is sexual activity conducted in private by consenting adults. But Santorum proceeds from what is, in fundamental terms, a collectivist premise: he believes that government properly has the power (or in his terms, the "right") to criminalize behavior which might endanger "strong healthy families," thus in his view endangering society in general. In other words, the purpose of government is to protect "society" (which presumably includes those who thinks as he does, but no one else at all), but not to protect you specifically, or any other individual.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has announced that it is filing a suit against Shippensburg University in Harrisburg, PA, claiming that their Code of Conduct it has adopted to regulate student behaviour violates their right to free speech. Shippensburg, of course, denies that they are doing any such thing. Shippensburg's Code of Conduct, which is typical of colleges nationwide, gives each student a "primary" right to be free from harassment, inimidation, physical harm or emotional abuse, and a "secondary" right to express a personal belief system in a manner that does not "provoke, harass, demean, intimidate or harm" another.
The university also prohibits conduct that "annoys, threatens, or alarms a person or group," like sexual harassment, innuendo, comments, insults, propositions, jokes about sex or gender-specific traits and even "suggestive or insulting sounds," leering, whistling, obscene gestures.
The president of the university, Anthony Ceddia, supplemented the code last month with a policy limiting demonstrations and rallies to two specific "speech zones" on campus. Now, I can understand some of these restrictions. Students should be protected from physical harm, harassment, threats, intimidation or abuse, but since when did anyone have a right to not be "annoyed" or "insulted"? When I remember my own days in college, I honestly can't think of a day that went by in which I wasn't annoyed, insulted, had jokes made at my expense, was the recipient of demeaning comments or subjected to obscene gestures. As unpleasant as it was, I also knew that it was largely late-teens and early-twentysomethings being the general assholes so many people in that age range can be.
Granted, there are points where such behaviour rises to such a level that it needs to be addressed and, in many cases, controlled or regulated through rules and punishment. If it's of sufficient intensity that a reasonable person would find themselves hindered from being able to function as necessary in the learning environment, it's a problem. Other people's prejudices, immaturities and stupidity should not be allowed to interfere with someone's ability to get the education that they went to college for, and if a student is reasonbly in fear for their safety or well-being, there needs to be a mechanism in place that they can take advantage of to solve the problem. But more often than not, things never get that far. Feelings get hurt, people get mad, but no moreso than what happens in everyday life, where you have to face such behaviours without any "code of conduct" to protect you from the cruelty people can show towards each other. Learning how to deal with that should also be a part of a student's education, because you'll certainly need to know how.
FIRE is making this the kickoff of a campaign against overly restrictive codes of conduct at schools around the country. They're planning to file suit against at least one school in each of the 12 federal appellate court districts, and will be posting a database of regulations from schools around the country next month at http://speechcodes.org.
Rob at Emphasis Added hits it out of the park again today, with his commentary on the flap over Rick Santorum's comments, sexual repression, reactionary politics and homophobia.
The psychologist and political theorist Wilhelm Reich made an intriguing link between the dynamics of sexual repression and reactionary politics, arguing that the latter was an externalization of the repressed individual’s lack of control over powerful sexual urges. Essentially, the authoritarian tendencies of political movements on both the far right and far left represent the efforts of sexually repressed individuals and social masses to reproduce the misery of their own repression on everyone else, and it is no accident that sexual Puritanism and “family values” are part of the vocabulary of every historical authoritarian movement. In Reich’s view, the lifting of sexual repression as a feature of social mores will inevitably result in a more progressive politics. (This is a radical simplification, and those interested should consult Reich’s Mass Psychology of Fascism and The Sexual Revolution, both from the early 1930s, for more information.)Joe Bob says "Check it out!".
Howard Dean has now issued a call for Sen. Rick Santorum to resign from his leadership position in Congress. Currently, Sentorum is the Republican's #3 man.
Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean on Wednesday called for Republican Sen. Rick Santorum to resign his leadership post after the lawmaker compared homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery.Go Howard!
"Gay-bashing is not a legitimate public policy discussion; it is immoral. Rick Santorum's failure to recognize that attacking people because of who they are is morally wrong makes him unfit for a leadership position in the United States Senate," Dean said in a statement.
At this point, I haven't yet decided who I will support for President in the 2004 election, but I have a feeling it will wind up being a tough call between Howard Dean and John Kerry. Both seem to have a number of strengths, but I haven't yet identified what their major weaknesses are - and every candidate will have a few. I would, however, like to recommend checking both of them. Dean is garnering a lot of excitement in some quarters right now - not just for his denunciation of Santorum, but because of his stand on other issues as well - including the Iraqi war. Kerry got a major burst of publicity a couple weeks ago when he called for a "regime change" here in the US and was blasted by the GOP for daring to suggest we need a change of presidency during a way.
Information on Dean is available at his official campaign site Dean for America and his official blog Dean: Call to Action.
Information on John Kerry is available at his campaign site John Kerry for President.
The USA PATRIOT act was passed as emergency legislation to provide additional powers to the Justice Department and law enforcement officials during a time of crisis. Because it was an act for a time of crisis, there were "sunset" provisions written into the act that will cause it to expire in 2005. Now there is a movement to repeal the "sunset" provision and make the act permanent.
I am urging you to vote AGAINST the repeal of the "sunset" provisions and help ensure that the USA PATRIOT act does expire, as planned, in 2005. The act contains many provisions that sharply curtail the civil rights of American citizens, a condition that cannot be allowed to continue.
We are always hearing that is is our freedom - the rights that define who America is and what She stands for - that so threatens those who hate our nation and leads them to strike out at us in attacks of terrorism. Clamping down on our freedoms may make us feel safer from the threat of terrorism, and may make it appear that we are "doing something" to prevent future terror attacks, but all we're really accomplishing is surrendering to what the terrorists want in the first place. That simply cannot be our response to their attacks.
We cannot be a free people unless we also take risks - and as we sit here, having fought a war ostensibly to bring the Iraqi people freedom - it would be shameful for us to turn around and simply give up our own.
Please vote against the proposed repeal of the USA PATRIOT act "sunset" provisions, and allow the law to expire in 2005 as was intended.
From the New York Times:
Working with the Bush administration, Congressional Republicans are maneuvering to make permanent the sweeping antiterrorism powers granted to federal law enforcement agents after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, officials said today.
The move is likely to touch off strong objections from many Democrats and even some Republicans in Congress who believe that the Patriot Act, as the legislation that grew out of the attacks is known, has already given the government too much power to spy on Americans.
The landmark legislation expanded the government's power to use eavesdropping, surveillance, access to financial and computer records and other tools to track terrorist suspects.
When it passed in October 2001, moderates and civil libertarians in Congress agreed to support it only by making many critical provisions temporary. Those provisions will expire, or "sunset," at the end of 2005 unless Congress re-authorizes them.
But Republicans in the Senate in recent days have discussed a proposal, written by Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, that would repeal the sunset provisions and make the law's new powers permanent, officials said. Republicans may seek to move on the proposal this week by trying to attaching it to another antiterrorism bill that would make it easier for the government to use secret surveillance warrants against "lone wolf" terrorism suspects.
Remember, there's a little box down a ways on the sidebar over there
Ellen Dunst has a beautiful article today at The Onion on the things she should not be allowed to say as an American. A sample:
True patriots know that a price of freedom is periodic submission to the will of our leaders—especially when the liberties granted us by the Constitution are at stake. What good is our right to free speech if our soldiers are too demoralized to defend that right, thanks to disparaging remarks made about their commander-in-chief by the Dixie Chicks?
Go.
Eschaton links to an article today about a former Gulf War (I) veteran who was apparently beaten up after voicing his opposition to the war in a West Virginia bar.
Before the alleged attack, Brown said, he questioned the wisdom of going to war with Iraq so soon. He said he and other bar patrons called British Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George Bush “idiots.”
Brown said a friend warned him that he would be “jumped” when he left the bar because of what he said. On the way out of the bar, he said a man in “biker gear” confronted him and asked if he “had a problem with America.”
He said when he reached his car, someone hit him from behind with a blunt object, and then two people stood on his arms while another kicked his head. He suffered a broken nose and other facial injuries, and was treated at hospitals in Grafton and Morgantown.
[...]
“When people are being attacked for expressing themselves, we’re in trouble,” he said. “Using violence for patriotism is a very feeble and poor excuse.”
Somehow I fear that this is only the beginning.
Well, it appears that we're going to have pre-emptive interrogations and possible detentions to go along with our pre-emptive war. The FBI is planning to round up about around 10,000 Iraqi nationals living in the US to interrogate in an effort to try and weed out possible terrorists who are here to strike once the war starts. According to CBS News, those to be interrogated include:
[...] "students," "defectors," "permanent residents," "visitors" and even a few recently-naturalized U.S. citizens.
The bureau is also seeking to expel several more Iraqi diplomats like the two suspected intelligence agents who were kicked out of Baghdad's U.N. delegation in New York arlier this month. Officials will detain all immigrants from 34 suspect countries seeking asylum -- mindful that Ramzi Yousef, the first World Trade Center bomber in 1993, entered the U.S. seeking asylum from Iraq. The FBI says it anticipates making several terrorism- and visa fraud-related arrests as a result of their campaign.
With the governments current policy of indefinite detentions for people suspected of being linked to terrorism, it will be interesting to see how many of these interrogations will develop into extended stays...
Ron Wyden is quickly becoming a hero of mine.
Senator Ron Wyden (D.-Ore.), who earlier this year spearheaded an effort to cut off funding for the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness program, won Senate Commerce Committee approval last week of an amendment to require Congressional oversight of the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS II) being developed by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
Concerned that the CAPPS II program could violate the privacy and civil liberties of the flying public, Wyden introduced the amendment to require the Secretary of Homeland Security to report to Congress within 90 days on what impact the CAPPS II program will have on the privacy and civil liberties of United States citizens, including how individual information will be used and what safeguards will be implemented to protect the public's rights.
CAPPS II bears more than just a passing similarity to the Total Information Awareness program, but in some ways is almost more insidious since, at present, there is no indication that people would ever be able to find out what their rating is nor how they would be able to appeal their rating (if such an appeal would even be possible).
When we think of Communist countries and other repressive regimes, one of the images that comes to mind is the need for people to have proper "travelling papers" and restriction on who could go where, even within their own country. CAPPS II is, in a sense, a high-tech version of that - if your rating doesn't measure up, travel for you becomes that much more difficult. Somehow, I don't think that's what we really want.
In a strange coda to the story about the man arrested for wearing a pro-peace t-shirt in the Crossgates mall in Guilderland, NY, the security guard, Robert Williams who signed the complaint has been fired - for having signed the complaint. Williams noted that he had signed the compliant on orders from the assistant director of security for the mall, Fred Tallman, who had been asked to come to the police substation in the mall to sign the paperwork himself, but told police he didn't have time to do so. Tallman also told the police that Williams was a representative of the company and as such could sign the report.
Perhaps the most interesting twist, however, is that Williams' firing is causing almost as much of a stir as the original arrest within the community - and many of Williams' supporters are peace activists who feel he is being scapegoated for a bad decision on the part of management. Williams was fired on Friday (3/7), and on Sunday (3/9), yet another protest was held at Crossgates mall and roughly 100 people showed up to protest Williams' firing.
And here I thought the Supreme Court was the final arbiter of what is or isn't Constitutional:
Congress could remove federal courts' jurisdiction to rule on the Pledge of Allegiance if the Supreme Court doesn't overturn an appeals court decision that bars children from reciting the Pledge in school, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said yesterday.
[...] Rep. Steve Chabot, Ohio Republican and chairman of the Constitution subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, said he thinks the Supreme Court will overturn the appeals court's decision and make congressional action unnecessary.
But he said if that doesn't happen, the two options open to Congress are a statutory change to limit jurisdiction, as Mr. DeLay laid out, or amend the Constitution to protect the Pledge.
Personally, I would prefer to see the Constitution protected rather than the Pledge, but that seems to be a rather unpopular opinion in some quarters....
UPDATE: Also on the subject of the "under God" phrase, Roger Ebert has an excellent editorial on why the ban on it should be upheld, which includes this observation:
Because our enemies are for the most part more enthusiastic about horizontal prayer than we are, and see absolutely no difference between church and state--indeed, want to make them the same--it is alarming to reflect that they may be having more success bringing us around to their point of view than we are at sticking to our own traditional American beliefs about freedom of religion. When Ashcroft and his enemies both begin their days with displays of their godliness, do we feel safer after they rise from their devotions?
Note: Ebert describes two kinds of prayer - vertical prayer and horizontal prayer, which he defines this way:
Vertical prayer is private, directed upward toward heaven. It need not be spoken aloud, because God is a spirit and has no ears. Horizontal prayer must always be audible, because its purpose is not to be heard by God, but to be heard by fellow men standing within earshot.
According to an article, from January 1, 2003, the Crossroads Mall (where the men were arrested for wearing pro-peace t-shirts) already had a history of removing pro-peace demonstrators from the mall (link found courtesy of Hesiod at Counterspin Central):
Peace activists ask Crossgates to explain their ouster
By SARA FOSS
Published: Wednesday January 1, 2003
Gazette Reporter
GUILDERLAND - A group of people who walked around Crossgates Mall at the height of the Christmas season with antiwar statements displayed on their shirts said they want to know why mall security forced them to leave the premises.
Several members of Upper Hudson Peace Action said they were not creating a disturbance or demonstrating, but simply wearing shirts that expressed messages of peace, such as "Don't invade Iraq" and "Peace on Earth."
On the afternoon of Dec. 21, between 20 and 24 members of Upper Hudson Peace Action wandered around the mall in groups of two or three, said. Some had antiwar messages written on their shirts, while others had pieces of paper containing antiwar statements taped to their shirts, she said.
Members of the group had arranged to meet at the Crossgates food court around 5 p.m. When they did, security escorted them out of the mall, and drove them to their cars in security vehicles, said Pat Beetle, a coordinator for the group.
Hesiod also had a link to this comment in the discussion forum of the Time Union:
Arn Gunnutes - 02:53pm Mar 5, 2003 EST (#7 of 136)
As a shopper at Crossgates (not anymore!), when I visit New York, I can tell you that not so long ago, I saw at least one person with a shirt on that said "Nuke Iraq, Kill Saddam Hussein", and other such vitriol walking in the mall last week for at least 45 minutes.
No one ever approached THEM telling them that they were wearing unacceptable clothing or "might cause a disturbance".
I have a feeling this mall is going to be under close scruitiny from civil libertarians for quite some time....
Here's a bit of good news - both that the mall is dropping the charges, and that there were a good number of people willing to go out and not only show their opposition to the war, but also their support of the ability for citizens to express their opinions.
GUILDERLAND, N.Y., March 5 - The management at Crossgates Mall Wednesday asked the Guilderland Police Department to drop the trespassing charges against a Selkirk man. This came after about 100 protestors descended on Crossgates Mall that afternoon. Their "Mall Walk for Peace" protested the arrest of 60-year-old Stephen Downs, who was charged with trespassing Monday night when he wouldn't leave the mall after he refused to remove his T-shirt bearing a peace message.
On the not-so-good side of things, at least one person who showed up to protest the anti-war protseters (would that make him an anti-anti-war protester?) decided he need to push some people around, literally - which tends to support my earlier thought that the concern about anti-war sentiment isn't so much thinking there's something wrong with anti-war sentiment but concern that those who are upset with anti-war protesters will potentially cause a disturbance or other problems.
When a few protestors decided to get a little more vocal, a 55-year-old veteran carrying a sign reading "Remember 9-11" confronted them. The veteran yelled at the protestors and then went so far as to push some of the men.
I've seen and heard of several incidents where people who are in support of the war are making comments about how we should "Remember 9-11" - which is something that shouldn't be forgotten, but which also is irrelevent to the issue at hand. There is no evidence whatsoever that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with the 9-11 attacks, and no one known to be connected to the attacks (planners or perpetrators) is Iraqi.
Wouldn't we serve the memory of those killed on September 11th by going after those who actually killed them, and not some guy we can conveniently demonize, but who - as far as anyone has been able to show - had nothing to do with their deaths?
Catnmus notes that the Smoking Gun has copies of the police reports from the incident yesterday where two men were arrested for wearing t-shirts with pro-peace slogans on them.
Reading through the reports is kind of interesting. In the supporting depositions, the store detective at Macy's (Katie Light) notes that a customer came in concerned about a 'verbal dispute' between the guys in the anti-war t-shirts and other customers, but there is no indication as to whether the customer reported who initiated the dispute.
The other one (from Robert Williams, apparently one of the store security guards) reports that the men were stopping customers to talk to them (but not chanting anything). Now, Light's deposition says that she was informed of the 'verbal dispute' and contacted mall security to check it out. Williams' says he was responding to 'the complaint' - which logically would have to be the complaint the original customer made to Light. Williams' deposition, however, doesn't say where the information about the stopping customers came from - whether someone else reported it, or if he observed it or what.
The other thing, though, is that when the guys talked to the media (specifically MSNBC, the source for the story I quoted from in my comments on the incident), the guys specifically said that they were just walking around and were not handing out leaflets or talking to anyone.
In any event, if, in fact, they were stopping cusomters to talk to them about why they are against the war, I can see the mall asking them to stop doing that - and that should have been the end of the matter. By doing that, they would have been addressing the actual behaviour that was, according to their reports, causing the problem. Asking them to remove the shirts was out of bounds, and should not have been a part of the issue.
From IMDb.com:
Sheen Faces Firing Over War Stance
Hollywood star Martin Sheen is facing getting fired from his role as President Jed Bartlett in TV hit The West Wing - because of his outspoken views on war. The Apocalypse Now actor has been the most vocal of a growing number of celebrity names strongly opposed to conflict with Iraq. He has addressed rallies and spearheaded last week's "virtual match" in Washington DC, where legislators were bombarded with a million emails, telephone calls and faxes from protesters. But Sheen's strong political views are causing problems for West Wing bosses at NBC, who fear they face a boycott from advertisers. The actor claims NBC executives have told him his high profile could damage the show and called on him to explain his views. Meanwhile, Sheen and other stars among the anti-war lobby are also facing a public backlash because of their controversial standpoint.
It seems to me that if the cause for this war were just, there'd be no reason to fear anti-war protesters - be they celebrities, people wearing t-shirts in the mall or anyone else. The only reason to silence dissent is if you're afraid the dissenters will make more sense than you do and convince others to oppose your plans.
Right now, NBC needs to get the message that more people will quit watching their shows (not just "The West Wing", but others as well) if they do fire Martin Sheen (or anyone else) for their views, that will quit watching the show if they don't.
Interstingly, former Senator Fred Thompson, currently playing District Attorney Arthur Branch on NBC's "Law & Order", hasn't received the same kind of flack for appearing in a pro-war commercial that Martin Sheen has for his anti-war stance. I've found no reports that there are any threats to Thompson's job or any "discomfort" being expressed by NBC officials.
This is another situation to watch closely - particularly if they NBC continues to act to silence anti-war celebrities and not pro-war ones.
STEPHEN DOWNS AND his son, Roger Downs, each had a pro-peace shirt made Monday night. One shirt simply said "Let Inspections Work" on one side and "No War With Iraq" on the other. The other shirt said "Give Peace A Chance" on the front and "Peace On Earth" on the back. The men paid about $23 for each of the shirts and then wore them in the mall.
"We were just shopping. We were wearing these T-shirts. We weren't handing out leaflets, we weren't saying anything," Roger Downs recalled.
They may not have been saying anything, but they were creating enough of a disturbance to one employee, who called security.
Security asked Downs and his son to remove their shirts. Roger Downs complied, but when Stephen Downs wouldn't, he was told to leave the mall. When he refused, he was arrested.
[...] New York Civil Liberties Union President Stephen Gottlieb says he can't believe the peaceful T-shirts could lead to Downs' arrest.
[...] Guilderland police say they arrested Downs because he refused to leave private property. That, they say, is trespassing.
Representatives for Crossgates did not return calls for comment Tuesday.
Signs posted at entrances to the mall say that "wearing of apparel... likely to provoke disturbances... is prohibited" at the mall.
"Likely to provoke disturbances". When you get right down to it, that's pretty vague, really. What criteria are used to determine how "likely to provoke disturbances" any given shirt (or other article of clothing) is? Obviously, no actual disturbance has to occur for something to be considered out of bounds. I know when I was still able to go to malls, I saw some pretty outlandish and offensive things on shirts that no one seemed to think needed to be removed or were "likely to provoke disturbances".
It can be argued that once they asked the guy to leave, he should have - but what I find most disturbing about this incident is that the security guard felt that an anti-war t-shirt was provocative enough to tell the guy to take it off or leave in the first place. I'd love to have someone go to that mall and keep track of what other kinds of shirts are seen there that aren't considered too provocative.
What's really sad, though, is that the main reason for considering a shirt "likely to provoke disturbances" would be if you're afraid that someone will see the shirt and have a significant reaction to it. The guy who wants to promote peace is being shushed to prevent a guy who wants a war from acting out when confronted with a message contradictory to his own desires. It's not the guy in the peace shirt whose the threat here, it's the one who wants war and thinks he needs to verbally (or otherwise) assault those who disagree. The message the whole incident sends, however, is that those who want peace should just be quiet.
I found this article today on the American Library Association's news page (via Morons.org):
Santa Fe Police Detain Library Patron over Chat-Room Visit
A St. John’s College Library visit by a former public defender was abruptly interrupted February 13 when city police officers arrested him about 9 p.m. at the computer terminal he was using, handcuffed him, and brought him to the Santa Fe, New Mexico, police station for questioning by Secret Service agents from Albuquerque. Andrew J. O’Conner, 40, who was released about five hours later, said in the February 16 Santa Fe New Mexican, “I’m going to sue the Secret Service, Santa Fe Police, St. John’s, and everybody involved in this whole thing.”
According to O’Connor, the agents accused him of making threatening remarks about President George W. Bush in an Internet chat room. Admitting he talked politics face-to-face in the library with a woman who was wearing a “No war with Iraq” button, O’Connor recalled saying that Bush is “out of control,” but that “I’m allowed to say all that. There is this thing called freedom of speech.” He also speculated that the FBI might have been observing him because of his one-time involvement in a pro-Palestinian group in Boulder, Colorado.
You know, I'm really sorry if the Secret Service, the FBI or anyone else doesn't like it, but Mr. O'Connor is right. Bush is "out of control". He has made it clear that he doesn't care what the American people think he's going to have is war whether we like it or not. He is trying to bully regimes around the world into joining him, even though their citizens have made it clear that they don't like it, either. He and his administration ridicule France, talk about destroying the German economy, and are willing to pay Turkey billions, even though over 80% of the Turkish people have indicated that they don't want their government to take part in a war.
See, what galls me is that one of the excuses being offered for the war is that we want the Iraqis to be able to have a free and democratic country - yet the way Bush and his cronies are running this country, they don't seem to understand what democracy is. One of the bedrock principles of democracy is that the people being governed have a say in that government, which means our opinions are supposed to mean something - but as far as Bush is concerned, we're pretty much irrelevent, as are the opinions of the citizens of other democratic countries around the world - if their opinions don't agree with what Bush wants to see happen.
Of course, we're also supposed to be a free society, but if anything, this story shows just how far from that we've fallen. The Bill of Rights Defense Committee is an organization that is helping people from around the country in a grassroots effort to pass resolutions barring the law enforcement organizations in a given city (or other geo-political area) from enforcing any laws that would infringe upon an individuals civil rights. This campaign was started largely in response to the USA PATRIOT act, and has had quite a bit of success. So far, 51 cities and towns have passed such resolutions - including Oakland, San Francisco, Denver, Detroit and Seattle - and efforts are under way in many more.
Part of what I find disturbing about this story is the idea that saying Bush is "out of control" is somehow a threatening statement. In what way can this be construed as a threat? There's no indication that O'Connor indicated what, if anything, he thought should be done about it, and, last time I checked, before you could threaten someone, you had to say or do something that would indicate that there is a real risk that they could, somehow, be harmed.
Just to be clear, in case anyone is reading. Yes, I agree that Bush is completely "out of control". If someone wants to construe that as a threat, that's really their own problem. The only thing I'm threatening to do is to support any rational, non-violent and legal means of removing him from office, including impeachment or simply trying to convince as many people as possible to vote against him come 2004.
Union schools hit with religion-related lawsuit
Action claims student was beaten, harassed for being different
By Jennifer Lawson
February 14, 2003
India Tracy came to expect being sent to the principal's office even though she was a well-behaved, straight-A student.
But the Union County youngster knew she'd probably be the only student with "no" written on the permission slip to attend a tent revival during school hours. When she declined to portray Mary in a Christmas play, she also was sent to the principal's office.
India and her parents, Greg and Sarajane Tracy, allege other students taunted her, beat her and ridiculed her religion for years. Fed up with the treatment, her parents filed a federal lawsuit on her behalf Thursday.
The lawsuit claims the Union County school system violated India's civil rights by promoting and endorsing religious activities, denied her right to freely exercise her religion and failed to protect her from harassment and physical and verbal abuse.
This story is full of so many questionable actions, I'm astounded that no one has taken any action before now.
It turns out that the Union County school system has been taking students to fundamentalist revivals since 1998. A representative from the school system says that the ministry has rented school buses, and that some teachers have taken person time off to act as chaperones for the revivals, but this doesn't explain why students would need to have a signed permission slip to attend the revival. In addition, the revivals are noted as being three-day events. Even if they're held on a weekend, for it to be a three-day event, that third day is going to be a school day.
Now, there's nothing wrong with a ministry hosting a revival, and there's not even anything wrong with teenagers attending. What is wrong is that the school is getting permission to send students to the revival - an act that, in and of itself, indicates that the school endorses the revival and is encouraging students to attend. What would be far more appropriate - and probably legal (which it's unlikely their current actions are) - would be for parents who want their children to attend the revivals to contact the school themselves, make arrangements for their child to miss class at the time of the revival and to make up the homework or tests that they would be missing. That kind of a request could be handled the same as doctor's appointements or vacation request, and would not put the school in the position of endorsing, or appearing to endorse, religion and religious activity.
India Tracy is now being home schooled - a decision her parents made after they were told by one of her fellow students that India had indicated she was contemplating suicide. She was subjected to significant harassment and torment at the hands of both students and the administrations between 1999 and 2002, when she was removed from the school by her parents. The suit alleges:
Some of these claims may sound a bit far-fetched at first, but this isn't an isolated incident. The Tracy family is Pagan, and there have been other incidents of serious harassment aimed at Pagan students at a number of schools.
In February of 2001, a 12-year-old girl named Tempest Smith hung herself from her bunk bed after months of teasing and harassment from her fellow students over her Wiccan beliefs. Her mother says that she went to the administration and to counselors several times to seek help for her daughter, but nothing was ever done about it. An article published in the Detroit News noted:
According to Tempest's journal, found under her bed after the suicide, her classmates often crowded around her chanting "Jesus loves you," along with other comments that ridiculed her Wiccan beliefs.
After her death, teachers and counselors heard from many students who felt they were responsible because they had teased her so relentlessly. At her funeral, there were many notes left expressing feelings of guilt.
Interestingly, the same school district had, just a year before, been sued by student Crystal Seifferly after she was told she was not allowed to wear a pentacle to school, even though it is a symbol of her faith, just as the cross is for Christians. The school had outlawed pentacles as part of their dress code, which also listed groups that were inappropriate for students to belong to. Witches and Pagans were specifially listed, along with gangs, the KKK, "Gothic" and other "controversial" groups. Surprisingly, something that came out during the course of the suit was that as far as the school was concerned, Muslim students did not have a right to wear a cresent and star, and Jews wanting to wear the Star of David would have to ask permission. The suit was resolved by a consent decree that granted Wiccans the right to wear a Pentacle.
Other incidents that I'm aware of (but, unfortuantely, no longer have access to articles about), included one girl - who claimed not to be a Witch OR Wiccan - who was suspended when a teacher claimed that they'd been made sick by a spell the girl had cast; and another girl on the East Coast who had been heckled because she was uncomfortable singing religious-themed hymns in a school concert. Following the concert, as the girl and her mother made their way out to their car, many of the concert attendees shouted insults at them, and others began driving around them slowly, blasting Christian music out of their cars.
Obviously, Pagan students aren't the only ones who are harassed, taunted, teased or bullied because of their religious choices. While the situation may be improving somewhat, Jewish children have often been treated similarly, and in the wake of the terror attacks, its likely that many Muslim children aren't being treated much better. I'm more familiar with the Pagan incidents because, as a Pagan, they will catch my eye faster.
Part of what's aggrevating is that it wouldn't really be that hard for schools to enforce rules that derogatory or harassing comments or behaviours related to any students religious choice (or choice to be non-religious) will not be tolerated. The school does not need to (and should not) try to teach religious tolerance - that has to be left up to the parents. But they can establish a policy that - regardless of what a student personally believes about the choices other may make about their own spiritual lives - during the time they are in school, those opinions are to be kept to themselves. Some may say that's splitting hairs, but I think it can be done, and if it is enforced equally - any of the behaviours mentioned above would be considered out-of-bounds, as would, say, an atheist child taunting a Christian student about being a "goody two-shoes", or something of that nature - doesn't send a message endorsing a religious life over a non-religious one (or vice versa), nor does it endorse any one religion over others.
Or maybe I'm just being unreasonably optimistic...
The Center for Public Integrity has posted an article on a secret draft they've obtained of a new bill being developed by the Justice Department to expand upon the powers granted by the USA PATRIOT ACT. I don't have a whole lot to say about the bill at this point since it seems to be still in the relatively early stages of development, but it is one I think we should be aware of an keep an eye on. The CPI article aslo includes a link to the full text of the bill.
Even though a federal judge ordered the Bush administration to allow Jose Padilla access to his lawyer over a month ago, they have yet to comply.
Mr. Padilla, an American citizen arrested on American soil, was labeled an "enemy combatant" and has been held in a Navy brig in South Carolina since June. Judge Michael Mukasey, of Federal District Court in Manhattan, ruled last month that Mr. Padilla should be allowed to meet with his lawyers. But the administration insists that Mr. Padilla is a "critical intelligence resource," and argues that its interrogation would be compromised if lawyers were allowed to speak with him. ["The Right to Council" NYT Editorial]
The right to counsel is guaranteed to all Americans by the sixth amendment to the Constitution - a part of the Bill of Rights - but the Bush administration seems to have decided that the Constitution isn't a binding law, but rather a list of suggestions that they aren't obligated to follow. Their refusal to comply with either the Constitution or a judicial order is perhaps one of the clearest signs yet that the administration considers itself to be entirely above the law.
SURVEILLANCE
Senate Rejects Privacy Project
By ADAM CLYMER
WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 — The Senate voted today to bar deployment of a Pentagon project to search for terrorists by scanning information in Internet mail and in the commercial databases of health, financial and travel companies here and abroad.
The measure placing restrictions on the development and use of the Total Information Awareness program (TIA) were included as an amendment to an omnibus spending bill, and passed the Senate without debate and by unanimous consent. The amendment doesn't entirely bar the TIA, but it does, at least, recognize that there are legitimate privacy concerns and the need for limitations on what something of this nature could be used for.
Under the legislation passed today, research and development of the system would have to halt within 60 days of enactment of the bill unless the Defense Department submitted a detailed report about the program, including its costs, goals, impact on privacy and civil liberties and prospects for success in stopping terrorists. The research could also continue if President Bush certified to Congress that the report could not be provided or that a halt "would endanger the national security of the United States."
The limits on deploying, or using, the system are stricter. While it could be used to support lawful military and foreign intelligence operations, it could not be used in this country until Congress had passed new legislation specifically authorizing its use.
While People For the American Way call this measure a victory, I tend to consider this more of a good "first step". The allowance for research to continue if President Bush declares that it would endanger our national security to either halt the research or to provide a comprenesive report on the project is a bit too big of a loophole. Given the Bush administration's well-demonstrated penchant for secrecy, I will be very surprised if he doesn't take advantage of this "out" that the amendment gives him. The stricter limits on using the system, however, are good to see.
It is also quite heartening to note that this amendment was sponsored by both Republican and Democrat Senators, and that the Senate as a whole chose to include this provision in the spending bill. I think the unanimity of the decision sends the White House a clear message that TIA isn't going to go unchallenged.
Surveillance Plan Worries GOP Senator
By Dan Eggen and Robert O'Harrow Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, January 22, 2003; Page A13
In a letter to Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) alleged that the Justice Department and FBI are more extensively exploring the use of the Total Information Awareness program than they have previously acknowledged.
[...] Bush administration officials have said that the criticism is overblown and that the project is designed only to thwart terrorist activity overseas. But in response to questions from Grassley, Defense Department Inspector General Joseph E. Schmitz acknowledged that several domestic agencies, including the Justice Department, FBI and Department of Homeland Security, have talked with the Pentagon about the project.
Schmitz also confirmed that the FBI is negotiating a formal agreement "for possible experimentation with TIA technology in the future," according to a copy of his response.
From: Matt Howes, National Internet Organizer, ACLU
To: ACLU Action Network Members
Date: January 22, 2003
1) Urge Congress to Stop the Total Information Awareness Program
Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI) has introduced legislation that would enact a moratium on the misguided Defense Department program called “Total Information Awareness.” This program would allow the government to collect personal information on every person in the USA. The system, which includes an advance form of “data-mining,” would effectively provide government officials with immediate access to our personal information including: our communications (phone calls, emails and web searches), financial records, purchases, prescriptions, school records, medical records and travel history. Under the program, all aspects of our personal and professional lives could be catalogued and available to government officials. It is critical that Congress cut funding for this invasive program.
Take Action! Urge your Senators to Support and Co-sponsor the Data-Mining Moratorium Act! Click here to get more information and to send a free fax:
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DNA Database Leads To Arrest In Gates Murder
[...] Police allege that Hawkins knew that, with his record, he would go to prison for a long time if caught again, so when he confronted Gallina--the stakes of the burglary attempt changed.
Found via "The Mouth. Dangerous when open."
I remember when the first "Three Strikes" laws were being proposed, some were concerned that criminals who already had 2 strikes against them might end up being even more violent in committing a third crime if they thought doing so would help them escape being caught. A frequently used example was the idea of someone burglarizing a house and being confronted by the homeowner. The concern was that the criminal, knowing that he was going to go away for life, no matter what, might be more likely to kill the homeowner so that s/he couldn't identify the burglar, thus increasing the chances f getting away with the crime.
It looks like that concern has now become a reality. A provision in California law that requires all departing convicts who are being released on parole provide a DNA sampe that is then kept on file, which is what allowed this particular murderer to be captured. Hopefully, other criminals - especially ones who have had to provide such a sample - will realize that they are still very likely to get caught and not go to such extremes to try and cover their tracks, but knowing that some will go ahead and kill to avoid arrest, it may become necessary to re-evaluate the usefulness of the "three strikes" rule as a way of deterring crime.
From Talk Left:
Feingold To Introduce Bill to Stop TIA
Three cheers for Senator Russ Feingold.
Business Week reports that there is growing opposition on the Hill to the Pentagon's proposed Total Information Awareness Program. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) plans to introduce legislation today to prevent TIA from being implemented, until Congress has had sufficient time to study the datamining issues.
I'm glad that a Senator has stepped forward to introduce legislation to stop the TIA program, even if it is initially only so that Congress can study it. Hopefully, upon studying it, Congress will realize what an incredible violation of our rights it is and put a permanent halt to the program - but I'll gladly take this as a first step.
A couple days ago, I posted a question as to whether or not we are actually "at war". Rob Salkowitz at Emphasis Added has posted an interesting commentary on the nature of declaring war, and what happens to the Constitution when we stop insisting that it be followed.
At the ACLU website, they've posted a display of political cartoons, entitled "US Patriot Act Art". Several of the cartoons are very pointed, but favourites have to be this one by Clay Bennett, which illustrates - beautifully - exactly what seems to be happening these days, and the top one on this page by Mike Konopacki, with it's very pointed imagry giving the message an even stronger impact. I also liked this one by Arron McGruder, reminding us who it is that has often helped train the terrorists we now face.
From MSNBC.com:
A federal appeals court rules the U.S. government may hold U.S. citizens as enemy combatants during wartime without the constitutional protections afforded Americans in criminal prosecutions.
[...] the appeals court said Wednesday that “[b]ecause it is undisputed that Hamdi was captured in a zone of active combat in a foreign theater of conflict, we hold that the submitted declaration is a sufficient basis upon which to conclude that the Commander in Chief has constitutionally detained Hamdi pursuant to the war powers entrusted by the United States Constitution.”
It is not only unnecessary but in fact improper to require further evidence from the government, the judges ruled.
Full ruling available at: http://pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinion.pdf/027338.P.pdf
My understanding was that, in order for the war powers to be invoked, and for us to be considered "at war", that a war must first be declared, right? If that's the case, did I somehow miss our actually declaring war against Afghanistan? Somehow I was not under the impression that declaring "war" against "terror" qualified for legal purposes as an actual declaration of war. Also, the Constitution puts the power to declare war into the hands of Congress, not the President, and I don't recall Congress having declared war on anything (though I do know they surrendered their right to declare war against Iraq to President Bush.)
Report: Sting nabs convicted Calif. molester
Posted 1/4/2003 8:59 AM
[...] Lt. Dennis Ahearn, a spokesman for the Berkeley police department, said Kenneth Parnell was arrested after a tip.
"We became aware of the fact that Mr. Parnell was attempting to purchase a child through another party. We intervened in that purchase," Ahearn said. He said Parnell never received the child and that the other party had not been arrested.
[...] He was convicted in the 1972 kidnapping of [Steven] Stayner, who was then 7, and the 1980 kidnapping of a 5-year-old boy. He served five years in prison in the kidnappings.
Parnell had earlier been convicted of sexually abusing an 8-year-old boy he had abducted.
If there was ever a poster boy for why child molesters should be subject to some of the harshest penalties possible, it would be Kenneth Parnell.
Just in the crimes of his that we know about, we can see that he has been molseting children for over 30 years. His abduction of Steven Stayner in 1972 is his most infamous crime, but it certainly is not his only crime - and he served less time in prison than Stayner had served as his sexual plaything. Even before he kidnapped Stayner, however, he had already been caught and convicted for molesting another boy, and Stayner finally escaped from Parnell when Parnell brought home a new "toy" for himself, in the form of 5-year-old Timothy White. Stayner hadn't wanted the child to go through what he had, so he took the boy and made his way to a police station.
Now Parnell is accused of trying to buy a child, ostenably to use for his own gratification again. Given his past history, it is highly unlikely that after his release from prison that he simply avoided molesting children for over 20 years, and now, all of a sudden, is starting up again. I wouldn't be at all surprised if any investigations resulting from this most recent arrest turns up many other boys who have been used by this nithing.
I understand why some people feel that sex-offender registries are inappropriate, and why it would be wrong to confine a sexual predator to a mental institution after he's served his prison term. At the same time, though, I look at the case of Kenneth Parnell, and see exactly why those solutions have been suggested, and, in some places, implemented. While there will always be exceptions, by and large, sex offenders can't be reliably rehabilitated - especially paedophiles. And the repercussion of their actions generally spread further than just their immedate victims.
Children who are molested often grow up to be molesters, creating victims of their own. The families of molested children are also strongly impacted. Steven Stayner's older brother, Carey, has been convicted of killing four women in and around Yosemite National Park. While I fully agree with the death penalty sentence recently given to Carey Stayner for his crimes, and while there no definitive proof that wouldn't have done the same thing even if his brother had never been kidnapped and molested, in books written about Steven's kidnapping, years before Carey was identified as a killer, you can see ways in which Carey's life and personality were impacted by the events. It's possible, and maybe even likely, that Carole and Juli Sund, Joie Armstrong and Sylvina Peloso were victims, in a way, of Parnell's as well.
A report in Wired Magazine notes that the Total Information Awareness website has begun shrinking lately. Biographies of Admiral Poindexter and others involved in the project have been removed, as has the Information Awareness Office's "all-seeing eye" logo.
Also changed is the graphic overview of how the project is intended to work. Both graphics are a bit on the indecipherable side, but the new one seems to have been designed to stress the idea of legal protections in regards to who can access the system's data.
This is the original graphic:
This is the new graphic:
Of course, what's important is what hasn't changed. They're tried to make the site look less intimidating, and they're tried to offer reassurance (through their graphics, at least) that access will be restricted by law. What they haven't tried to do is make any kind of a fundamental change to the program itself, to create greater respect for the citizenry's right to privacy. The basic plan is still the same - gather as much public and private information as possible on everyone, shuttle it through various "algorhythms" and see who deserves to be considered a possible suspect. It may look less intimidating, but it's still capable of significant Constitutional mayhem.
[Side note: In an interesting parallel, TIA looks to be a kind of "pre-emptive" law enforcement - where people can be investigated without having actually committed anything resembling a crime - to go along with Bush's ideal of a "pre-emptive" war - where we can attack a country without the country having actually having done something wrong. Suspicion of potential future wrongdoing becomes reason enough to take action.]
From Hate Central:
Contrary to what you've been told in the last 15 months or so, patriotism does not equal blind support of your government. Patriotism is knowing what is best for your country, and that includes calling out your leaders when they cross the line.
Read the rest - it's very good.
[There's been quite a bit of point-counterpoint going on about the issue of cross burnings here at the Salon Blogs -- be sure to check out other viewpoints at "Emphasis Added", "The Raven", "Rayne Today", and "Secular Blasphemy". I may not agree with all of them, but their points are very well thought out and deserve to be given consideration.]
One of the reasons why laws such as the one against cross burnings concern me so much is that determining what is "dangerous" is highly subjective. A few years ago, ABC News did a piece about Wiccans at Fort Hood in Texas. The group had done everything any religious group is required to in order to be allowed to use military property to hold worship services for military personnel.
Unfortunately, many people consider Wicca to be a "dangerous" religion (or, too often, something that doesn't really "count" as a religion), and, of course, a controversy arose. Several politicians began to call for rules to prohibit Wiccans from using military property for their religious observances, even if the group met the requirements for using them. At one point, Representative Bob Barr even called for rules prohibiting Wiccans from serving in the military all together, and tried to slip riders onto military appropriations bills to forbid any military funding from being used to accomodate Wiccans religious practices.
The danger cited in this case was not one of phyisical violence, but rather a danger of lowered morale, potential insubordination, making non-Wiccan/Pagan personnel uncomfortable and unwilling to work next to Wiccan/Pagan counterparts and other, similar, concerns. In fact, the laundry list sounded much like the one used to keep gays from being allowed to serve in the military - another group labeled "dangerous". In addition, the common, but incorrect, belief that Wiccans perform animal sacrifices was brought up as an argument against allowing Wiccans to worship on military property. At one point, Barr reportedly expressed concern that troops would have to start taking goats into the field with them if Wiccans were going to be allowed to hold their services.
This may not seem like it has much bearing on the burning cross debate, but the underlying issue is the same: someone wants to see a form of expression (be it religious or racist) they consider morally wrong and potentially dangerous to be outlawed. It's not much of a stretch to take the concept of "potentially dangerous" and apply it to any of a wide variety of things.
One other example I mentioned in my earlier comments at is that of video games (and, by extention, other forms of entertainment) that have been blamed for the actions of others. Shows like "Jackass", "Bevis and Butthead", professional wrestling, and "That's Incredible" (for a much older example) have all been singled out at one point or another as causing deaths or serious injuries. Games like "Doom", "Duke Nukem" and "Grand Theft Auto" have been cited as having inspired criminal acts.
The level of potential danger from these games, shows and movies is not that different from that of a cross burning - and their audiences are much larger. There's little talk, however, of banning or forbidding certain kinds of behaviour in movies or TV shows, or of preventing games manufacturers from making certain kinds of games. Granted, their message is not one of violence stemming from hatred, but that can still serve as the stimulus for violent or criminal acts.
It is the subjective nature of what is "dangerous" that makes the slope slippery. As just a cause as opposing racism may be (and I very firmly believe it is one of the most important issues our nation faces), the questions of who determines what is dangerous, and how those determinations are made are not easy ones to answer. Unless those questions are answered, however, there's no clear line of demarcation between what kinds of dangerousness require legal or statuatory controls.
One of the hot topics among the Salon Bloggers has been the current Supreme Court case regarding whether or not the government may ban cross-burnings. Some see the issue as a matter of free speech, and others see it as a matter of threats and intimidation. What makes the issue difficult is that it's really a bit of both.
I agree whole-heartedly that a burning cross, placed on public land or, worse, on someone's property, is clearly a threat, and have no objection to seeing such acts banned. I consider it to be no different than if someone went up to a home and spray-painted racial or religious epithets on it. These are destructive acts, done on another's property, and intended to hurt, frighten, intimidate or threaten that specific person. I'll help you round them up and throw them in jail, no hesitation.
Where I run into a problem, though, is if the cross is being burned by someone on their own property. As hateful and repugnant as many may find it, people do have the right to express their hatred of other races, religions, etc., in thier own homes and on their own property, as well as the right to allow others of a like mind to do so as well. My understanding of the law is that it's not even illegal to say that you want to see all of [insert focus of bigotry here] dead. Where it crosses over into a criminal act is when it can be shown that what was said (or otherwise expressed) not only lead to an actual or attempted act of violence, but was intended to lead to an actual or attempted act of violence. Even saying "Kill all [insert focus of bigotry here]s" is allowable, unless you actually plan to start killing them or are attempting to incite other to do so.
Part of where the difference between burning a cross on public property or property belonging to someone else, and burning it on private property comes in is that when the cross is burned on public lands or someone else's property, the threat is made much clearer. If it's burned on someone's property, it is a threat directly against that person, and legal action can and should be taken against the perpetrators. When burned on public property, it is a clear threat against all minorities in that area. But when it's burned on someone's own property, it is an expression of their own hatred, but it become less threatening, because it's not out where "anyone" can see it, nor is it aimed at anyone in particular. This doesn't mean it's harmless, because it can still incite strong feelings in the people who are their to witness and participate in the burning, but it becomes more of an expression of solidarity between members of the group, and not a message to those whom they oppose.
Rob at Emphasis Added, who feels that it should be banned all together, noted:
It’s worth going to such lengths to ban the symbol because it is part of a larger public commitment to ban racist violence. I strongly believe that society is better served by this policy, as I’m sure you all do too. But if you’re going to be serious about it, you have to confront racist activity with the force of law and acknowledge that some symbols – such as cross-burning, or brandishing a swastika – have the effect of actuating powerful emotional responses, often with tragic consequences. Banning the symbols is part and parcel of banning the activity. If you fail to do so out of a general fear of using state power against any form of expression under any circumstances, you leave the open society defenseless against predators who care little for anyone’s liberties. Everyone has their own limit where they draw that line. Defending the rights of people to create a spectacle whose historical purpose has been emotional incitement to violence is where I draw mine.
Rob's mention of the swastika brings up another part of this issue where my own experience may be colouring my views. I am a Norse Pagan, meaning that, as a religion, I worship the ancient Norse Gods from pre-Christian times. While there are many who will use Norse Paganism as an justification for their bigotry, when you read the Eddas and Sagas, there is little (if anything) to support the idea that the Gods demand any kind of racial purity or feel that any race of man is inferior to any other. Pardon me for a moment while I digress with a bit of an explaination:
The stories are populated by many kinds of spiritual beings - the Gods of the Aesir and the Vanir (two separate races of Gods), Jotuns (also called Eitns or Giants), Dwarves, Alfs (Elves) and humans - and it is not only permissible for members of one race to marry members of another, it's fairly common. Many marriages are made between Aesir and Vanir, Aesir and Jotun, Vanir and Jotun and even some between Aesir or Vanir and Human. There are sexual liasons between all those permutations as well as Vanir and Dwarf. Jotuns who marry Aesir or Vanir are elevated to the status of God, and Loki, one of the main Norse Gods is actually a Jotun whom Odin claimed as his brother, elevating him to the status of God. The Norse prophesy about the end of the old Gods - Ragnarok - says that after the old Gods have been killed during the battle between good and evil, their sons and daughters will rise to take their places in Asgard and Vanaheim and rule over the new earth and the rebirth of mankind. Many of these sons and daughters, including the children of Thor (the most commonly worshiped of the Norse Gods) will be of mixed race.
Even the practices of the Vikings shows that racism was not a big concern for them. One reason why Vikings were so successful in conquering so many lands is that once they landed and had won the military battle, they then married the women of the land, and took over the society by breeding with them.
So, being a Norse Pagan does not make one a racist, though we often have to suffer with that label. The matter becomes a bit more complicated, though, when we come to the matter of the swastika. Before Hitler adopted the swastika as one of his main symbols, it had, for centuries, been the sun-wheel - a representation of the sun and the turning of the year. It was a symbol of strength, hope and good fortune, and an important reminder to the people who lived in the cold - and often dark - north lands that the sun would return, the earth would warm again, grain would grow, herds would thrie, an life would continue. In some other parts of the world, notably in some Asian cultures, it is still seen as a symbol of good fortune. (Not long ago, in fact, there was a flap over one of the Pokeman cards that had a swastika drawn on it, because when it was released in Japan, the symbol was not viewed as a symbol of hate there.) Hitler's use of it twisted and perverted it in ways that make its original meaning unrecognizable.
For myself, personally, I have chosen not to use the swastika out of respect for the memory of its more recent use. The Holocaust is nothing less than one of the greatest evils ever seen or perpetrated by mankind, and as a species, we simply cannot afford to forget it or minimize the horror it was. It angers me when I hear petulant cry-babies on mailing lists call a moderator who is enforcing the rules a "list Nazi" or when a show like Seinfeld creates a running character such as the "Soup Nazi". Invoking the specter of Naziism in such a way does nothing but trivialize the truth of what they were. A stern disciplinarian on a mailing list is not going to murder 6 million people and torture untold numbers more - at worst, they'll just kick someone's butt of the list.
There are other Norse Pagans, however, who feel a strong draw to the swastika and it's original meaning - as the Sun-Wheel. Some have decided to adopt a somewhat modified version of the swastika, with curved lines instead of the sharp-angled arms of its more familiar form, but others want to reclaim the symbol as it was long used. Do I agree with what they're doing? No, but I don't think it should be illegal for them to do so, either, which means it must also be left legal for the racists to use it as well (unless, as with the cross burning, they place it on public property or someone else's property.)
Situations like this are why I disagree with making something - even a hateful symbol - illegal under any circumstances. Just as some will say that using a burning cross on private property is a social danger because it can create the atmosphere where people think it's OK to take violent action against others, there are those who would argue that any of a number of other symbols, statements or forms of expression are a social danger because of what actions they might incite. But banning something because of what is might cause could open up a can of worms we won't ever know how to close.
There are some studies as well as anectodal evidence that violence on TV, in the movies or in music can lead people to become more violent themselves. Many computer and video games have been pointed out as being a social danger because they put players in the position of being a killer - and the action is often realistic enough to create similar rushes of adrenaline and a sense of satisfaction at shooting your way out of a close call. Such games have been associated with many of the school shootings of the last few years, and there are reports that one of them was used to help train John Lee Malvo, the younger of the suspects in the Washington DC sniper shootings earlier this year. If we start to accept that it's ok to ban certain forms of expression because they pose a danger to the social health, do we not then also need to look to other arenas where forms of expression or, as in this case, entertainment, may also pose a danger to the social health?
In many ways, banning a certain form of expression actually ends up giving it more power. Hate groups are unlikely to stop using the burning cross if it is made illegal - instead they will use it to not only express their hatred, but also to express their willingness to go against the law to make their point. This, in turn, gives the message that there is valour in breaking the law for their cause, and elevates the lawbreaker to the status of hero - or, if caught and prosecuted - martyr. Allowing the bigots to burn crosses on their own property prevents this kind of elevation, while still allowing those who are making threats against specific individuals or the minority popuation in general to be prosecuted for their acts.
This isn't a matter for which there is an easy answer. In a time, however, where the government is already trying to curtail our freedoms as much as possible, and under the watch of an Attorney General who has equated disagree with the President with treason, I think it is far more prudent to try to keep the boundaries of what is allowable speech as widly spread as possible. Working through social pressure to make it clear that some forms of expression are unacceptable is always a viable option, without stripping anyone of their rights.
I was just looking through the Bill of Rights Defense Committee's website a bit further and found the "Get Well" cards they offer for the Bill of Rights. They suggest that you purchase a pack of the cards and then send them to your congressmen and women as a sign of support for civil rights.
The outside of the card features a drawing of the Bill of Rights in a hospital bed with a thermometer in it's mouth and an ice pack on its head. The inside message reads: "Dear Bill of Rights, We hope Dr. (fill in your Congressperson's name) can help cure you of the Bush-Ashcroft virus."
These cards are great - I'm going to be getting a pack of them myself.
Signs of Intelligence: Patriots act. American citizens are standing up for the Constitution at the local level. [Morons Dot Org]
Morons.org has an absolutely excellent article on the way several cities and towns are fighting the USA PATROIT Act. So far, seventeen cities have passed resolutions that require various measures to help protect the civil rights of citizens, such as mandating that the city governments to act in accordance with state and federal constitutions if there is a conflict between the USA PATROIT Act and the constitution, prevent local law enforcement from taking part in or otherwise aiding actions made under the USA PATROIT Act if such action would be in violation of the constitution, and urging their representatives to do whatever they can to repeal the sections of the USA PATROIT Act that are unconstitutional.
The Morons.org article provides a number of links and more detailed information, plus is pretty inspirational - I recommend checking it out. I also recommend visiting the website of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee for more information on how to get involved.
U.S. can hold 'dirty bomb' suspect
Judge allows attorney access for Padilla
From Phil Hirschkorn
CNN
Wednesday, December 4, 2002 Posted: 3:12 PM EST (2012 GMT)
A judge ruled Wednesday that the federal government can hold the man accused of trying to carry out an al Qaeda "dirty bomb" plot, saying the president can detain enemy combatants even if they are U.S. citizens.
The judge also granted a defense motion allowing the suspect, Jose Padilla, to meet with his attorneys, which the government had not allowed.
Good news -- well, somewhat -- in the Jose Padilla case. The courts have ruled that, while the government can still detain him indefinately and without charges, but they have decided that he has a right to see his lawyers. This is a major first step, and hopefully will help lead to a resolution of his case sooner, rather than later.
Told you I'd be posting again today :)
Mark Fiore has done one of his great flash cartoons on the Total Information Awareness project. Be sure to take a minute to check it out.
From a list of Bills and Resolutions pre-filed with the Georgia Clerk of the House as of November 19, 2002:
HB 1.
By Representative Franklin of the 17th:
A BILL to amend Article 6 of Chapter 5 of Title 16 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to feticide, so as to define certain terms; to provide that any person seeking to have an abortion performed shall first file a petition in the superior court; to provide that the court shall appoint a guardian ad litem; to provide for a jury trial; to provide that the court shall balance the rights of the fetus against the rights of the person seeking to have an abortion performed; and for other purposes.
In basic (well, more basic, anyway) English, this is a proposal for a change of the abortion law in Georgia that would require a woman seeking an abortion to go to court and file a petition seeking permission for the abortion. The state would appoint a guardian for the fetus and there would be a jury trial to decide if the abortion can be peformed or not.
It's an outrageous proposal. Somewhat clever and certainly a new tactic to make getting an abortion more difficult, but definately outrageous. Once I find futher information on who to contact or how to combat it, I'll be posting it here.
Keep Big Brother's Hands Off the Internet
By Senator John Ashcroft
October 1997
Republican, Missouri
Chairman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs,
Foreign Commerce and Tourism
[Senator Ashcroft takes issue with administration views on the Internet
and the use of encryption technology.]
[...] In order to guarantee that the United States meets the challenge of this new means of commerce, communication, and education, government must be careful not to interfere. We should not harness the Internet with a confusing array of intrusive regulations and controls. Yet, the Clinton administration is trying to do just that.
The Clinton administration would like the Federal government to have the capability to read any international or domestic computer communications. The FBI wants access to decode, digest, and discuss financial transactions, personal e-mail, and proprietary information sent abroad -- all in the name of national security. To accomplish this, President Clinton would like government agencies to have the keys for decoding all exported U.S. software and Internet communications.
This proposed policy raises obvious concerns about Americans' privacy, in addition to tampering with the competitive advantage that our U.S. software companies currently enjoy in the field of encryption technology. Not only would Big Brother be looming over the shoulders of international cyber-surfers, but the administration threatens to render our state-of-the-art computer software engineers obsolete and unemployed.
There is a concern that the Internet could be used to commit crimes and that advanced encryption could disguise such activity. However, we do not provide the government with phone jacks outside our homes for unlimited wiretaps. Why, then, should we grant government the Orwellian capability to listen at will and in real time to our communications across the Web?
The protections of the Fourth Amendment are clear. The right to protection from unlawful searches is an indivisible American value. Two hundred years of court decisions have stood in defense of this fundamental right. The state's interest in effective crime-fighting should never vitiate the citizens' Bill of Rights. [...]
Articles on Total Information Awareness from around the media. This entry may be updated throughout the day.
Embracing Big Brother - William Raspberry:
[...] Too much of what the government is getting in this new dispensation is stuff that Attorney General John Ashcroft and others wanted long before Sept. 11, 2001 -- for instance the right of the FBI to get a warrant to search your home, even in your absence, go through your things and download the contents of your computer.
Congress twice denied the request for such authority. Now it has granted it. The war on terror, you know.
But as President Bush himself told us, the war on terror is a long-term affair, with no end in sight. What's to keep the same thing from being true of the recently granted "exceptions" to our personal liberties? And why do we seem not to care?
-=<*>=-
Who's Watching the Watchers - Derrick Z. Jackson:
[...] The fact that Poindexter has already admitted keeping knowledge of illegal activities from the president should automatically disqualify him from having anything to do with the privacy of Americans. The fact that the White House cannot talk straight about his appointment should make Americans demand that the project be scrapped until secrecy becomes an open debate.
Last week a reporter asked White House deputy spokesman Scott McClellan if President Bush public ly supports Poindexter's program. All McClellan said was: ''I've seen the reports, but I think you need to talk to the Pentagon. That is a question related to something that the Pentagon may be looking at, so I would refer you to the Pentagon.''
The obfuscation so well associated with Poindexter has begun. With him in charge of Total Information Awareness, you can be sure you will be the last to know if the government is breaking the law.
-=<*>=-
Uncle Sam and Big Brother - Miro Cernetig:
Since the 1970s, the United States has created dozens of laws aimed at protecting citizens from spying by government agencies. Congressional committees also have a tradition of overseeing the operations of the government's spy apparatus, such as the Central Intelligence Agency, although often in secret. As well, U.S. law has generally made it necessary for the government to get court orders to see bank records or listen in on communications, laws that may apply to data mining.
Since Sept. 11, however, the White House has pushed through the Homeland Security and U.S. Patriot acts, sweeping laws that are challenging those privacy protections. For example, a U.S. court ruled this month that under the Patriot Act, the Federal Bureau of Investigation can now work in concert with the CIA and other agencies, making it easier to get wiretaps.
"As of today, the Attorney-General can suspend the ordinary requirements of the Fourth Amendment in order to listen in on phone calls, read e-mails and conduct secret searches of Americans' homes and offices," ACLU spokeswoman Ann Beeson declared after the ruling. It is unclear whether there will be an appeal.
I've written before about Jose Padilla, the alleged potential terrorist who was arrested in Chicago on May 8th on the suspicion that he might be planning to set off a "dirty bomb". In June, it was announced that he was being transferred from the criminal justice system to the military one, where he has spent the last 5 months in detention with no charges having been filed and no access to his lawyer on the President's determination that he is an "enemy combatant".
As Time Magazine noted when Padillo (also known as Abdullah al Muhajir) was arrested:
Indeed, rather than a specific conspiracy to detonate a radiological bomb at a designated target, al Muhajir may have been doing a feasibility study. There was no suggestion, for example, that either al Muhajir or any other al-Qaeda operatives might already be in possession of the necessary radiological materials. "They didn't seem to think they'd have a problem getting radiological materials," a U.S. official told the New York Times. "But they didn't have any."
According to the same article, even Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz noted that there was no actual plan in place yet, only that Padillo was here to do reconnisance for a possible target.
One other thing that's interesting about Padillo's arrest is that law enforcement officials had followed him here from overseas, and arrested him immediately after his plane landed in Chicago. This means that they obviously knew who he was and were able to track his movements reasonably well. If they believed he was only here on a reconnisance mission, and that whomever he was working with on this possible plot did not yet even have the materials for making a "dirty bomb", why arrest him immediately upon landing rather than continuing to track his movements and find out who else he was working with? It's not a question that's been answered yet.
Imagine for a moment a group of friends sitting around discussing the possiblity of robbing a bank. Now, obviously, that's not a good thing for people to do, but just say that's what's happening. One person says they will go down to the local bank and check it out to see if a robbery there would even be feasible. At this point, all that's happening is talk. No equipment has been purchase, no dates set, no real "plans" of any kind have been made. So far, no crime has been committed, and there wouldn't be any grounds for arresting someone. Yet, from the reports that have been made public, this is about as far as the whole "dirty bomb" plot got - and this is what Padillo has been jailed for for the last 6 months (counting the first month before he was turned over to the military).
A new site has been created to help raise awareness of Padillo's situation and to mobilize the public to insist that, at the very least, he be charged with something. ChargePadillo.org offers information on the case, links to articles and legal materials relevent to Padillo's situation, suggestions for action individuals can take to make their concerns known, and a message board. The site is young, but well organized and Timothy, the site owner, looks to be taking a very pragmatic approach to Padillo's situation. As demonstrated by the sites URL, he is not claiming that this is a clearly innocent person who's being maltreated, but recognizes that, yes, Padillo may, in act, be guilty of something - but even if he is, he deserves to be treated with the basic rights that are guaranteed to us in the Constitution, and he should be charged with whatever counts are appropriate and given a fair trial.
Operation TIPS is now officially dead.
Proposal to Enlist Citizen Spies Was Doomed From Start
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 24, 2002; Page A11
[...] The Homeland Security package approved by the Senate last week and slated to be signed by President Bush includes language explicitly prohibiting the government from implementing the controversial initiative. It was hounded by criticism from civil libertarians and targeted for elimination by key lawmakers.
[...] Justice officials attempted to rescue the effort by issuing rules in August explicitly excluding any mail carriers, utility repair personnel or other workers with access to private homes. Ashcroft also told lawmakers he had scrapped plans for a centralized database to compile suspicious reports.
But the retreat did little to calm lawmakers' fears, leading to language in the final version of the Homeland Security package prohibiting "any and all activities" to implement the program.
This is an excellent example of what can happen when people stand up for themselves and their rights. Citizens, advocacy groups and politicians all made it clear that having postal workers, utility service personnel, the cable guy, and others who had legitimate business reasons for being in their home spy on them was completely unacceptable.
Comparable outcry could be effective in stopping the Total Information Awareness program as well - which is as bad of a violation of our privacy as the TIPS program would have been, if not worse. Why TIPS generated so much more outrage than TIA has (thus far) is a question that needs to be answered before an effective mobilization can be undertaken, and it may well have to do with the perceived difference between personal spying and electronic "eavesdropping".
It's easy for John Doe and Jane Smith to imagine having a postman come to their home to deliver the mail - it happens every day. Meter readers and repairmen coming for a visit are common occurrences. The very familiarity of having strangers come into the home for business purposes made the idea that these people could be spies feel like a very real threat. It's not difficult to imagine the telephone guy surreptitiously glancing about, making silent note of what books or magazines are lying about, what kinds of decorations are on the shelves and walls, the common deterious of every day life that may give clue to religious or political orientations, or observing what kind of program is on the TV - and then trying to determine what these bits of individuality might mean in the larger context of whether you are a threat to the safety of this nation or not.
Americans, in general, are not comfortable with having their "personal space" violated - letting someone into your home is a sign of trust, even if the person is only there to install or fix something. The idea of being observed in our homes is a very creepy one, and something few Americans would be willing to tolerate. It's as big of an invasion of personal space as there can be without actual physical contact.
Having "data space" violated, however, is a different matter. There's a difference in perception between the idea of someone looking at the various items on your kitchen shelf, and having a computer scan over a list of the items you bought from a grocery store. Never mind that both provide the same basic information (and thus would likely lead to the same kind of conclusions), there is simply a greater feeling of shock at the idea of personal observation compared to data collection. A person in the home is concrete and tangible - a computer running analysis routines is distant and abstract. It doesn't feel like as big of a threat because it's harder for most people to relate to.
It's important, therefore, for the advocacy groups and individual activists who understand the scope of the threat that TIA represents, to find a way to communicate to the public that this threat, while more abstract in nature, is no less real and no less malevolent than TIPS would have been. Perhaps one possible method of getting the message across can be seen in the unique campaign by the fans of Farscape to try and save their show.
This loosely organized group of fans have come together and pooled their resources to create a TV commercial on their own, and they are planning to buy air time on late-night cable to get their message out. The ads are not done by any fancy advertising form, but by "regular Joes" with video cameras, digital video editing tools and a computer. They're not fancy, but they are effective, because the fans are speaking from the heart.
Perhaps a similar campaign could be made to publicize the reasons for concern about the TIA program. While it might not get as much "free" press as the Farscape ads are (because of the novelty of a group of fans making and buying commercial time), it should get some as it would likely be the first time such an effort was made on behalf of a political cause - and because it would make a good follow-up to the Farscape story - another example of the power of grass-roots organization and the Internet.
A few different ads could be produced - one focusing on the comparison of the TIPS program to the TIA program, to help bridge the perception gap (possibly even using a comparison like the one mentioned above - the telephone guy looking at kitchen shelves and the computer algorithms looking over a grocery receipt); another could remind people why Admiral Poindexter's involvement is, in and of itself, reason for concern (this is a man who felt it was his duty to mislead the American public during the Iran-Contra mess); and so on. One primary ad could be designated and time purchased on late-night cable channels to air it, with others made available at the website.
I'd volunteer to head up such a project, but I make for a lousy leader, and I don't have much skill when it comes to things like making video presentations (and I don't have much in the way of money, either) - but if someone wants to put together this kind of a project, I'll be glad to help out with brainstorming and such...
It's already been proven that public outrage can put a stop to a misguided attempt at invading our privacy. The battle against TIPS has been successful, and Ashcroft was stopped in his tracks. Poindexter can be stopped, too, and needs to be. The more people who understand why TIA is such a bad idea, the more likely it is that the needed outrage can be expressed - and then perhaps it, too, can be expressly forbidden by Congress, just as it ought to be.
Defeated G.O.P. Congressman to Be Consultant for A.C.L.U.. American Civil Liberties Union has agreed in principle to hire Representative Bob Barr, as a consultant to work on privacy, surveillance and national security issues. By The New York Times. [New York Times: National]
It is astounding that a civil liberties organization would want to work with Bob Barr. Thankfully, it appears that if they're going to work with him, its going to be on issues of privacy and not on other aspects of our civil rights - in particular anything related to the freedom of religion.
It wasn't that long ago that one of the big issues in the Pagan community was the opposition of some Congressmen to the idea of Wiccan groups making use of property on the military bases to hold their religious ceremonies, even if the group met all the same qualifications and other requirements than any other group had to in order to make use of the property. Bob Barr was one of the most vocal opponants and tried on several occasions to even get a rider attached to different appropriations bills that would have effectively forbidden Wiccans to use military grounds, and, as some interpreted it, could have forbidden Wiccans from even being allowed to serve at all.
Perhaps by working with a civil rights group, Barr can actually start to learn a bit about rights beyond just privacy, and realize that for his civil rights as a Christian to be preserved, he needs to support the rights of people from other religions as well. There can be no freedom of religion, if it only applies to some religions and not others.
by Stephen F. Rohde, Esq.
First they came for the Muslims, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Muslim.
Then they came to detain immigrants indefinitely solely upon the certification of the Attorney General, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't an immigrant.
Then they came to eavesdrop on suspects consulting with their attorneys, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a suspect.
Then they came to prosecute non-citizens before secret military commissions, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a non-citizen.
Then they came to enter homes and offices for unannounced "sneak and peek" searches, and I didn't speak up because I had nothing to hide.
Then they came to reinstate Cointelpro and resume the infiltration and surveillance of domestic religious and political groups, and I didn't speak up because I had stopped participating in any groups.
Then they came for anyone who objected to government policy because it aided the terrorists and gave ammunition to America's enemies, and I didn't speak up because...... I didn't speak up.
Then they came for me....... and by that time no one was left to speak up.
Stephen Rohde, a constitutional lawyer and President of the ACLU of Southern California, is indebted to the inspiration of Rev. Martin Niemoller (1937).
From Stand Down:
The author of a letter to the Times this morning has noticed that nowhere in the discussion of the Total Information Awareness program has she seen reference to the tracking of gun sales. But, of course, gun sales are going to be tracked, along with everything else. As Alex Cockburn always points out, this is the sort of government activity gun nuts are afraid of. And it's why the ACLU has always stayed out of the gun debate.
Seth Edenbaum | November 21, 2002 05:09 PM | TrackBack
It may not be quite as cut-and-dried as that. One thing that the gun lobby has fought tooth-and-nail is any kind of national gun registry. They believe it to be unconstitutional, and it has been one of the primary objections to ballistic fingerprinting, which would make it easier to determine which gun shot which bullets by making a database of test-shots fired by every gun that is manufactured, and noting who it was sold to. Because this method could link a specific gun to a specific owner, the gun lobby is strongly opposed. Under TIA, if gun purchase data was also to be included, that could also, in effect, link a specific gun to a specific owner, creating what would, essentially, be a national gun registry database.
There might be an upside to this, however, especially if there are plans for gun purchases to be included. If word of that gets out, the gun-rights lobbyists may well be willing to work with liberal civil-rights advocacy groups to try and find ways to prevent TIA from every being fully developed. I suspect, however, since TIA is mainly backed by conservatives, who also tend to be gun-rights advocates, that gun purchases will not be included in TIA from the outset. Somehow, I doubt it would have gotten as far as it has, otherwise.
From: Pentagon to Track American Consumer Purchases
Thursday, November 21, 2002
By Major Garrett, Fox News [...] But proponents say big business already has access to most of this data, but don't do anything with it to fight terrorism.
"I find it somewhat counter intuitive that people are not concerned that telemarketers and insurance companies can acquire this data but feel tremendous trepidation if a government ventures into this arena. To me it just smacks of paranoia," said David Rivkin, an attorney for Baker & Hostetler LLP. [...]
Actually, I think a lot of people are concerned that telemarketers and insurance companies can acquire this kind of data. There are, however, a few significant differences between business having access to this kind of information about someone and the government having it.
The first is that in many (though admittedly not all) cases, you have the option whether to give a company information about you or not. You can choose if you want to fill out surveys, or sign up for a consumer account that would let them identify who you are and what you've bought. In addition, a company that wants to gather more information about you is likely to give you something in return - a good example being the "discount card" programs that many supermarket or drug stores offer. You aren't required to use the discount card to shop at their stores, but if you do, they give you better prices. In return, when you sign up for the card, you give them certain information about yourself, including demographic data. Then, each time you make purchases there, they swipe your card, and each item you buy is added to your file. They can then use that information to make more personalized sales pitches to you, and to have a better idea of what their customer base, as a whole, wants.
Secondly, most individual companies only have access to information about your specific purchases, demographic data and other information as it relates to that particular store - not your entire purchasing history at every store. For example, Amazon.com can offer very personalized recommendations to their customers based on your previous purchasing and "window shopping" histories - but they only know about what I've bought or looked at while visiting their website. They don't have access to my purchasing history from, say, CDNow or Best Buy, so they can't take that data into consideration. They may have a pretty good idea of what I like, but its still an incomplete picture.
Of course, the biggest difference is that the stores I shop at and the websites I visit don't have the power to decide that I'm potentially dangerous and subsequently investigate, arrest or otherwise detain, try or punish me. The government, however, can do all of that, and more. And, given the current direction our law enforcement procedures and methods are going, I don't consider it "paranoid" at all to be worried that they might.
When people are being visited by the FBI because someone reports that they have an anti-Bush poster in their home, are detained by the Postal Inspector because they wanted to buy any stamps except the ones with the flag on them, and being interrogated because they were overhead while on a phone call talking about "bombs" (the person in question was helping a friend figure out a video game she was playing), being concerned about how your shopping list might make you look isn't an overraction.
Yesterday, while discussing the lead-up to the Senate vote on the Homeland Security bill, most of the cable news stations were talking about the 7 "pork" items that the Democrats wanted to have removed. I heard nothing about the provision in the act for the "Total Information Awareness" program. Yes, this is something of an obsession for me - the scope of the program and the risk it poses to our freedoms is astonishing, and I am dumbfounded that its not getting more coverage away from the Op-Ed pages.
So far, today's priority stories tell me that we're having a fairly slow news day. Live coverage has been provided of a car-chase in LA (sparking one of my favourite screen headlines of recent memory: "Breaking News: Police tried to stop car for failure to yield"), and Michael Jackson dangling a baby over a balcony rail for about 5 seconds. This second story has even become the question of the day for MSNBC. Since they solicit comments about their questions of the day, I sent them a nice little message telling them I'd much rather hear about the TIA program that John Poindexter of Iran-Contra fame is putting together for the Pentagon than worry about what a generally-regarded-as-bizarre has-been celebrity is doing.
Each day, it seems that our government is moving closer and closer to something that looks more like facism than a republic, but there's a feeling that people are still too shell-shocked from 9/11, too afraid of future terror attacks, too complacent or too burned out to really care or have the strength and courage to fight back. I'm not sure what its going to take, but we need a wake-up call, something to help people see how much we're losing.
America is supposed to be the greatest nation in the world, and one of the biggest reasons for that greatness is that we have the freedom to live our lives, by-and-large, as we see fit. But if we're going to be willing to give up our freedoms just because we're afraid - if we're willing to accept our government being able to pry into nearly every aspect of our lives, to have to worry that someone may detect a "pattern" in what books we read, who we call, what we buy or how we express our thoughts and concerns - then those very things that make America great will be gone.
A coalition of roughly 50 organization published an open letter to Senators Trent Lott and Tom Daschle today, expressing their concerns with the proposted "Total Information Awareness" program and asking that they adopt an amendment to the Homeland Security bill preventing the TIA program from going forward. As evidence of how widespread concern about this program is, the letter is signed by the leaders of groups that represent a wide range of viewpoints, including both People For the American Way and Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum. Other signatories include the SquareOne Media Network, Electronic Privacy Information Center, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Consumer Task Force for Automotive Issues, and Junkbusters, Corp.
According to DARPA's own documents, TIA will collect and mine vast amounts of information on the American public, including telephone records, bank records, medical records, and educational and travel data. TIA also proposes to connect with a massive system of biometric identification.
There are no systems of oversight or accountability contemplated in the TIA project. DARPA itself has resisted lawful requests for information about the program pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act.
On another note, Microsoft has hired a director for their Federal Homeland Security office. The purpose of this position is to allow Microsoft to be able to bid on contracts related to the Homeland Security and to lobby the Homeland Security office to use Microsoft products for their projects.
As "The Decline and Fall of the American Empire" observes, this leaves open one very interesting, and rather disquieting, possiblility. IF the Total Informatiom Awareness office is approved, and IF Microsoft were to get the Homeland Security contracts (neither of which is a certain thing), Microsoft could end up not only writing and publishing the most commonly used operating system in America, but could also be directly involved with the government's goal of gathering as much information on each citizen as possible, so that it could be subjected to the "data mining" analysis that is supposed to help investigators indentify if someone should be viewed as a potential threat based on the pattern of actiities their electronic trail leads. How much easier would it be for the government to spy on people if their operating system was designed to interoperate an communicate with the government's data management system? LIke I said - there are an awful lot of ifs involved, so there's no cause for panic yet, but the situation does bear watching.
Bill Tammeus of the Kansas City Star has written an excellent commentary on just what it is that makes for Authentic Patriotism. One of my favourite points:
Praises and criticizes the government. I'm always stunned at how critical some people are of whatever the government does -- until a national crisis arrives. Then some of them brook no criticism at all, imagining it to be unpatriotic.
But the truth is that we don't defend our principles by abandoning them in crises. We don't honor freedom of speech by forbidding it. In good times and bad, we need to follow what our representatives are doing in our name and, if it's done well, praise them, but, if not, call them to account. It is not treason to disagree with the president. It can, however, be unpatriotic to silence dissident voices.
I received this e-mail this morning from the ACLU in regards to the "Total Information Awareness". If you are not yet familiar with the Total Information Awareness program, you can read more about it here and here.
You do not need to be a member of the ACLU to make use of this service.
To: ACLU Action Network
FR: Damon Moglen, National Field Coordinator
DT: November 18, 2002
1. Stop the Pentagon plan to invade our privacy!
In the past few days, press reports have revealed that a little-known Defense Department office has begun developing a computer system that would provide officials with the ability to snoop into all aspects of our private lives without a search warrant or proof of criminal wrongdoing.
The Pentagon's new Office of Information Awareness is building a system called “Total Information Awareness” that would effectively provide government officials with immediate access to our personal information: all of our communications (phone calls, emails and web searches), financial records, purchases, prescriptions, school records, medical records and travel history. Under this program, our entire lives would be catalogued and available to government officials.
We have a real opportunity to stop this plan’s overwhelming invasion of privacy before it is goes any further. To learn more about this initiative and what you can do to defend your right to privacy, please click here:
Should the military be given the names of every high school student in America?
By David Goodman
November/December 2002 Issue
Sharon Shea-Keneally, principal of Mount Anthony Union High School in Bennington, Vermont, was shocked when she received a letter in May from military recruiters demanding a list of all her students, including names, addresses, and phone numbers.
[...] The recruiters cited the No Child Left Behind Act, President Bush's sweeping new education law passed earlier this year. There, buried deep within the law's 670 pages, is a provision requiring public secondary schools to provide military recruiters not only with access to facilities, but also with contact information for every student -- or face a cutoff of all federal aid.
Given the current climate of war in the United States, its understandable that the administration would want to have the best opportunities to recruit as many new soldiers as possible into the Armed Forces. Military service is something that each citizen should give careful consideration to, both as a means of giving something back to the country in return for all of the benefits gained by living here, and also because it can serve as a character building experience and provide excellent training for a variety of careers. Even still, not everyone is cut out for the military life, or is physically capable of serving, and there are many good reasons not to join.
For parents who wanted to see their children join the service, and kids who were interested in enlisting, many schools have been offering the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC), which not only allows them to start their training while still in high school, but also gives them the opportunity to serve as recruiters themselves. Additionally, most schools have gladly allowed military recruiters to come into the schools and talk to students about enlisting. The current administration, however, feels that more is needed, and included a provision in the "No Child Left Behind" act requiring public schools to turn over the names, addresses and phone numbers to the military so that they can then contact them at home to see about getting them to sign up. It was added, because some schools chose not to allow recruiters to come in and recruit, and, as Representative David Vitter [R-La] explained, they "demonstrated an anti-military attitude that I thought was offernsive".
It's not hard to understand why a representative might find it offensive for a school to prevent recruiters from visiting, but its unquestionable that many parents will find having their child contacted at home, directly, by the military, to be offensive as well. The recruiters, however, don't plan to let parental objections stop them from their mission of trying to get as many kids signed up as possible.
Recruiters are up-front about their plans to use school lists to aggressively pursue students through mailings, phone calls, and personal visits -- even if parents object. "The only thing that will get us to stop contacting the family is if they call their congressman," says Major Johannes Paraan, head U.S. Army recruiter for Vermont and northeastern New York. "Or maybe if the kid died, we'll take them off our list."
Students - if they are aware that their information can be turned over to the military - do have the option to request that their information be withheld, but not all schools are letting students know that there information may be given out.
What's curious, though, is that if the issue was that public schools weren't allowing the military to recruit on school grounds, why not change the law to require schools to allow military recruitment, rather than requiring them to turn over their student contact information? The obvious answer is that recruitment events are usually only one or two day affairs, where the recruiters are meeting as many students as possible, and tend to see only those who are pre-disposed to interest in serving. Having their contact information, however, allows recruiters to make multiple contacts to different inividuals more easily, and to spend more time trying to convince those who may be reluctant to conisder enlisting.
Of course, the possiblity exists that this may become a moot point. Representative Nick Smith, [R-Mi] introduced HR 3598 on December 20, 2001, to re-institute the draft. According to to Thomas, it currently is in the Subcommittee on Military Personnel, but with the on-going war on terror and the upcoming war with Iraq, it may begin to draw more notice and consideration than it has thus far. This bill is specifically aimed at recruiting student right out of high school, and no longer allows for a deferrment based on enrollment in college. Conscientious objectors will be exempt from combatant training, but can still be drafted and given other basic training before being permitted transfer to a national service program.
Either way, for high school graduates, the push is on to get them into the military. As parents begin to see their own children being called to serve (whether through a reinstated draft or home-delivered recruitment pitches), perhaps it will help more people understand just what is at risk with Bush's aggressive policies.
Big Brother Goes to Washington
A privacy expert explains how the government could use a new security law to spy on Americans
By Arlene Getz
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE
[...] THE BILL STILL HAS to be approved by the Senate, but if passed in its current form it will enable law-enforcement groups to compel Internet service providers to hand over client records revealing everything from their personal e-mail messages to their favorite Web sites. [...]
Newsweek's website this week has an excellent interview with Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) about a provision in the House version of the Homeland Security Act that would give the police and federal law enforcement agencies the ability to go to an ISP, an, without a warrant, and obtain records of your online activity, including mail sent and received, websites visited, and purchases made.
This proposal is separate from the Total Information Awarenes program I've previously written about, but could end up being used in conjuction with TIA to give it more data about you for the government.
I may not always agree with every cause the ACLU champions or every suit that they file, but their "Keep America Safe AND Free" campaign is one that I can easily support. As part of the campaign, the ACLU has issued the following press release regarding the "Total Information Awareness" program. While much of the informaiton it contains has already been covered by the other postings at this site, I wanted to include it here anyway.
-=<*>=-
November 14, 2002
WASHINGTON - The American Civil Liberties Union today called on President Bush to disavow a new system being developed at the Pentagon that would be able to track every American’s activities.
WASHINGTON - The American Civil Liberties Union today called on President Bush to disavow a new system being developed at the Pentagon that would be able to track every American’s activities.
"Smile, you’re on virtual candid camera," said Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU’s Washington National Office. "If the Pentagon has its way, every American - from the Nebraskan farmer to the Wall Street banker - will find themselves under the accusatory cyber-stare of an all-powerful national security apparatus."
The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is developing the system, which it has dubbed "Total Information Awareness," in its Information Awareness Office. That office is directed by former Reagan Administration official John Poindexter, who once said that it was his duty as the national security advisor to withhold information from Congress.
The Total Information Awareness program will be -- by Poindexter’s own public admission -- the infrastructure for what the government hopes will be the most extensive electronic surveillance system in history. That vision is encapsulated in the logo for Poindexter’s office: the all-seeing eye and pyramid (prominent also on the one dollar bill) spying from above on the entire world. The office’s motto is Scientia Est Potentia, Latin for "Knowledge is Power."
The ACLU concerns are somewhat similar to those expressed today by "card-carrying conservative" New York Times columnist William Safire that the program is a "supersnoop’s dream."
The Total Information Awareness program would use the technology called data-mining - which is totally untested in the national security context -- to ostensibly detect terrorist threats before they occur. Data-mining, currently used by private industry to track buying habits and target telemarketers, among other things, involves the computerized scrutiny of vast amounts of unrelated information in the hope of finding patterns that can predict future behavior.
But the Total Information Awareness program goes further than any corporate cyber-snooping: it would link a huge number of commercial and governmental databases, both in America and overseas. These databases could presumably range from student grades to mental health histories to travel records.
"Just as he scaled back the program that would have had neighbors spying on neighbors, President Bush must stop the Total Information Awareness program now," said Katie Corrigan, an ACLU Legislative Counsel. "And if he refuses to act, Congress should step in quickly and pull the plug on this dangerous idea."
© American Civil Liberties Union
125 Broad Street, 18th Floor, New York, NY 10004
You Are a Suspect. John Poindexter is determined to break down the wall between commercial snooping and secret government intrusion. By William Safire. [Headlines From The NY Times]
According to this editorial, the "Total Information Awareness" program that the Pentagon wants to implement is included as part of the Homeland Security bill now being approved by Congress. As described by Safire, the plan would open a number of commercial databases - not just the banking transactions, phone records, e-mails and travel plans mentioned in my previous post on this topic, but also your grades, credit card purchases, websites you visit, prescriptions medications you buy, magazine subscriptions and various events you attend - and allows them to be crossreferenced with any information the government already has - drivers license records, passport information, any judicial or divorce proceedings, complaints made to law enforcement officals about you, and so on.
Something interesting - and more than a bit disconcerting - is the person behind this idea, and who, presumably, would be running the program: former Admiral John Poindexter.
Remember Poindexter? Brilliant man, first in his class at the Naval Academy, later earned a doctorate in physics, rose to national security adviser under President Ronald Reagan. He had this brilliant idea of secretly selling missiles to Iran to pay ransom for hostages, and with the illicit proceeds to illegally support contras in Nicaragua.
A jury convicted Poindexter in 1990 on five felony counts of misleading Congress and making false statements, but an appeals court overturned the verdict because Congress had given him immunity for his testimony. He famously asserted, "The buck stops here," arguing that the White House staff, and not the president, was responsible for fateful decisions that might prove embarrassing.
I probably shouldn't be surprised that he's still in government service, but I am. The felony charges against him were not dismissed because they were not true, but because they weren't allowed to use the incriminating testimony he gave to Congress against him. Given the collective Republican hissy-fit over President Clinton's lies regaring his private life, it seems more than a bit hypocritical for them to have appointed an admitted liar to run the "Information Awareness Office", a department of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
Even those who feel that the loss of privacy is acceptable in light of the need for safety should be concerned about a program being created and implemented by Admiral Poindexter. He has already shown that he lacks good judgement and considers the truth disposable if disposing of it furthers the aims of the government.
N.F.L.'s New Bottom (and Waist) Line. Is it fair or even necessary for the N.F.L. to fire a highly respected game official because it considers him overweight? By Mike Freeman. [Headlines From The NY Times]
In July 2002, one of the NFL's best game officials was fired for not meeting a new weight guideline that they had established. He sued, and got his job back, but now is considered suspended, rather than fired, until he gets his weight in line with the new guideines.
There are, of course, debates about why the new guidelines were instituted. Some NFL professionals have said (anonymously) that it's because they want the game officials to look better on TV. Others (un-anonymously) have said that they simply don't want an unhealthy official to collapse on the field due to exertion - the game officials do have to run up and down the field a lot - especially in the higher heat of some of the early games.
Yet, despite the general belief that "fat" automatically means "unhealthy", that isn't always the case. It's entirely possible for an obese person to still have normal blood pressure, normal heart and respiratory rates, low cholesterol, normal pulse and blood oxygen rates and normal blood sugar. And these statistics are much more useful in determining the overall health of a person, as opposed to just their weight or "Body Mass Index".
If the NFL is truly worried about the health and well-being of its game officials, then perhaps it should require them to take tests that would provide the above data and use that to determine if they are healthy enough to officiate, rather than just basing a determination off their weight. This would not only be less discriminatory against healty-but-fat people, it would be more accurate and, thus, more likely to weed out any men who might be at risk for collapsing on the field.
If, however, their actual concern is with appearance, then the NFL should be highly ashamed of itself. I doubt very many people - male or female - are going to decide whether or not to watch a game based on the perceived attractiveness of the game officials.
We've known already for several years that the constant focus of the entertainment (and other) media on slim women, showing them as being desirable and fat women as being people to laugh at, make jokes about or pity, has been linked to the increase in anorexia and bulimia among adolesent girls. More recent trends have shown that as men have come under greater scruitiny in the media, with more attention being paid to thinner men than fat ones, adolesent males have also shown an increase in eating disorders - a phenomenon that was relatively rare just a few years ago.
Worrying about the attractiveness of football game officials will do little, if anything, to enhance the viewers experience, and its unlikely to do much to draw in more viewers. Most people don't really notice the officials, until they throw a flag on a play where the team an individual is rooting for is judged to have made some kind of an error. The knowledge, however, that even football officials are only acceptable if they are thin, is likely to stick with some of the boys who read or hear about it - which also means that it might contribute to some of the boys developing eating disorders at some point. Please note, I'm not saying that this one decision by itself would be enough to push someone over the "edge" of being anorexic or bulimic, but as part of an overall pattern of saying that only thin is acceptable, it has the potential to be a contributing factor. And that's just not something that's needed.
Pentagon Plans a Computer System That Would Peek at Personal Data of Americans
By JOHN MARKOFF
The Pentagon is constructing a computer system that could create a vast electronic dragnet, searching for personal information as part of the hunt for terrorists around the globe — including the United States.
As the director of the effort, Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter, has described the system in Pentagon documents and in speeches, it will provide intelligence analysts and law enforcement officials with instant access to information from Internet mail and calling records to credit card and banking transactions and travel documents, without a search warrant.
The kind of system they're wanting has not been completely developed yet, they're still working on a prototype, but what it would allow them to do is very broad-based, and more than a bit disconcerting. Through this system, law enforcement officials would be able to search any number of records about you, and pull all that information together to see if there are any patterns in your activities that might point to you being a terrorist.
What's worse, in some places, the article strongly implies that the system would have the ability to scan the databases in order to find what it thinks are questionable patterns, and, as a result of those searches, bring you to the attention of law enforcement. In other words, not only would they be able to check a lot of databases and gather considerable information about what you're doing if you become a suspect, but you could actually become a suspect based on what these automatic searches turn up. All without a search warrant or any need to indicate if there's even probable cause to think you might be guilty.
The new system will rely on a set of computer-based pattern recognition techniques known as "data mining," a set of statistical techniques used by scientists as well as by marketers searching for potential customers.
The system would permit a team of intelligence analysts to gather and view information from databases, pursue links between individuals and groups, respond to automatic alerts, and share information efficiently, all from their individual computers.
As of right now, some of what they're wanting to do with this system - comfortingly named "Total Information Awareness" - is still illegal, but the Pentagon and other proponants are hoping to get the rules changed through the Homeland Security Act and other legislation.
In order to deploy such a system, known as
Total Information Awareness, new legislation would be needed, some of which has been proposed by the Bush administration in the Homeland Security Act that is now before Congress. That legislation would amend the Privacy Act of 1974, which was intended to limit what government agencies could do with private information.
The possibility that the system might be deployed domestically to let intelligence officials look into commercial transactions worries civil liberties proponents.
"This could be the perfect storm for civil liberties in America," said Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington "The vehicle is the Homeland Security Act, the technology is Darpa and the agency is the F.B.I. The outcome is a system of national surveillance of the American public."
The good news here is that since the system is not yet fully developed and since there is a need for additional legislation to be passed, there is time to try and fight the "Total Information Awareness" project. I urge each of you, if this kind of a system concerns you -- if the idea that the police or FBI could look through your email, banking transactions, phone usage records and travel information without first showing any probable cause or obtaining a warrant, or the idea that records like these could be randomly searched by an automated, computerized system, and your name kicked out as someone to "check out", bothers you -- then please, take a moment to scroll down this page a bit and look for the box labeled "Contact your Congresscritters", enter your zip code, find out who to contact and let them know what you think.
ACLU Acts Against Patriot Act. The American Civil Liberties Union has had enough of some aspects of the Bush administration's Patriot Act, and it's launching a visible, nationwide campaign against it. By Julia Scheeres. [Wired News]
Much has been made of the perceived loss of freedom since the September 11th attacks, but this Wired article provides information on three specific cases, which stand to illustrate that the loss of freedom is more than just perceived.
In response to incidents like the above, the ACLU has introduced a new campaign: Keep America Safe and Free . Sadly, it appears that such a program is needed, given the general paranoia that America, as a whole, has been feeling, and our government's attempts at encouraging it.
Safety and freedom do not have to be mutually exclusive. What we need is to find an appropriate balance between the two. Yes, this means we have to make some compromises, possibly allowing some restrictions to a few of our freedoms; but it also mean we have to be willing to take risks. For us to be able to minimize the restrictions on freedom, there has to be some trust in the system, and some people will violate that trust. But life has never been totally without risk, nor do I believe it is intended to be. There are many ways in which to reduce risks without destroying freedom - but before we can get the government to work on developing and adopting those kind of measures, we, as a people, have to make it clear that we're NOT willing to trade away our most precious freedoms.
Article Last Updated:
Wednesday, October 02, 2002 - 2:56:41 AM MST
Protest of school Satanic club a flop
By T.S. Mills-Faraudo
STAFF WRITER
SAN MATEO -- Police came to San Mateo High School Tuesday prepared to deal with a rally of parents protesting the school's backing of a club based on Satanism.
But the officers milling around the school's performing arts center were left with nothing to do. [...]
Parent Pam Cachay organized the lunch-hour rally, expecting 50 people to show up in an effort to dismantle the club, devoted to the study of the teachings of Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan.
Cachay was stunned to find no one picketing. [...]
I just have to give the parents of San Mateo High School a hand for not panicking, overreacting and giving in to the usual hysteria that surrounds any mention of Satanism.
Article Last Updated:
Friday, September 27, 2002 - 10:04:13 AM MST
High school Satanism club prompts parental outrage
Students say lunchtime meetings do not worship Lord of Underworld
By T.S. Mills-Faraudo
STAFF WRITER
SAN MATEO -- A group of San Mateo High School students trying to stir up controversy formed a club based on Satanism, a religion typically associated with hedonistic philosophy and with the rituals of black magic.
[...]
While McEvoy said she has received calls from members of the religious community angry about the club's formation, Father Harold Snider of Our Lady of Angels Catholic Church in Burlingame said the First Amendment is behind these students. [...]
This is something that the people who are trying to get prayer and other religious activities put back into the school really need to contemplate. Every bit of ground they gain for their own faith they also gain for every other faith - and the more they try to push their beliefs into the schools, the more they'll find smaller, less well-known and less popular religions expecting equal treatment (which, under the First Amendment, they have a right to expect).
The difficult part, of course, is often in getting those who practice the more mainstream faiths to understand this concept. When a religion teaches that it is the only acceptable religion, its followers often believe that their religion should then be the only one entitled to Constitutional protection.
No-fly blacklist snares political activists
Alan Gathright, Chronicle Staff Writer
A federal "No Fly" list, intended to keep terrorists from boarding planes, is snaring peace activists at San Francisco International and other U. S. airports, triggering complaints that civil liberties are being trampled.
And while several federal agencies acknowledge that they contribute names to the congressionally mandated list, none of them, when contacted by The Chronicle, could or would say which agency is responsible for managing the list.
In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, many different pieces of legislation and many new rules have been instituted to try and add to the security of this country. There has also been a great deal of debate, as it often seems that the lawmakers, and John Ashcroft in particular, are willing to have citizens sacrifice a number of their freedoms in the interest of "safety". Personally, I'd rather live with a certain level of risk and retain my freedoms, as do most others, I imagine - though where exactly that "certain level" falls becomes an issue of serious debate.
The article quoted above refers to a "No-Fly List" that was instituted in the wake of the attacks. The list is apparently "held" (though not "managed") by the Transportation Security Adminostration, and many agencies, including the FBI, CIA and NSA are able to add names to it as they see fit -- though none of them have been particularly willing to acknowledge if they have.
The purpose of the list was to keep a record of names of potential terrorists or other criminals, but in the last several months, a number of anti-war activists have also been denied or delayed in their air travel plans because their name was either on the list or "resembled" a name on the list (it seems no one is even willing to say for certain which it is).
Part of what concerns me is that no only does it appear that there is no one who is actually accountable for maintaining, vetting or resolving problems in regards to the list, but the guidelines as to who is considered to be enough of a risk to be added to the list also seems to be an unknown. If someone is being delayed or detained because of this list, then they should have the right to know 1) if, in fact, they are actually ON the list or if it is a matter of their name strongly resembling that of someone on the list, 2) why their name was put on the list and 3) who put their name on the list. In addition, they should also have the right to rebut the claim that they are a risk, and there should be some kind of recourse for them if they feel they have been listed unfairly.
Five months ago, a group of anti-war protesters from Wisconsin were delayed because the name of one member of the group was either on the list or resembled a name on the list. Twenty people were detained, but only one of those 20 was even allegedly on the list - a classic case of "guilt by association". That the woman in question was a 74-year-old Catholic nun made no difference, and the article notes that because the group respects that there needs to be tighter security after what has happened, they did not make much of a fuss at the time. But even now, 5 months after the incident, they still cannot find out any information about how her name got on the list, who put it there, why it was put there or anything else.
With no accountability, no difinitive source of origin, no established guidelines for inclusion or anything else of that nature, this list can be used not only to try and help prevent suspected terrorists or other criminals from getting on planes, but it can also be used to help make it more difficult for protesters who disagree with what the government wants to carry out the excercising of their freedom of speech. That, in my opinion, is unacceptable. If the government wants to maintain watch lists or "no-fly" lists, fine. Do it out in such a way that if someone is on a list they can find out why and how; give them the ability to challenge their inclusion; and establish some guidelines as to what qualifies someone to be considered a potential terrorist or criminal. To do any less leaves it far too open to abuse, and no administration need access to something like that.
Sorry, Thinkofthechildren.co.uk has been torched by an angry mob.
On Monday 23rd September, the Metropolitan Police (acting with the support of The Internet Watch Foundation) contacted my web host, Webfusion (aka Host Europe), and requested that thinkofthechildren.co.uk be 'removed from the public domain'.
Thinkofthechildren.co.uk was a site that satirized the British tabloids coverage of child murders and paedophiles. Now, granted, those are likely to be fairly sensitive topics to try and write satire about, and, in all honesty, I had not seen the site before it was taken down. The issue here, though, isn't if the site was actually funny, its that it serve a legitimate purpose in criticizing the way that some people - particularly those running tabloids - were making a fair amount of money by writing about (and writing about and writing about) paedophiles and child murders.
If you want to read the full story of what has happened, and find out how to get updated as the webmaster attempts to find a new home for his site, be sure to check out http://thinkofthechildren.co.uk
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