Politics & Law 238 | ***Dave Does the Blog

“What we have here is a failure to communicate”

Leon E. Prioleau Sr. was charged in a criminal complaint that says he told police he choked the woman because he believed she liked it. “I squeezed harder,” Prioleau told…

Leon E. Prioleau Sr. was charged in a criminal complaint that says he told police he choked the woman because he believed she liked it.
“I squeezed harder,” Prioleau told police after his arrest this week, according to the complaint. “I thought she liked it, so I kept squeezing harder.”
It was not until it was too late, according to Prioleau, that he realized that he had mistaken the woman’s gasps for air as sighs of passion.

Either the accused is really stupid in his lovemaking activities, or really stupid in making excuses. In either case, “off the street” seems to be the place for him.

(Via Obscure Store)

Airport Security Kills Kenny … Film At 11.

South Park took on airport security at DIA. Not surprisingly, hilarity ensued….

South Park took on airport security at DIA. Not surprisingly, hilarity ensued.

Step away from the mask … slowly …

Native Americans, who religious rituals include masks and face paint, are concerned over provisions in anti-terrorism bills that “makes it a criminal offence to refuse a police officer’s request to…

Possibly legitimate concerns. Of course, the article then goes evolves into a rant:

Eulynda Toledo-Benalli, Dine’ founder of First Nations North and South, said the United States was founded on the terrorism and bioterrorism of Indigenous peoples. Benalli said the most recent limitations on civil liberties are alarming in the context of history, including the genocidial spread of smallpox to Indian people.
“How can a nation state, like the United States, an imperialist state, take such actions when their very principles of ‘democracy’ were founded on terrorism and bioterrorism. As far as I’m concerned, they need to clean up their acts, face the truths, and realize their roots of terrorism committed against the first sufferers and survivors of their terrorist acts before they accuse anyone else — maybe then I will believe their ‘truths.’ It’s really ironic to hear the myth of ‘freedom’ perpetuated in the U.S.”
Benalli said Indigenous peoples have become prisoners of democracy.

The article also makes it clear that the concern over masks and face paint is more directed at those seeking anonymity during demonstrations than for particularly religious reasons.

(Via Boing Boing)

Making sense

Security has to make sense Peter Coffee’s eWeek column makes sense, too. It’s almost too short to quote from, but it does a very nice job of noting why simply…

Security has to make sense

Peter Coffee’s eWeek column makes sense, too. It’s almost too short to quote from, but it does a very nice job of noting why simply throwing security measures at a problem leads to greater problems of non-compliance and disrepect later on.

Perhaps the worst thing about the post-Sept. 11 environment is the abandonment of cost-benefit analysis, or any analysis at all, in the rush to prove that one has taken every possible precaution. The result reminds me of descriptions of the Prohibition era: The rules become the problem, and people begin to sneer at both the rules and at those who bother to obey them.

He also uses my favorite example of why the banning of pen-knives at various places these days makes so little sense.

Read it.

Now you see it, now you don’t

OMBWatch is keeping a list of government data being withdrawn from the Net, post-9-11. (Via Follow Me Here)…

OMBWatch is keeping a list of government data being withdrawn from the Net, post-9-11.

(Via Follow Me Here)

The story of a story

Conservative pundits and the Washington Times are continuing to keep their spin on Clinton’s 7 November speech at Georgetown University, even though it has been widely criticized and debunked. Spinsanity…

Conservative pundits and the Washington Times are continuing to keep their spin on Clinton’s 7 November speech at Georgetown University, even though it has been widely criticized and debunked. Spinsanity offers a new report on their efforts. It, and the previous report, make fascinating reading.

Regardless of how you feel about Dubya’s predecessor, and his well-publicized failings (and his successes as well), let’s praise or critique him on what he’s done and said, not on spin of rumors of stories of biased interpretations of out-of-context excerpts of what he’s done and said.

Information

“We want … Information” If you’re an anti-virus software vendor, your product’s job is to detect viruses, worms, and, of course, Trojan Horses. These are bits of code, disguised as…

“We want … Information”

If you’re an anti-virus software vendor, your product’s job is to detect viruses, worms, and, of course, Trojan Horses. These are bits of code, disguised as a legitimate program, that infect a machine and send information or commands or copies of themselves on to other machines.

But what if the Trojan Horse in question is called Magic Lantern, and it’s been developed by the FBI to help monitor PCs of suspected criminals and terrorists (with the appropriate legal pre-approvals, of course)? Do you still detect it, thus interfering with law enforcement? Or do you intentionally leave that back door in place?

But if you leave that back door in place, what happens if Magic Lantern gets hacked and used by others for illegitimate purposes?

And if you have customers outside the US who might reasonably want protection against American law enforcement agencies, do you end up with separate versions for the US and abroad? Would the FBI be happy with that?

And what if Interpol, or MI.6, or the French police, or the Russian police, or the Chinese police come to you with plans to do the same thing, and wants you to let their Trojan Horse through, too?

Who’d’ve thunk being an anti-virus company could get so morally ambiguious?

Sue his ass off

An airline is suing the guy who brought the Atlanta airport to a standstill earlier in the month. Lasseter’s lawyer, Richard Lipman, called the AirTran lawsuit “dastardly, exploitive, irresponsible and…

An airline is suing the guy who brought the Atlanta airport to a standstill earlier in the month.

Lasseter’s lawyer, Richard Lipman, called the AirTran lawsuit “dastardly, exploitive, irresponsible and senseless.”

Right. The yo-yo leaves his camera bag, runs back, decides the security line is too long (he might miss his flight to a college football game), and instead runs down the up escalator to bypass it. Hilarity — and a shut-down of the airport — ensue.

Never mind whether shutting the airport down was a silly policy (it was on standing orders from the Dept. of Transportation). Never mind that the airport should have made it freakin’ impossible for the guy to simply bypass security. The guy knew he was going the wrong way, he ran past security guards, and, unless he’s been living under a rock for a few months, knew about heightened security concerns at airports (it was in all the papers — you might have read about it). The guy is lucky he wasn’t shot by the Georgia National Guard.

And then he has the gall to play the concerned-parent card. Never mind that the kid was there with his uncle, and so not liable to be spirited away by gypsies. The guy was inconsiderate, unthinking, and his actions need to have a bit more consequence than a simple disorderly conduct (!?) charge.

Actions. Consequences. An amazing concept, that.

(Via Sillycow)

I fought the law …

Dumb Laws A fun site (aside from the epilepsy-inducing banner ads and pop-ups) listing various “dumb” laws. Colorado’s aren’t funny-dumb, just annoying-dumb: Car dealers may not show cars on a…

Dumb Laws

A fun site (aside from the epilepsy-inducing banner ads and pop-ups) listing various “dumb” laws.

Colorado’s aren’t funny-dumb, just annoying-dumb:

Car dealers may not show cars on a Sunday. [This makes Sunday a great time to look at cars — at least car exteriors. The dealers are closed, so you can wander the lot without hearing the theme from Jaws.]
It is illegal for liquor stores to sell food or grocery stores to sell any alcohol except beer that is at most 3.2% alcohol. [This particular law would have dropped off the books except for the powerful liquor store lobby. It’s also worth noting that a particular company can only operate a single liquor store in the state — no chains.]
No liquor may be sold on Sundays or election days. (Repealed) [Actually, this is still on the books. You can’t buy liquor on Christmas, either. I have a funny story to tell about this one, some day.]
It is illegal to ride a horse while under the influence.
Tags may be ripped off of pillows and mattresses. [Actually, those “Do Not Remove” tags specifically say they cannot be removed by the seller, not by the buyer.]

(Via Captain Rooba)

On the other hand

If you’d like a legitimate grievance about civil liberties, consider those foreigners swept up in post-9-11 furor. American immigration law has always been schizophrenic, and recent (over the past two decades or so) steps to remove it further and further from judicial review has allowed hundreds of folks to be simply dumped in cells awaiting further investigation.

Government officials say that the aggressive response is warranted by the extraordinary situation, and that they are simply enforcing longstanding laws. “Sept. 11 has forced the entire government to change the way we do business,” said Mindy Tucker, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department. “Our No. 1 priority right now is to prevent any further terrorist attacks. Part of that entails identifying those who may have connections to terrorism who are here in America and making sure they’re not in a position to carry out any further terrorism.”
Over all, more than 1,200 people have been detained as part of the sweeping investigation, including men traveling the country with large amounts of cash and box cutters, and those who sought information on crop-dusters and flying lessons on large jets.
But a senior law enforcement official said for the first time last week that just 10 to 15 of the detainees are suspected as Al Qaeda sympathizers, and that the government has yet to find evidence indicating that any of them had knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks or acted as accomplices.

The point behind removing non-citizens from judicial oversight has been, of course, to keep “bleeding-heart liberal judges” from overriding the conservative desires of Congress and/or the President (through the INS). The result, though, should be a conservative’s nightmare — a mini-police state where minor immigration law infractions or, worse, allegations of security concerns can leave you languishing for days, weeks, months in prison, where, thanks to Messrs. Ashcroft and Bush, one’s conversations with lawyers, assuming you can contact one, can be monitored, and where nobody really has to charge you with anything for (now) a year (with possible renewal).

The Constitution is mildly schizophrenic in these matters as well. Some protections apply to “people,” others to just “citizen.” These are the loopholes that have let this occur.

Is it understandable that the government might want to have a bit more latitude in rounding up folks they think might be a legitimate security threat? Even without a formal declaration of war, I’m willing to allow that. But the government then had damn well better pursue those cases vigorously, or else lose any moral (if not legal) legitimacy in such actions.

(Via 24-Hour Drive-Thru)

Keeping a grip

I’ve seen this story flashed around a number of places today. Briefly, a student activist with a poster portraying Bush as a hangman (from his support for the death penalty…

I’ve seen this story flashed around a number of places today. Briefly, a student activist with a poster portraying Bush as a hangman (from his support for the death penalty in Texas) drew someone’s attention enough to mention it as a threat to the Secret Service. The Secret Service came by. The student did not let them in. They talked for a while, eventually saw the poster, and left.

The consensus opinion seems to be that this is yet another example of a chipping away of our civil liberties and our rights, another example of political suppression, another example of how John Ashcroft is turning the US into a police state, etc.

My thoughts:

First of all, the Secret Service reports to the Treasury Department, under Paul O’Neill. That doesn’t mean anything one way or another, but let’s not get our cabinet secretaries mixed up.

Secondly, let’s look at what actually happened. The police (maybe — maybe someone else) saw the poster. Either to make trouble, or because its image was misunderstood as a threat, someone passed word on to the Secret Service. The Secret Service responded to a reported threat against the president. They were polite. They remained out in the hallway when not given permission to enter. When things were explained, they left.

There was no kicking down of the door. No confiscation of the poster. No threats against the student.

If this gal had been a whacko who next week took a shot at Bush, or who later was found out to be sending out anthrax letters, the earlier report of something funny going on there would, if not at least checked up on, have been seized upon as how law enforcement and the secret service were incompetent dolts.

Is it unsettling to think that the things one says or displays (as, yes, protected political speech) might attract attention? Well, that’s kind of the idea, right?

Is it unsettling to think that attention might come from law enforcement? Maybe. Depending on how law enforcement reacted. There was a reported threat. An investigation. A polite conclusion. End of story.

Finally, Brown relented a bit, agreeing to open the door and show them her poster wall. “They looked in, and the lady was like, ‘Ohhhh, that’s not that bad.'” The male agent added, “We’ve seen worse.”
Still, Brown’s brush with the authorities wasn’t over. “Since they were just gawking at my wall, I decided to explain it.” The wall features Brown’s favorite art and mementos: a high-school photo project showing the perils of smoking cigarettes; a Pink Floyd poster (“It has that phrase, ‘Mother should I trust the government,’ so I had to get it”); posters for two Japanese cartoon shows; several pictures she took at protests and rallies; and a headband with “Democracy” on it. And, of course, the Bush-as-hangman poster.
Having seen the poster, Brown says, the agents questioned her further, asking: “Do you have any Afghanistan stuff in your apartment, or anything pertaining to that? Any pro-Taliban stuff?”
“I kept saying no,” Brown says, “and I was like, personally, I think the Taliban are a bunch of assholes.” With that, the investigator and the agents bid her adieu.

End of story.

Ms. Brown was not (at least not by the Secret Service, based on what is reported of their comments by Ms. Brown) targeted for being a dissenter. They weren’t there to “take her away” or “put her in jail.” She does claim that one of the agents started out by talking about a report of “anti-American material.” She says they later discussed what they had heard about the poster in question — that it was “a target of Bush” or a “picture of Bush hanging himself,” both of which were untrue — but both of which would have been a bit more disturbing.

Of course, “disturbing” speech doesn’t mean that it’s not protected by the First Amendment. But it does mean that somebody might consider it worth further investigation. The local Secret Service rep says there was a report of “a threat against the president.” While Ms. Brown speculates the tip came from the police (who came to her house a couple of times on noise complaints), there’s nothing to support it (and the Secret Service denies it).

Ulmer rejects the notion that Brown was targeted because of her politics, and he insists that the Secret Service would have checked this tip out even if it had come in before the events of Sept. 11. “We were doing our job in this particular case,” he says, “and I don’t think we could have done it any better.”
“The Secret Service takes all threats against the president seriously, and we go out to check on every one. A citizen thought that there was a threat, and we went and talked to Ms. Brown and we found that there was not a threat.” The poster, he says, was “misconstrued” by the tipster. “So it’s not a big issue. The issue is that someone misinterpreted some writing.”

Again — a threat was reported, the Secret Service checked it out, end of story.

Let’s save the hyperbole for some real impositions on civil liberties, folks.

(Via Xkot, among others)

Collateral damage

Bad enough that folks are falling sick or dying from anthrax. Now the whole thing is interfering with the powder cocaine business. “People are just too scared now,” a young…

Bad enough that folks are falling sick or dying from anthrax. Now the whole thing is interfering with the powder cocaine business.

“People are just too scared now,” a young woman with a kind of truckstop Lolita beauty who has appeared on many international runways said the other day.
“I mean,” she continued, after insisting, understandably, that her name not appear in print, “it’s a white powder, made by who, and cut with who knows what? Who is going to put that up their nose now?”

Of course, the same questions applied before. Fortunately, cocaine addicts are no better at statistics than the general population.

(Via InstaPundit)

Glad to see we’re taking this all in stride

From Wednesday’s Washington Post Rep. C. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), chairman of the House subcommittee on terrorism and homeland security and a candidate for the Senate, yesterday sought to play down…

From Wednesday’s Washington Post

Rep. C. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), chairman of the House subcommittee on terrorism and homeland security and a candidate for the Senate, yesterday sought to play down remarks to Georgia law enforcement personnel suggesting they “just turn [the sheriff] loose and have him arrest every Muslim that crosses the state line.”
In a letter to the Valdosta Daily Times, Chambliss contended that his comments were taken “out of context” and “should in no way be interpreted as my view of what should happen. . . . If my remarks were offensive in any way, I apologize.”

He had previously tried to get the story of his comments killed, and asked the referred to sheriff to try to block its publication.

While it’s disheartening to hear such repulsive blather from elected officials (though what else one would expect from, ahem, a Georgia Republican), it’s good to know that such things are going down very poorly with the electorate — as demonstrated both by Chambliss’ attempts to get the story quashed, and by the crashed-and-burned career of John Cooksey (R-La.), who uttered the famous remark about questioning anyone with “a diaper on his head and a fan belt wrapped around the diaper.”

(Via 24-Hour Drive-Thru)

Natural selection at work

The idjit who caused the shutdown of the Atlanta airport a while back — by running down an up escalator when he didn’t want to wait through the security checkpoint…

The idjit who caused the shutdown of the Atlanta airport a while back — by running down an up escalator when he didn’t want to wait through the security checkpoint — is living with the social and legal repercussions of his actions.

What I find confusing is the commentary by various otherwise clear-headed commentators (like InstaPundit) that the reaction of shutting down the airport when someone has breached security was unjustified. There was no way to know — since they didn’t catch him — who the guy was, why he had broken through security, or what he might have done. 20/20 hindsight aside, if you’re going to have a security checkpoint, then you treat its breach seriously. If not, then why bother?

What we do/don’t know can hurt us

Articles a-plenty. Should the location of hazardous waste facilities be on the web? How about dams? Reservoirs for public drinking water? How about photos of these facilities? Or floorplans? Should…

Articles a-plenty.

Should the location of hazardous waste facilities be on the web? How about dams? Reservoirs for public drinking water? How about photos of these facilities? Or floorplans?

Should the public know what controls are in place to make sure the local nuclear power plant doesn’t melt down?

Should research on antibiotic-resistant anthrax be easily available?

Can you trust that terrorists won’t be able to find that data and make use of it?

Can you trust that the government won’t use the excuse hiding of such data to avoid needed oversight? Will private industries who want to avoid environmentalist scrutiny be able to use such security concerns as cover?

Is the excuse of keeping secrets away from terrorists taking the place of the excuse of keeping secrets away from the Reds?

Is total disclosure of information better or worse than total lockdown of data? How can a democracy function without an informed public? How can a democracy function without a secure public?

Who decides where to draw the line? Who watches the watchmen?

“In an open society such as ours, you always run the risk that someone is going to use information in a bad way,” Gary Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, said. “You have to take every step to minimize those risks without undermining our democratic principles. You can’t just shut down the flow of information.”
“Do you pull all the Rand McNally atlases from the libraries? I mean, how far do you go?” asked Julia Wallace, head of the government publications library at the University of Minnesota.
“We . . . decided not to remove [on-line anthrax research],” said Dr. Ronald Atlas, president-elect of the [American Society for Microbiology] . “The principle right now is one of openness in science. . . . If someone wants to publish [a legitimate research paper], we’re not going to be the censor.”
“We have to get away from the ethos that knowledge is good, knowledge should be publicly available, that information will liberate us,” said University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Arthur Caplan. “Information will kill us in the techno-terrorist age, and I think it’s nuts to put that stuff on Web sites.”

Do I have any simple, easy answers for this?

Hell, no.

(Via Capt. Rooba)

Speaking of air travel …

Netsloth got caught in the fall-out of the Atlanta mess. Read the (in retrospect — like, maybe, five years from now) hilarity that ensued, and why Delta Sucks. The post…

Netsloth got caught in the fall-out of the Atlanta mess. Read the (in retrospect — like, maybe, five years from now) hilarity that ensued, and why Delta Sucks. The post following has his interchange of e-mail with Delta, in which they prove the hypothesis.

As I note in the comments, it’s intersting that the phrase “carriers suck” applies both to telcos and to airlines.

Affirmative fiat

Back in my high school debating days, this was the principle that the affirmative side (the one proposing a solution to a problem) did not have to worry about whether,…

Back in my high school debating days, this was the principle that the affirmative side (the one proposing a solution to a problem) did not have to worry about whether, for example, Congress would ever pass such a law. They only had to worry about whether it would actually do the desired job.

Now that Congress has passed its Airport Security Bill, they are leaving it up to the airports and the DOT to figure out how to actually meet its provisions, in particular how to increase the number of baggage screening machines to screen all pieces of luggage.

Airport, airline and federal officials were wondering Monday how to implement a new federal requirement to create within 60 days a checked-bag screening system capable of handling DIA’s 38 million bags a year. “That’s very, very ambitious,” said Amy Bourgeron, deputy manager for marketing and public relations for Denver International Airport. Before the Sept. 11 attacks, the federal government planned to have such screening in place by 2015, she said. “You’ve accelerated a 14-year schedule into 60 days.”
[…]The law applies to all U.S. airports and requires that bomb-detection equipment be installed by Dec. 31, 2002. … DIA said Monday that it has only three of the $1 million bomb-detection machines — and it needs 40 more.
The law also says that within 60 days all bags must be screened by some combination of hand-checking, dog-sniffing, technology or bag-matching.

Of course, the idea that this was a “14-year schedule” was an artificial one as well, as it allowed airports (and the airlines that support them) a leisurely schedule to implement it, always hoping that Congress would change its mind or that newer, cheaper technology would appear in the meantime.

The fact is, this is doable, at least in large part. The question is, will airports actually make an effort to meet the schedule — even if they don’t quite make it? Or will they whine and complain and drag their feet, hoping that they’ll get extension after extension (as the auto makers do whenever Congress decides to increase fleet mileage)?

A Clinton-era success

Conservatives and Republicans roundly hated Clinton’s AmeriCorps. Once they got hold of Congress, they did everything they could to kill the program, which was criticized as being simple government make-work…

Now, wonder of wonders, there’s strong bi-partisan support to significantly expand the program — and Bush is on-board with the idea.

Maybe Home Owner Associations aren’t such a bad idea

Hate the idea that building codes and neighborhood covenants keep you from using your property as you like? Many Muscovites in this Christian Science Monitor story would disagree. Nina Dimshitz…

Hate the idea that building codes and neighborhood covenants keep you from using your property as you like? Many Muscovites in this Christian Science Monitor story would disagree.

Nina Dimshitz lives under a cloud. Literally. Wealthy upstairs neighbors recently installed a swimming pool in their apartment, and now the ceiling of her book-lined living room sags and creaks ominously under the strain.
“I am beside myself over this, but there seems to be nobody who can do anything about it,” says Ms. Dimshitz, who occupies a modest three-room flat in a five-story apartment block near Moscow’s Pushkin Square. The middle-aged film critic says she used to love the 1920s-era building’s old-fashioned 4-meter-high ceilings. Now she’s afraid to look up.
“I’ve tried to talk to the neighbors about this, but they simply refuse to even open the door,” she says.

Other stories abound, including stone fireplaces, ventilation shafts torn open and blocked to add space, and people grafting added rooms to the outsides of multi-story buildings.

If there’s a security risk — then check it for God’s sake

First we have some brainless yahoo dodging past security guards who did nothing to stop him. Then we get a neuroscientist kicked off a plane, no questions asked, no security…

First we have some brainless yahoo dodging past security guards who did nothing to stop him. Then we get a neuroscientist kicked off a plane, no questions asked, no security check done, simply because another, anonymous passenger thought he was behaving strangely.

Does this strike anyone else as — really stupid?