Category: Rant

I often look at how things work in politics and in the judicial system and think that for the problems we see in these arenas, a large part of the operation involved goes well enough. Sure, there are occasional WTF? moments for some court rulings, and some zOMG thoughts come up when politicians do idiotic things. But mostly, things work well enough that there isn’t a pressing need to seek change in the processes. However, when rulings like this get passed down, I really wonder how these decisions can come about.

The Bush administration is allowed to continue its warrantless surveillance program while it appeals a judge’s ruling that the program is unconstitutional, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The president says the program is needed in the war on terrorism; opponents say it oversteps constitutional boundaries on free speech, privacy and executive powers.

“Yes it’s unconstitutional. Go right ahead with it until you get the answer you want from the court system.”

This is absurd, and leaves me wondering exactly who thought this was a good idea.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling by a unanimous three-judge panel allows the program to continue during the appeal that could take months.

In their brief order, the judges said they balanced the likelihood of success of an appeal, the potential damage to either side and the public interest.

And I have to assume weighing in the public interest didn’t take citizens’ Constitutional rights into account, or the decision would not have been made. The Constitution should outweigh any judgement made based on likelihood of success of an appeal. But to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court, apparently it doesn’t.

Another annoying bit in this whole fiasco is this quote:

But the government says it can’t always wait for a court to take action. It says the NSA program is well within the president’s authority but proving that would require revealing state secrets.

Fortunately, the creators of the 1978 FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) understood that, and put in specific provisions to allow the President the power to initiate wiretaps without a warrant, provided a warrant is applied for within 48 hours of initiating the wiretap. Once the request is put in, the wiretap can continue until the request is approved or denied. If it is approved (which damn near always happens), the entire tap is legal. I don’t understand why the President feels requesting authorization from a court dedicated to authorizing these taps within 48 hours of initiating a wiretap is so difficult. But I think a lot of things are more difficult for the President than for most people.

[tags]Court – wiretapping unconstitutional; keep it up!, Current state of NSA wiretaps[/tags]

While catching up on much of my geek reading for the day, I stumbled on this boingboing article about the newly enacted bill H.R. 6166 – what many are calling the US torture law or something to that effect. In it, the person who sent boingboing the article tries to induce hysteria by claiming that because of the bill, non-allegiance to the President makes one a terrorist. Given my newfound interest in knowing the difference between reality and the state of existence each major US political party tries to present as reality, I figured this was something worth learning about. So I follow the link to bill H.R. 6166, print out the version as passed through the House (hint:it prints out soooo much nicer if you copy the entire text, paste is into Word, and print out that verion), and start reading.

I don’t find anywhere in the bill that people who don’t ally themselves with the President are defined as terrorist. I don’t ally myself with our current President, so this is a point that really matters to me. There is a Sec. 950v. Crimes triable by military commissions section where article (26) WRONGFULLY AIDING THE ENEMY *might* be something which one could consider as somehow tangential to seeming like what Eris Siva (the submitter of the article to boingboing) is saying, but not really. That article says any person subject to that chapter of the bill who knowingly and intentionally aids a US enemy in breach of allegiance or duty to the US is subject to the bill. But that ‘any person subject to’ the chapter qualifier matters. In a preceeding section, it is made clear that these articles only apply to “Any alien unlawful enemy combatant” throughout the bill.

So I go back to the boingboing article, hoping to find comments from other readers which would help me understand how I am being labelled a terrorist for not showing allegiance to the President, and I find that Josh Larios has seen and written about the same problems I saw:

HR 6166 is bad enough for what it actually _does_ say. There’s really no need to make up new things to be alarmed about. Specifically, the bill does _not_ define non-allegiance to Bush (or to the office of the President) as terrorism.

The text of the bill says: “Any person subject to this chapter who, in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States, knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States, or one of the co-belligerents of the enemy, shall be punished as a military commission under this chapter may direct.”

The important bit is “subject to this chapter”. Section 948c of the bill defines who is subject to this chapter as “[a]ny alien unlawful enemy combatant”. Previously, in section 948a, it defines “alien” as “a person who is not a citizen of the United States”. The authors of the article you’ve linked to have taken the “breach of allegiance” snippet as proof that the bill is aimed at US citizens, when the text of the bill clearly indicates otherwise.

Section 948d of the bill lays out the jurisdiction as follows: “A military commission under this chapter shall have jurisdiction to try any offense made punishable by this chapter or the law of war when committed by an alien unlawful enemy combatant before, on, or after September 11, 2001.”

The “breach of allegiance” excerpt is as meaningful as “before, on, or after September 11, 2001”. That is to say, not at all. I cannot see any reasonable interpretation of the text of the bill that includes non-allegiance to the president (by a US citizen — who else would have any allegiance to the president?) equating to terrorism.

Folks, there are problems with this bill. There are things I don’t like in it. I believe this bill will be found unconstitutional due to it’s explicit denial of the judicial branch’s rights to speak on matters of law. I don’t like that through this law, anyone accused of anything covered by the bill can be held without information necessary to form a defense. I think the bill as passed explicitly defines as an unlawful enemy comtatant (and therefore subject to the rules in the bill) everyone which the White House has labelled an unlawful enemy combatant prior to passage of the bill.

But let’s focus on what is actually wrong with the bill, and not make up crap in an attempt to induce hysteria. As with every other far-reaching law ever passed by Congress, this will be used in ways it shouldn’t be. And there will be abuses of the law due to lack of clarity on some points. But nowhere in the bill does it state anything that would allow one to be labelled a terrorist for non-allegiance to the President. So let’s just deal with what is wrong with the bill, try to keep the things in the bill that are good, and stop with the spreading of falsehoods, OK?

[tags]Military Commissions Act of 2006, Bill H.R. 6166, Author claims US torture bill makes non-allegiance to President a terrorist act[/tags]

Privacy International has opened up their Stupid Security 2006 contest with a call for nominees. If you aren’t familiar with the contest, I recommend looking back at the 2003 winners (the last year the contest was held).

Here’s some background for this year’s contest.

We’ve all been there. Standing for ages in a security line at an inconsequential office building only to be given a security pass that a high school student could have faked. Or being forced to produce photo ID for even the most innocent activity.

(long article follows)

Continue reading “Stupid Security 2006 call for nominees”

In the US, we are accustomed to certain levels of privacy.  Many politicians at all levels of government want to reduce our expectations of privacy.  From installing cameras everywhere (including inside private homes) in a certain town in Texas to illegal wiretaps on US citizens to the previous uses of Carnivore to gather online communications we have faced constant intrusions into our privacy.  So many governmental apologists would respond that if you are doing nothing wrong, then you have nothing to hide.  The natural corollary to this would be that you have nothing to worry about from being spied on illegally by the government.

For those of you that are not satisfied with that claim, perhaps you’d like to try some of these responses to people who tell you that?

The idea that “if you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about” assumes that the government is full of good people that would not abuse their power, ever. Even if this were true now, we cannot be sure it’ll be true in the future. The US Republic was founded on the idea that humans are corruptible and we need to have checks and balances against corruption built into our government. Because corrupt people will oppress those who have done nothing wrong.

. . .

So whenever I hear the nothing to worry about line, I usually respond with something along the lines of “yeah…, isn’t that what Stalin used to say?” It usually shuts them up, but won’t change anyone’s mind.

. . .

It honestly doesn’t matter what you think or “feel” about who should be carted off, and how. We have a Constitution in this country that guarantees every American citizen the right to face his or her accusers in a court of law. This is the law. It is not up for debate:

“No person shall be … deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

I know plenty of people who will disagree with my belief that I’m still entitled to privacy, even though I’m doing nothing wrong.  I don’t want the government watching me just because someone wants to.  If the government wants to watch me, there are legal means to do so.  And until those legal means are pursued, no one has a right to watch my every move just out of curiosity or just in case.

[tags]US citizens’ right to privacy[/tags]

(via boingboing)

The terrorists continue to win in the war that isn’t really a war. The latest casualty is liquids. Well, liquids and common sense. I get that this is a real threat. I get that terrorism is a real problem. But this liquid explosive thing was done over 10 years ago. So for over 10 years the governments of the US and the UK have not felt the need to protect citizens on airplanes from the potential threat. Now the British police arrest a score or so folks who planned on trying the liquid explosive thing again. Only they tracked the suspects for nearly a year. So at the very least, the British government has known since December (and quite possibly longer) about this but felt no need to protect the British flying population (nor tourists, I suppose, for that matter)? And of course, there’s the constant kicker that the attack had not even been attempted yet, nor was it supposed to occur on the day of the arrests.

So we have a foiled attack using a threat over a decade old that was known about for somewhere around a year in advance and that was disrupted before any attempts at attacking were made, and we have to stop bringing liquids and gels on board? And the end result of these kinds of failed attacks result in people getting grilled for accidentally dropping any electronic devices they are carrying?

I’m just tired of hearing all these restrictions going on everywhere. In the end, they do little to protect us (some say they do nothing), but they certainly inconvenience us, and make people everywhere scared. Oddly enough, that’s all the terrorists are trying to do. Body count doesn’t actually matter – fear does. So our government is feeding the fear, giving more victories to the terrorists, and in return we get reduced freedoms and greater intrusions into our lives. I just want someone who will fight the war on terrorism, not feed it. I’m tired of saying this over and over and knowing no one will listen to me because I’m a nobody, so I’ll let Bruce Schneier say his peace, which is the same as mine:

Hours-long waits in the security line. Ridiculous prohibitions on what you can carry onboard. Last week’s foiling of a major terrorist plot and the subsequent airport security graphically illustrates the difference between effective security and security theater.

None of the airplane security measures implemented because of 9/11 — no-fly lists, secondary screening, prohibitions against pocket knives and corkscrews — had anything to do with last week’s arrests. And they wouldn’t have prevented the planned attacks, had the terrorists not been arrested. A national ID card wouldn’t have made a difference, either.

Instead, the arrests are a victory for old-fashioned intelligence and investigation. Details are still secret, but police in at least two countries were watching the terrorists for a long time. They followed leads, figured out who was talking to whom, and slowly pieced together both the network and the plot.

The new airplane security measures focus on that plot, because authorities believe they have not captured everyone involved. It’s reasonable to assume that a few lone plotters, knowing their compatriots are in jail and fearing their own arrest, would try to finish the job on their own. The authorities are not being public with the details — much of the “explosive liquid” story doesn’t hang together — but the excessive security measures seem prudent.

But only temporarily. Banning box cutters since 9/11, or taking off our shoes since Richard Reid, has not made us any safer. And a long-term prohibition against liquid carry-ons won’t make us safer, either. It’s not just that there are ways around the rules, it’s that focusing on tactics is a losing proposition.

It’s easy to defend against what the terrorists planned last time, but it’s shortsighted. If we spend billions fielding liquid-analysis machines in airports and the terrorists use solid explosives, we’ve wasted our money. If they target shopping malls, we’ve wasted our money. Focusing on tactics simply forces the terrorists to make a minor modification in their plans. There are too many targets — stadiums, schools, theaters, churches, the long line of densely packed people before airport security — and too many ways to kill people.

Security measures that require us to guess correctly don’t work, because invariably we will guess wrong. It’s not security, it’s security theater: measures designed to make us feel safer but not actually safer.

[tags]The latest casualty in the war on terror, Our government’s ongoing feeding of the fear the terrorists are trying to spread[/tags]

I know I just don’t let this drop.  It’s a matter I find very important.  If you are scared to live a normal life, the terrorists have succeeded in terrorizing you.  That’s all those people are trying to do.  They are more concerned about the terror than the body count.  Here’s a write-up from Kung Fu Monkey saying that in more depth and with more style than I have been able to say it.

No false bravado and it’s not that I don’t take terrorism seriously. I do, which I why I voted for the guy who believed in securing our ports and fighting terrorism with criminal investigation methods — which is, if we may remind everybody, how this particular plot was busted.

I am just not going to wet my pants every time some guys get arrested in a terror plot. I will do my best to stay informed. I will support the necessary law enforcement agencies. I will take whatever reasonable precautions seem, um, reasonable. But I will not be terrorized. I assume that the terror-ists would like me to be terror-ized, as that is what is says on their nametag, rather than, say, wanting me to surrender to ennui or negative body image, and they’re just coming the long way around.

[tags]Aren’t you afraid?, Terrorists seek to terrorize – duh![/tags]