Apparently, several states are going stark staring mad.

Freedom to Tinker: Use a Firewall, Go to Jail: The states of Massachusetts and Texas are preparing to consider bills that apparently are intended to extend the national Digital Millennium Copyright Act. (TX bill; MA bill) The bills are obviously related to each other somehow, since they are textually similar. Here is one example of the far-reaching harmful effects of these bills. Both bills would flatly ban the possession, sale, or use of technologies that "conceal from a communication service provider ... the existence or place of origin or destination of any communication". Your ISP is a communication service provider, so anything that concealed the origin or destination of any communication from your ISP would be illegal -- with no exceptions. If you send or receive your email via an encrypted connection, you're in violation, because the "To" and "From" lines of the emails are concealed from your ISP by encryption. (The encryption conceals the destinations of outgoing messages, and the sources of incoming messages.) Worse yet, Network Address Translation (NAT), a technology widely used for enterprise security, operates by translating the "from" and "to" fields of Internet packets, thereby concealing the source or destination of each packet, and hence violating these bills. Most security "firewalls" use NAT, so if you use a firewall, you're in violation. [...] UPDATE (6:35 PM): It's worse than I thought. Similar bills are on the table in South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Alaska, Tennessee, and Colorado.

Such synchronicity argues that someone somewhere is making a coordinated effort. (Jane Galt argues that it's the RIAA, which makes a certain amount of sense.) It also argues that they haven't got a clue what they're doing -- or rather, that they're so incredibly single-minded that they're not really thinking very clearly about the subject. I would wager that every single one of those states has a network behind a firewall for official business. Windows XP ships with both connection sharing and a low-level firewall. No corporation or anyone with the least bit of information to protect will allow these laws to pass in their current state.

A prediction: the states that have already passed some form of UCITA will also band together and pass this ill-advised law. UCITA also allows software manufacturers to "reach" into your computer without notice to disable your software if they feel that the license has been violated. If you have a firewall installed, how on earth are they to do that?

Posted by iain at 11:09 AM

 

60bn pounds to rebuild Iraq (Scotland on Sunday, Sun 30 Mar 2003): THE United States has drawn up a £60bn blueprint for the post-war reconstruction of Iraq which completely freezes out the United Nations and gives all contracts to American firms, Scotland on Sunday can reveal. The emergence of the hugely detailed and controversial plan will place enormous strain on the relationship between President George W Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair, who remains determined that the UN should have a key role in rebuilding Iraq. Despite that, US firms will this week win a clean sweep of contracts to reconstruct the health, education, transport and political systems of Iraq.
     The US State Department scheme will see private companies build a national health service, design a network of airports, and draw up a "politically-neutral" school curriculum, all without the involvement of the UN. The programme - which will be finalised in the next few days - will cause deep dismay among European ministers, who wanted the award of contracts to be handled by the UN to ensure fairness and avoid the impression of American colonialism.

Of course, the administration isn't in the least interested in fairness (witness Haliburton receiving the first contract), and wouldn't understand the colonialism argument if you hit them over the head with it repeatedly ... as people have been doing recently.

To be sure, it's been clear since the war actually started that the intent of the administration was to freeze out the UN in all meaningful ways. Considering their opinion of the UN at the moment, it's not at all surprising. But you can feel sorry for Blair, who is paying an extraordinarily high price to be the US' friend. His backbenchers will shred him over this, and Bush has given him absolutely no political cover whatsoever.

Last night, Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt, issued a veiled warning to the US administration. Hewitt, who will next month meet British business leaders to discuss their potential role in rebuilding Iraq, insisted that there must be "a level playing field" for UK firms to bid for rehabilitation work.

Or else ... what? It's rather late in the game for Britain to decide to take its toys and go home. About the only arrow left in their quiver is to decide that when the worst of the fighting is over, they'll take their soldiers away from any peacekeeping efforts. And how much is that likely to bother this administration?

Posted by iain at 01:04 AM

 

I wondered how long it would take someone to get around to doing this.

HoustonChronicle.com - Beaumont judge asked to overturn gay divorce: Saying that Texas law does not recognize same-sex marriages, Attorney General Greg Abbott has asked a Beaumont judge to overturn his decision granting a divorce to a gay couple who obtained a civil union in Vermont. Abbott filed a petition asking state District Judge Tom Mulvaney to set aside his March 3 ruling that granted a divorce to John Anthony, 34, and Russell Smith, 26, of Beaumont. "Because these two men were never married under either Vermont or Texas law, they cannot legally petition for divorce under the Texas Family Code," Abbott said. "The court's final decree of divorce is void as a matter of law."

Which is pretty much what I thought was the case before.

Randall Ellis, executive director for Lesbian/Gay Rights Lobby of Texas, said Abbott's request is political.

Well, DUH.

However, that it's entirely political doesn't make him wrong, either.

Posted by iain at 03:10 PM

 

Apparently, theme week again. Such is life.

NEWS.com.au | Big brothers 'may make boys gay' (March 27, 2003): THE more older brothers a boy has the likelier he is to be a homosexual, according to a theory aired in a British science magazine. A Canadian researcher has found that boys with a statistical average of 2.5 older brothers are twice as likely to be gay as boys with no older brother. A boy with four older brothers was three times as likely to be gay, according to a report on the findings in New Scientist. The study, first published in a specialist journal, Archives of Sexual Behavior, was led by Ray Blanchard, a psychologist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, Canada. [...] His notion was at first ridiculed, but is now accepted by many in his field, and other studies have taken this idea further, suggesting that the link exists regardless of culture, New Scientist said. [...] The research raised intriguing questions, the New Scientist article said. "If Blanchard is right, then clearly, as average family size decreases, so will the incidence of male homosexuality. "It also follows that historically there have been more gay men that there are today."

Well, yes, but because they didn't call themselves "gay" (or whatever the term du jour was back whenever) and because they behaved rather differently -- much more likely to get married and stay married, but probably fooling around outside marriage to satisfy their emotional needs -- there's no way to track that.

The part that gets me is that, as society decided to identify and get more hostile toward gay men, the incidence was likely decreasing. However, since the population was growing at a startling rate, the actual visibility and the raw numbers increased.

Posted by iain at 03:19 PM

 

I can't even begin to imagine how this case is going to play out. Given the spectacular silence that has descended upon the Jacksonville, Arkansas, school district -- despite the fact that, since the child and his parents are talking about everything publicly, confidentiality can hardly be cited as a reason for not speaking -- one wonders whether the entire truth will ever come out.

News & Politics | The price of coming out in Jacksonville | March 21, 2003 (Arkansas Times): Let's get this out of the way first: This story is largely one-sided. It's written primarily from the perspective of 14-year-old Thomas McLaughlin, his family and friends - their version of the harassment he says he's endured at the hands of several teachers and administrators at Jacksonville Junior High School because of his sexual orientation . It does not include any response from the educators involved. Those that could be reached say they've been instructed to keep quiet by Pulaski County schools superintendent Don Henderson, who is investigating. Henderson won't say whether any of them have denied Thomas' allegations. So if there is any evidence that would call into question the ninth-grader's version of events, it will not appear in this story. [....] The basics, according to Thomas and his parents: About 18 months ago, a science teacher overheard Thomas refuse to deny to another boy that he was gay. The science teacher told Assistant Principal Sharon Hawk, who pulled Thomas out of class and told him he had until the end of the day to figure out how to tell his parents, or the school would do it for him. Later that afternoon, with Thomas in her office, a counselor at the school called Thomas' mother and told her he was having feelings for other males.
     That incident started a string of harassment and discrimination at the hands of at least seven educators at Jacksonville Junior High, Thomas said.
o Four of them quoted scripture to him on several occasions.
o Two made him read Bible verses in their classroom or office.
o One, a typing teacher, repeatedly called him "abnormal" and "weird"
o He was forbidden to talk about being gay - deemed an "inappropriate subject" by school officials - or about punishment he received for breaking that rule, including having to read the Bible in Assistant Principal Emanuel McGhee's office.
o He was sent to the office repeatedly for talking about being gay, and was finally suspended for two days in January after a teacher overheard him tell a friend about what happened in McGhee's office.
     A subsequent threat to suspend Thomas for four days because he discussed the two-day suspension with another friend finally pushed Thomas' parents, Delia and Tom McLaughlin, over the edge. Delia wrote a letter to the ACLU, and they began their investigation. [....] Thomas' story starts about 18 months ago, in his eighth-grade science class. As he told it earlier this week, sitting on his family's couch next to three female friends from school, he revealed himself as a largely typical 14-year-old, equipped with a generous dose of lip and a determination to let as much of the harassment as possible roll off his back.
     One fall day in 2001, Thomas said, another boy in the science class asked him if he liked a certain girl. Thomas's response: There's a reason he didn't like the girl or any other girls in the school.
    "He asked me if it was because I was gay," said Thomas, then 13. "I said 'If I am, I am. If I'm not, I'm not.'"
     The science teacher overheard, and reported Thomas' comment to Assistant Principal Sharon Hawk. Thomas said she pulled him out of class and told him he had until the end of the day to figure out how he'd tell his parents he was gay - or the school would do it for him. "I was stunned," Thomas said. "I don't really know how I felt." Later that day, with Thomas standing beside her, counselor Jimmie Brooks called Thomas' mother, Delia McLaughlin.

Posted by iain at 01:27 PM

 

Denver Post.com - Women to lead AFA: Two of the top four commanders at the Air Force Academy will be women after the Pentagon reshuffles the school's top management, Air Force leaders told senators today. U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., who sits on the Armed Services Committee, said that will be a first at the academy, but says the Air Force needs to do more. "Changing the top leadership is essential, but it's not sufficient,'' Clinton said. "This has gone on through different leaders.'' Also Tuesday, Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Loveland, said the number of women who have contacted his office to report having been sexually assaulted has grown to 50.

Posted by iain at 06:11 PM

 

ABCNEWS.com : U.S. Lifts FBI Criminal Database Checks :
The Justice Department lifted a requirement Monday that the FBI ensure the accuracy and timeliness of information about criminals and crime victims before adding it to the country's most comprehensive law enforcement database. The system, run by the FBI's National Crime Information Center, includes data about terrorists, fugitives, warrants, people missing, gang members and stolen vehicles, guns or boats. Records are queried increasingly by the nation's law enforcement agencies to help decide whether to monitor, detain or arrest someone. The records are inaccessible to the public, and police have been prosecuted in U.S. courts for misusing the system to find, for example, personal information about girlfriends or former spouses. Officials said the change, which immediately drew criticism from civil-liberties advocates, is necessary to ensure investigators have access to information that can't be confirmed but could take on new significance later, FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said.

One wonders what significance information that is factually incorrect or outdated might actually have to any investigation whatsoever. Apparently, however, making sure that you're accusing the right person of being a criminal is no longer a priority to our Lord High Minister of Injustice.

For example, let's just say that a crime lab in some large state -- say, for example, Texas -- has put information into the database that it later finds out may well be inaccurate. It's highly probable that, under these regulations, that information will be kept by the FBI, despite knowing that it has been officially withdrawn, because it could "take on significance later."

All HPD cases will be purged from state, U.S. DNA databases: Houston Police Chief C.O. Bradford has asked the Texas Department of Public Safety to purge from its DNA database all cases examined by the HPD crime lab, according to correspondence obtained Monday by the Houston Chronicle. His request, made last week and immediately accepted by a DPS official, means all HPD cases will also be removed from a national database of DNA evidence used to solve crimes. "I guess this means that Chief Bradford has lost complete confidence in the lab and is concerned that profiles that were entered into (the state database) might not be reliable," said Norah Rudin, a California-based forensic scientist who has been skeptical of the quality of work done by the HPD DNA lab.

Judge Releases Inmate After DNA Mistake Uncovered: A Houston judge granted bail Wednesday for Josiah Sutton after an independent DNA lab determined that he may have been sentenced to 25 years in prison for a rape he didn't commit based on evidence processed incorrectly at the Houston police crime lab. Sutton, 21, was convicted in 1998 for the rape of a woman taken at gunpoint and then dumped in a Fort Bend County field. [...] Identigene officials said Monday that the analysis done earlier in the day on evidence provided in the Sutton case determined that Sutton's profile was not found in the evidence that they tested. [...] The ongoing retesting of DNA samples is the result of a December audit by the Texas Department of Public Safety and a crime lab professional from Tarrant County who uncovered potential contamination problems at the lab, poor working conditions and inadequate training.

One can, I think, assume that any erroneous profiles will remain in the national database, despite the full knowledge that it is in error, since it may be of later significance to ... something or other. Eventually.

Posted by iain at 05:56 PM

 

FindLaw's Writ - Lehman: Does Discrimination Against Gay Men and Lesbians Count As Sex Discrimination?: Tomorrow, March 26, the United States Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Lawrence v. Texas, a case based on the criminal conviction of two men who engaged in homosexual conduct (each was fined $200). They appealed their convictions, arguing that the Texas anti-sodomy law violated the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the U.S. and Texas Constitutions. The media coverage of Lawrence has been intense - second only to the upcoming case on affirmative action. But this coverage has both over- and underestimated Lawrence's significance to gay rights, by only stressing the Due Process challenge to the law, the resolution of which will ultimately have limited practical impact. At the same time, the media has largely ignored the much more significant Equal Protection challenge. If the Supreme Court addresses this argument, Lawrence stands to be one of the most important civil rights cases of the modern era. In other words, what has been largely portrayed in the media as a case about privacy, could actually turn out to be a far-reaching advance--or setback--for equality.

Which is why the Court, regardless of which way it decides, will almost certaily rely on the Due Process clause and explicitly decline to visit the Equal Protection clause. If they can reach their desired result in a less expansive way, they will.

The other reason that the Court will decline to visit the Equal Protection clause is that if they overturn the Texas law on equal protection grounds due to sex discrimination, they will be laying explicit foundations for overturning the various Defense of Marriage Acts and allowing homosexual marriage. However liberal minded some justices on this court may be, that is one place I'm quite certain that they do not want to go.

When the statute was first challenged in state court, a divided three-judge panel of the Texas Court of Appeals in Lawrence struck down the law though under the Texas Constitution's, not the U.S. Constitution's, Equal Protection Clause. (Both were used as bases for challenging the statute.) "The simple fact is," Justice Anderson wrote for the majority, "the same behavior is criminal for some but not for others, based solely on the sex of the individuals who engage in the behavior. In other words, the sex of the individual is the sole determinant of the criminality of the conduct." Upon this logic, the panel concluded that the statute turned on a sex-based classification of the defendants. As Professor Andrew Koppelman has forcefully argued for well over a decade, discrimination against gay men and lesbians is sex discrimination. Accordingly, the Texas court applied a heightened scrutiny, and concluded that because the state had failed to show that the statute promoted any compelling state interests, it was unlawful under the Texas Constitution. In fact, the same reasoning would have called for heightened scrutiny under the U.S. Constitution, but the court found it unnecessary to use that basis because it had found that the law violated the state's constitution. Upon rehearing by an en banc panel (that is, a larger panel of the same court), the Texas Court of Appeals reversed the original panel's ruling with the two judges from the original panel dissenting. The en banc panel's majority held that the law did not constitute sex discrimination. Instead, it held that the law, at most, discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation, and went on to apply the lowest standard of review - the rational basis test - under the U.S. and Texas Constitutions.

It is baffling to me how the Texas court could not see that the law punishes conduct based on the sex of the person, and not sexual orientation.

Look at it this way: it isn't unusual, especially when young, for straight men to experiment with sex with other men. So, let's say that Straight Guy A, living in Somesmalltown, Texas, gets seriously drunk one night, and starts fooling around with Straight Guy B. No big whoop, and under normal circumstances, they'd do it, decide that maybe this wasn't their thing, and go on with the rest of their lives. But in this case, because they were seriously drunk, they got seriously loud and disruptive, and their neighbors called the police. Said police arrive just as Straight Guy A and Straight Guy B have various and sundry bits of each other in places where Texas law says they ought not to be. They're arrested, charged with disturbing the peace and sodomy. In this case, what is punished is conduct due to sex of the people involved -- if Straight Guy A was doing the same thing with His Female Wife C, it would be entirely legal. Thus, prima facie sex discrimination.

The Court, somehow, strikes me as entirely unlikely to head that way. I suspect, eventually, we will see a bitterly divided 5-4 decision in favor of the state of Texas, on the grounds that due process was not denied, and the Court will decline to visit the equal protection argument, as they were able to decide the case on other merits.

Interestingly, it appears that in the original, infamous Bowers v Hardwick case, The Court may well have misinterpreted the historical record:

Sodomy Flaw: How the courts have distorted the history of anti-sodomy laws in America. By Kristin Eliasberg (Slate, Posted Tuesday, March 25, 2003, at 3:00 PM PT): .....If the purpose for these laws (or, in anti-discrimination parlance, the "compelling governmental interest" justifying singling out a specific group for prosecution) was the need to populate the new world, then one can argue they are obsolete, as the government surely no longer has that interest. Moreover, although laws suppressing non-procreative sex have existed for much of the past millennium, singling out only homosexual sex for suppression is, according to the Lawrence historians, "an unprecedented project of the twentieth century." At the time of the Founders, they argue, and until the late 19th century, the concept of "homosexuals" as a distinct legal category of person didn't even exist. The word itself doesn't make an appearance in the American lexicon until 1892. If the first lawmakers didn't recognize homosexuals as a distinct category of person, they couldn't have designed laws specifically aimed to suppress them, even if they did criminalize certain same-sex behaviors along with other non-marital, non-procreative behaviors.

Posted by iain at 05:04 PM

 

Alas, poor WordPerfect. Probably on its deathbed now. (Even though Corel is about to release a new version, in a case of spectacularly bad timing.)

Corel Seeks Buyer: Struggling Canadian software firm Corel Corp. is actively trying to find a buyer for its business and has signed a non-disclosure and standstill agreement with San Francisco-based Vector Capital that lets Vector investigate a takeover bid for the struggling software maker. But Corel can still try and find alternative buyers and pursue strategic alternatives for its business, and so it has appointed Canadian investment bank CIBC World Markets to help it in this regard, the company said in a statement on Monday.

Posted by iain at 04:56 PM

 

... and if they don't die in a timely enough fashion, Texas will take some extraordinary steps to try to make sure that they can finally get this killing thing done.

Longtime Death Case Lawyer Appeals Ouster (NY Times, March 24, 2003, registration required): For nearly a quarter-century, John Wright has represented Johnny Paul Penry, in a trial, two retrials and appeals on charges that he raped and murdered a Texas woman in her home. Twice, Mr. Wright has helped get the United States Supreme Court to overturn death sentences against Mr. Penry. But as Mr. Penry now appeals a third death sentence, arguing that he is mentally retarded, a state judge in the East Texas town of Livingston has removed Mr. Wright from the case and replaced him with a lawyer who assisted Mr. Penry's prosecution. The judge said that if Mr. Penry someday wanted to argue that his counsel at trial had been ineffective, a fairly common tactic in late stages of death penalty cases, Mr. Wright might have a conflict of interest. Several legal experts question the decision, saying that there is no reason to anticipate such a conflict and that the judge, Elizabeth E. Coker of Polk County District Court, has responded to a problem that is wholly hypothetical. David Dow, a law professor at the University of Houston, says the decision seems to reflect a kind of coziness between judge and prosecution that is endemic to small-town Texas justice, and it may be Mr. Wright's effectiveness that is really the issue. The decision to remove Mr. Wright, a step supported by prosecutors, "has no conceivable explanation except retaliation for litigating a case so well," Professor Dow said.

Even if the explanation given by the judge were objectively reasonable -- which it really isn't -- surely there's a certain conflict of interest in having a person represented by someone who has been prosecuting him. If nothing else, that would seem to be a slam-dunk setup for the state to lose an appeal.

(That said, I can somewhat agree with the prosecution that it is disingenuous to argue on the one hand that you're mentally retarded and thus have diminished capacity for understanding and being punished for your crime, and arguing that you are then competent to choose your lawyer. That said, the state cannot make that argument without conceding that he is in fact mentally retarded, which is why that argument will appear in no legal papers anywhere.)

Regardless of who wins this round, Penry's appeal is headed back to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to determine whether or not he should be considered mentally retarded. The TCCA having seldom seen a death sentence it didn't like, and being particularly fond of Mr Penry's death sentences, they will almost certainly find that he is not retarded within the sense of the Atkins decision. Logically, with a lawyer who had Mr Penry's best interests in mind, this would then be headed up the appeals chain (although it would be probably his weakest appeal yet, since the Court left it up to the states to determine standards for mental retardation). Since Mr Taylor does, in fact, have something of a conflict of interest -- having prosecuted Mr Penry with such vigor, surely he himself actually believes the man should die -- heaven only knows if any such appeal will actually be made.

Posted by iain at 11:41 AM

 

3-22, State: Drug agent says he used racial epithet as "greeting:: The use of a racially charged epithet doesn't reveal prejudice, testified Tom Coleman, the man who worked undercover in Tulia and built drug cases against 46 people -- 39 of whom were black. Coleman, who told the court Friday that the epithet doesn't in "this day and time" indicate racial prejudice, also admitted during evidentiary hearings for four of the black men convicted as a result of Coleman's 18-month operation that he has used the epithet, as have his friends.

Sad thing is, he's just got enough right on his side there to maybe get away with that excuse. (Although, you know, if some white guy said that to me, especially if I did not know him particularly well -- the ones who know me well know better -- I would not assume that he was a beacon of tolerance and humanity, nor that he was particularly well disposed toward me.

In any event, for whatever reason, the trial is now adjourned until April 1, so Mr Coleman has time to collect himself and think of new lies to tell on the stand to defend the indefensible.

Posted by iain at 02:00 AM

 

Civil Strife Seen by Some as Necessary (washingtonpost.com): The fighting and looting by Iraqis reported in the wake of U.S. troops' charge toward Baghdad were expected by their commanders -- and are seen by some involved in formulating the war plan as a necessary part of the process of ousting Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Military intelligence analysts have long predicted that the U.S. charge toward the capital would leave a rolling civil war behind it in the south, as an oppressed Shiite Muslim population rises up and takes revenge on local representatives of Hussein's heavily Sunni Muslim government. This fighting has the potential of eliminating large parts of the Baathist Party structure that rules Iraq and is a target of the U.S. offensive.

... They induced a "rolling civil war" by design?! They made no plans for occupation or administration? It's "not a concern"?

What the HELL were they thinking? Were they thinking at all? According to one of Our Glorious Leader's earlier speeches, one of the points of this mess is to produce democracy in Iraq. Surely a stable democracy, at this stage, will not be helped by a country that dissolves into civil war and separatist movements. And if you get to their real goal -- to create a stable country as a source of oil in Iraq so that we can take on Saudi Arabia and its official and unofficial funding of various terrorist movements -- then this appears to be even more lunatic. Pacifying the country now will be easier than pacifying it later, when the civil wars have gotten into full flow. (And I can but imagine the reaction in various Middle Eastern capitals when they try to digest simultaneously the concepts, "Oh, yes, we planned to protect Iraq's territorial integrity," and "Oh, yes, we knew this would start a civil war. Or three. And maybe a few separatist movements. Don't worry, no problems!")

To be sure, this "plan", such as it is, probably will serve the administration's purposes in many ways. Knowing that central authority is, at the very least, incommunicado, people probably will target the Secret Police and other loathed and despised parts of Saddam's regime ... all of whom will be better armed and better prepared than the Iraqi citizens at large, of course. Even if they attack in numbers large enough to overwhelm, this would not appear to be the sort of thing that would go well for the civilians.

And in the meantime, the US armed forces plan to leave unoccupied, unpacified, in many ways untouched, Basra behind their lines as they head for Baghdad, with supply lines strung out from Kuwait and getting longer.

Our fearless leaders are utterly and completely insane, or utterly and completely stupid, and I'm not entirely sure which. In any event, the soldiers in the field will be in for a much more difficult time than they thought.

Posted by iain at 01:32 AM

 

eTaiwanNews.com/Three European nations mull military alliance (eTaiwanNews, March 23, 2003): Any hope that European leaders would be able to patch up their differences over Iraq evaporated Friday as France, Germany and Belgium said they would discuss closer links among their armed forces to serve as a counterweight to Britain and the United States.

OK, here's the thing.

WHAT armed forces?

Yes, fine, France has a decent sized military for the size of their country, and one that's generally considered to be of high quality. Germany does not have a military of any notable size. Belgium does not -- where on earth would they put it? Moreover, Germany has a positive allergy to sending soldiers out of the country -- and some rather strict laws controlling how and when they do so.

And how, pray, do they think that France and Germany and Belgium, with their combined militaries of something like 200,000 people, will serve as a counterweight to the US and it's one million people under arms? Frankly, one suspects that it's more pointedly aimed at serving as a military counterweight to Britain in the EU.

The French maintain that the United Nations alone should direct the reconstruction of Iraq. That stance could cause renewed friction with the Bush administration, which has indicated it wants a circumscribed U.N. mandate that would not tie its hands. [...] Despite his threat to veto any attempt to limit the U.N. role in Iraq's reconstruction, Chirac said he did not view Britain as an adversary.

So let me get this straight-ish: (1) The US will veto any resolution coming out of the Security Council that attempts to expand the role of the UN in the reconstruction of Iraq beyond what it thinks is reasonable. (2) France will veto any resolution that doesn't allow the UN to control reconstruction.

So who thinks that any resolution worth anything has any chance of making it out of the UN Security Council? Anyone? Anyone .... yeah, that's what I thought, too.

However, for those who would think that Chirac is talking about vetoing some resolution off in the future? Au contraire, mes amis!

He's considering a veto of humanitarian aid for Iraq "on the ground that it may support the war having taken place," according to The Scotsman. How open minded of him. How wondrous of him to care so very much for the Iraqis that he's willing to help them die as a show of support. Isn't that nice of him?

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the EU summit was best described as "surreal." Sounds about right, really.

Posted by iain at 12:55 AM

 

BBC NEWS | Europe | Chirac warns on 'post-war' plans: French President Jacques Chirac has warned he will not accept any UN resolution allowing the United States and Britain to administer post-war Iraq.

.... Does he seriously think that either country intends to ask for such a resolution after the last time?

And elsewhere....

Arab Media Look Past War, Focus On Future (Washington Post, March 21, 2003, page A27): ide from a few cartoons, one depicting President Bush in cowboy duds dunking a scrawny Saddam Hussein wearing tattered combat fatigues into an oil barrel, the Arab media largely began looking ahead yesterday to an Arab world transformed after hostilities end ..... The Saudi daily Al-Watan said in a front-page story that the future of the Iraqi president and his family was limited to two possibilities: "death or detention." If Hussein is not killed, he will be referred to an Iraqi tribunal, the newspaper said, with the United States offering a large dossier on his human rights violations. In an unsourced report, Al-Watan said the United States had agreed with Iraqi opposition groups that Hussein and his senior advisers would not be referred to the International Criminal Court to avoid an adverse reaction among the Arab public.

How .... odd.

Then again, perhaps not. After all, despite the fact that the man and his sons are undoubtedly guilty of any number of human rights violations (his sons are reportedly monsters by any account), most of them were committed against Iraqis during what was, technically, peacetime. Technically, they really should be settled according to Iraqi law.

Not, one suspects, that Iraqis will have much choice in the matter, as such. (One does wish the administration had a better sense of the linguistically appropriate. However, one suspects that the thundering irony of something called "Operation Iraqi Freedom" that's designed to put in place a projected five to ten year occupation just went sailing right past.)

Posted by iain at 01:26 PM

 

HoustonChronicle.com - Agent in Tulia case admits errors in four other busts: Tom Coleman, the lone undercover agent in the controversial 1999 drug sting operation in Tulia, stood by his actions Thursday in an evidentiary hearing ordered by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. "My cases are not questionable," he said. "I stand by what I did." A short time later, though, Coleman testified that there were discrepancies in other cases in which he made drug buys, including one that was tossed out after a woman proved she was in Oklahoma at the time Coleman said he bought drugs from her. "There are some mess-ups in four cases," Coleman testified. Coleman had a one-word "Yes" for defense attorney Mitchell Zamoff when Zamoff said, "Really, but for your word, there's no evidence in any of these cases that these buys took place." [.....] In cross examination, John Nation, the state's prosecutor, asked [Swisher County Sheriff Larry Stewart], had he known that Coleman was "a liar and a criminal," if he would have been willing to throw out the nearly 120 cases that sprang from the bust.
     "Yes, sir," Stewart said.
     Stewart's comment surprised Zamoff.
     "Quite an admission by an elected official," he said while court was in recess.

You know, it's really going to be fascinating to see what grounds the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ultimately uses to allow these cases to stand.

(And then the federal court of appeals will probably toss them out, or reverse and remand, with an absolutely scathing opinion. That seems to happen to the TCCA every so often.)

The Houston Chronicle also happens to have a rather savagely pointed editorial by Thom Mitchell on the state of the Tulia investigation, as well as an ongoing scandal in the Houston Police Department crime lab (which should, but probably will not, result in the invalidation of a certain number of death sentences in the county in the US most prone to execute). Apparently, the US Department of Justice is contributing to the entire disaster, in its own inimitable way.

Crime lab needs grand jury probe (Houston Chronicle, March 20, 2003) ...... I called the AG's office recently to ask about the status of the investigation into the Tulia drug sting situation. You may recall that is a major scandal regarding numerous arrests and convictions based on the word of a lone itinerant undercover officer working for a narcotics task force. When John Cornyn was AG, he stayed clear of the Tulia mess until it looked like it might become an issue in his campaign for U.S. Senate. Then he announced he was starting an investigation. That was many months ago, but when I called to see whether the new AG about had the Tulia investigation all wrapped up, his PR woman took several hours to get back with a statement that the AG's office would not comment about the Tulia mess because of upcoming hearings in the appeals process of some of the cases. (Those hearings were under way this week in Tulia.) That PR woman would not even confirm that the AG's office still was investigating the Tulia sting scandal.
     Our Mayor Brown, who must bear some responsibility for the HPD lab mess, has invited the U.S. Justice Department to come investigate it.
     But let's look again at the Tulia scandal. The Justice Department started investigating Tulia long before the Texas AG's office, and nothing has come of it. Several months ago, one Justice Department official said the investigation had been dropped, but then another one said no it hadn't.

Given Justice's current focus under Ashcroft, it's not remotely surprising that there is a certain amount of confusion about what's happening. A wrongful drug bust wouldn't even appear on Justice's radar these days unless there was a terrorist somehow involved. (And Ashcroft probably approves of this sort of approach to justice anyway. Put 'em all in jail, sort it all out later.)

Posted by iain at 02:10 AM

 

ABC7Chicago.com: Match Day for med students under antitrust cloud..... But this year, "Match Day," when tens of thousands of graduating students received assignments to residency programs, arrived under a legal cloud that could revolutionize the matching process as well as how doctors are trained. A federal antitrust lawsuit alleges that the residency matching program contributes to notorious work conditions for medical residents by allowing residency directors to share information about their programs. The set-up, the lawsuit alleges, forces doctors-in-training to accept placements without negotiation. That allows residency programs to conspire to keep salaries low -- often less than $40,000 -- and work-hours long -- often 80 hours or more weekly, the lawsuit alleges.

Well, well, well. This ought to be fascinating to watch unfold.

The medical centers' defense will be, as it has always been, essentially twofold. (1) Residency is an advanced stage of medical education, and as such, hospitals should be allowed a great deal of latitude in setting conditions. (2) This is the way it has always been done, should always be done, forever and ever, amen. The second argument will be ignored by any sensible court, of course. As for the first ... well, you know, I didn't get paid $40,000 a year for my graduate education. And most of the time, there was actual classwork involved. Does it count as that sort of formal education when there's no university involved in the educational didactic sense?

To be honest, I think that the medical centers will lose. They haven't done terribly well in this sort of case historically, and they'll be running up against the desire of most people (including judges) to have doctors working on them who are, you know, actually awake at the time. Most research on sleep deprivation would indicate that the sorts of conditions that residents work under are just ripe for all sorts of disasters; the fact that they don't seem to occur that often is mostly luck. (And it's hard to tell how often they do occur, since most medical errors tend to be minor, on the whole.)

Posted by iain at 01:45 AM

 

My word. That drug bust in Tulia, Texas, is back in the news again.

Officials: Ex-officer's testimony racist, untrustworthy (CNN, March 18, 2003): A former undercover officer whose testimony helped convict four black men arrested in a drug sting was untrustworthy and racist, law enforcement officials testified. Monday's testimony came during hearings in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which is examining whether the four defendants were convicted only on the word of former Officer Tom Coleman. The court also wants to know if the state failed to turn over information from Coleman's background that might have impeached his testimony.
     A prosecutor who once represented Coleman's ex-wife in divorce and child custody hearings -- and whose district covered the sheriff's office where Coleman worked -- testified he didn't trust Coleman. "My client was concerned for her safety, and I was concerned for my safety," White said. "I was concerned enough that I wore a bulletproof vest to the final hearing."
     An investigator with the Fort Stockton Police Department who worked with Coleman in the late 1980s testified Coleman acted inappropriately and disobeyed orders. In one incident, the investigator, Sam Esparza, testified Coleman laughed and said, "'You just don't sound like a Mexican. You don't act like one. You don't even look like one.' After that, I didn't want him with me any more."

(NY Times, March 19, 2003, registration required)
Texas Drug Sting Leader Defends Methods and Men: The leader of the narcotics task force responsible for an undercover operation in which more than a 10th of this town's black population was arrested defended the task force in court today against accusations of racial bias and fabricated evidence. The official, Lt. Michael Amos of the Panhandle Regional Narcotics Trafficking Task Force, had praise for the work of the lone undercover officer, Thomas Coleman, whose credibility and tactics in the July 23, 1999, sting operation have come under attack, though he said he would have difficulty in hiring him today. [...] Lieutenant Amos, who is also a police officer in Amarillo, testified that Mr. Coleman used a charged racial epithet in front of him. He said he chastised Mr. Coleman. "I told him that there's a time and a place for that sort of language," he said. "The office is not such a place." Asked to name an appropriate time or place, he said that some undercover work could be compromised "by trying to be politically correct."

Agent's ex-boss faces questions about employee (Amarillo Globe News, March 19, 2003): Day two of testimony in the evidentiary hearings on the controversial 1999 Tulia drug sting featured undercover agent Tom Coleman's former boss, who was grilled for a full day as attorneys tried to determine what he knew about his former employee and when he knew it. Defense attorneys elicited testimony from Lt. Mike Amos that Coleman said he bought drugs on days when his time sheets indicated he was not working, used a racial epithet on the job and had a questionable past that was alluded to in a pre-employment background check.

The more the officials try to defend this thing, the more it stinks. The truly respectable thing to do would be to expunge all convictions resulting from this, and to arrest and charge Coleman with perjury and fabrication of evidence. However, given that they don't seem inclined to do so, it's likely that this case may go up and down the judiciary chain a few times on various claims as prosecutors resist losing the convictions. (Though, it would not seem, losing the confidence of tout l'haut Tulia -- see below.)

Apparently, the various Texas Regional Narcotics Task Forces are prone to various types of abuse and corruption:

An Even Keel? (Texas Observer, March 13, 2003): ..... This session, the House leadership appears poised to embrace lowering the sentences of nonviolent drug offenders to save money. If it occurs, Keel, whom Craddick named chairman of the Criminal Jurisprudence committee, will likely deserve some of the credit. One of Keel’s other priorities is to abolish the regional narcotics task forces. As assistant DA and sheriff, he saw up close what a disaster the task forces are. Shortly after being elected sheriff, he withdrew Travis County from the task forces. (At press time Keel’s task force bill, HB 801, has bipartisan support, although no senate sponsor.) While some of the money for the task forces comes from asset forfeitures (about $7 million in 2002), most of it comes from state and local contributions ($10 million) and federal Byrne grants (about $27.5 million). The ACLU estimates that if the savings in the cost of incarceration for low-level drug offenders is added, abolishing the task forces could save the state $199 million this biennium. [...] Keel’s early decision to remove Austin from the task forces appears prescient. His replacement as sheriff foolishly took the county back into the operations. In June 2001, the Capitol Area task force killed a 19-year-old innocent in a drug raid targeting someone else and a deputy died in a badly planned raid. Austin’s scandals were minor compared to others: the well known Tulia case; a case in San Antonio, where an officer was convicted of stealing drugs from a task force evidence locker; in Wimberley, where a suspect accused of twice selling half an ounce of pot was killed by a task force in a raid; and in Hearne, where a crooked confidential informant helped set up 28 people. In Hearne, while most were freed when the informant’s lies were exposed in court, four defendants remain in jail. Those are just some of the more than 17 recent drug task force scandals in Texas. In reaction to the mess, Gov. Perry put the task forces under the Department of Public Safety (DPS), but the problems continue.

New legislation could affect prosecution of drug cases (Daily Texan Online, March 19, 2003): ..... Sen. Juan Hinojosa, D-McAllen, has introduced Senate Bill 515, requiring undercover peace officers involved in drug cases to corroborate their testimony with other evidence. Legislation enacted in 2001 excluded the peace officer provision now included, outlawing only unconfirmed testimony from undercover criminal investigators. "This bill is not only for the protection of an innocent person, but it is also for the protection of police officers," Hinojosa said. The bill would provide a protection and safeguards to those officers out undercover by themselves. The evidence did not necessarily have to be another officer or another person, he said, but the testimony could be anything from a wiretap to a fingerprint. [...] The corroboration bill was left pending in committee, but the courts are in the middle of confronting the questionable incarcerations in Tulia. Evidentiary hearings that may overturn the cases against four convicted defendants are expected to continue throughout the week.

The Texas Observer, in fact, has quite a lot of commentary on Tulia, here and there. Not just on that case. Tulia seems to be a very bad place for what they are pleased to call "justice".

Can You Hear Me Now? (Texas Observer feature, November 8, 2002): ..... When the Observer first reported on Tulia in June of 2000, very little had been written about the previous summer’s now-infamous drug busts. Our investigative report was a sort of perfect storm for drug policy reform advocates, neatly illustrating much that has gone wrong with the nation’s domestic drug war. The sheriff of Tulia, a ranching and farming town of 5,000 roughly halfway between Lubbock and Amarillo, had used grant money from the governor’s office to hire Tom Coleman, a gypsy cop with no experience in undercover work, and, as it was later revealed, a very checkered past. Coleman worked deep cover in Tulia for eighteen months with virtually no supervision, during which time he reported making more than one hundred drug buys, mostly small amounts of powdered cocaine, from no fewer than forty-six different dealers. Although the deliveries were small, an usually high percentage of them were alleged to have taken place near a school or a park, making them first degree felonies. [...] The governor’s office has reorganized the grant program that funded the operation, putting task forces like the one that employed Coleman under the supervision of the Texas Department of Public Safety. Coleman himself–named a Lawman of the Year by John Cornyn following the busts–has since been fired from two separate narcotics postings around the state and has gone to ground in Waxahachie, where his lawyer deflects the media inquiries that still regularly come, from Court TV to the London Independent.

A Trial in Tulia: One Man's Four-Year Ordeal with Swisher County Justice (Texas Observer, October 25, 2002): ..... Less well known is another Tulia drama that unfolded just as the drug sting cases were being prosecuted: the case of David Earl Johnson. Johnson was paroled earlier this month after serving almost four and one half years for manslaughter. If anything, Johnson’s case is even more confounding than the cocaine sting that caught the national media’s attention. In June of 1998, Johnson was arrested and charged in the 1989 death of Anthony Culifer, the infant son of Johnson’s former girlfriend. Because Johnson could not make his $500,000 bail, he was forced to wait in jail for nearly two years, while District Attorney Terry McEachern plowed through the Tulia drug cases. How McEachern obtained an indictment, let alone a conviction, for a death that occurred nine years previously–and was pronounced death by pneumonia at the time–reads like a bad tabloid tale. The principal witness for the prosecution, the child’s mother, claimed to have remembered in a dream years after her son’s death that she had seen Johnson kill her baby. Anthony’s older sister also testified against Johnson, claiming to have witnessed the crime as well. She was two years old at the time. The authorities had Anthony’s body exhumed, although they knew the baby had not been embalmed. Not surprisingly, they found no tissue to examine–but they did manage to persuade a Florida pathologist to come to Tulia and testify that Anthony might have been smothered. When the trial was over, barely a week after it had begun, the jury gave Johnson the maximum sentence for involuntary manslaughter: 10 years in prison.

I can't believe that any competent prosecutor would have touched that case. I can't believe that the judge involved didn't dismiss this case with prejudice. I can't believe that any jury with a brain in their head would have found the man guilty of anything.

For previous commentary on the original Tulia case: (1) Tulia drug sting investigated by Texas -- the Times link no longer works, but the Washington Post link does; (2) the Color of Justice, Texas Style

Posted by iain at 05:48 PM

 

FindLaw Legal News - Iraq War Illegal but Trial Unlikely, Lawyers Say (Reuters via Findlaw Legal News, Wednesday, March 19, 2003): President Bush and his allies are unlikely to face trial for war crimes although many nations and legal experts say a strike on Iraq without an explicit U.N. mandate breaches international law.

You know, I would absolutely be willing to bet -- real money, even -- that there is someone out there willing to set this case before the International Criminal Court, or to take it to the Hague. I don't know that either court would be willing to take the case -- as a nonsignatory, the ICC lacks jurisdiction over the US, and it's probably somewhat out of scope for the Hague. But certainly there will be someone willing to try to get them to take the case.

While judicial means to enforce international law are limited, the political costs of a war that is perceived as illegal could be high for all concerned and could set a dangerous precedent for other conflicts, lawyers say. The U.N. Charter says: "All members shall refrain ... from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state." It says force may only be used in self-defense or if approved by the Security Council. Many leading legal experts have rejected attempts by Washington and London to justify a war with Iraq without a new resolution explicitly authorizing force. "There is a danger that the ban on the use of force, which I see as one of the most significant cultural achievements of the last century, will become history again," said Michael Bothe, chairman of the German Society for International Law.

OK, now what planet does Mr Bothe live on? Surely it's not this one. Since the founding of the UN, every single one of the permanent members has engaged in what should be called, shall we say, extralegal activity. The US had fun in Grenada and Panama (Korea and Vietnam were, in fact, authorized UN "police actions"), China annexed Tibet and had periodic firefights with India and Vietnam, Russia invaded Hungary and Czechoslovakia and is currently engaged in the Chechnya morass, France has has various adventures in Africa, and Britain has attacked Egypt (among others). That also ignores various smaller wars all over the African and Asian continents, a few things here and there in South America, that obnoxious mess in the Balkans ... the question is not whether or not anyone has taken the ban on force seriously. Clearly, nations interpret the ban on the use of force somewhat liberally, to put it mildly.

The question really becomes, what exactly has the UN done over the past 50 years? And really, its achievements haven't been so much in the prevention of the use of force as in other humanitarian areas. UNESCO, working with the World Health Organization, that sort of thing. And it's possibly also valuable as a debating forum, as long as you acknowledge that the various countries are somewhat unlikely to listen to the other viewpoints when something important to them arises.

But useful in the prevention of the use of force? ... No, not really.

Findlaw's Writ: Dorf: Is the War on Iraq Lawful? ..... Does the Lawfulness of War Matter?
      In the end, the question of whether war on Iraq is legally justified is less important than whether it is morally and practically justified. If the U.S. and its allies prevail in a relatively quick war with minimal loss of life, if further evidence of Saddam's malevolent intent surfaces, and if the Iraqi people welcome allied forces as liberators rather than conquerors, then quibbles about legality may be overlooked.
     Nonetheless, one impact of a war of dubious lawfulness may be the continued erosion of respect for the United States as a nation committed to principles of justice under law. President Bush says that he is justified in using military might because his cause is just. To much of the rest of the world, however, it looks the other way around: that the U.S. and its allies act as they wish because, in the American view, might makes right.
     In that respect, a bit of ancient history may be relevant. In Chapter Seventeen of his History of the Peloponnesian War (between Athens and Sparta in the Fifth Century B.C.), Thucydides recounted the reaction of the people of the small neutral island state of Melos to the invading Athenian navy. Before attacking Melos, the Athenians gave the Melians an opportunity to surrender. The Melians attempted to persuade the Athenians to leave them alone. According to Thucydides, the Athenians would have none of it. Questions of justice arise only among equals, the Athenians said, while the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must.

Posted by iain at 04:18 PM

 

ScienceDaily News Release: Body's Own Antibodies May Drive New Strains Of HIV: Scientists in California have provided the first detailed look at how human antibodies, proteins critical for the body's defense against invading pathogens, may actually drive human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) to mutate and escape detection by the immune system. The findings, reported online March 18 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may be key in efforts to develop an effective AIDS vaccine. A team led by Douglas D. Richman, MD, a virologist and physician with the Veterans Affairs (VA) San Diego Healthcare System and the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine, found that patients infected with HIV rapidly develop a strong antibody response against the virus. But the same antibodies tasked with recognizing and disabling the germ appear to force its ongoing evolution into new strains that dance around the antibody response and continue to replicate.

Of course, that would also seem to indicate that unless vaccines can use some sort of rotating approach, they will eventually be useless against the virus, even within the same person. After all, if the virus changes to outpace the antibody response, then accelerating the antibody response may well simply accelerate the rate of HIV development. A vaccine might only prevent infection for a short time.

Well, there's a nice depressing thought for the day.

Posted by iain at 03:58 PM

 

(NY Times, registration required) Women Recount Cadet Life: Forced Sex and Fear: ..... "During the school year, you talk to people it has happened to, even upperclassmen, and they all say the same thing," Ms. Fullilove, 23, said in an interview here, where she is attending the University of Arizona. "They tell you to expect getting raped, and if it doesn't happen to you, you're one of the rare ones. They say if you want a chance to stay here, if you want to graduate, you don't tell. You just deal with it."

A sad commentary on the academy, when the women are told that this is just the way things are, and that they should expect it.

What I really wonder is, if things are this bad at Air Force, what's being hidden in the files at West Point and Annapolis? There's no intrinsic reason that things should be any different at the others.

Mr. Roche said in an interview today that perceptions of Ms. Fullilove and other women who are victims "just sicken me," asserting that the Air Force was ill-served by an academy culture that would appear to condone aggressive behavior by men, leaving women to feel intimidated, inferior and overwhelmed. Changing that culture, he said, is the focus of the current investigation.

Well ... the investigation may well be a starting place. But in and of itself, it can't change anything. And frankly, it's not as if it will seriously tell them anything that they don't really know, aside from sheer numbers.

Posted by iain at 09:43 PM

 

Democracy Domino Theory 'Not Credible' (Los Angeles Times, March 14, 2003, registration required): A classified State Department report expresses doubt that installing a new regime in Iraq will foster the spread of democracy in the Middle East, a claim President Bush has made in trying to build support for a war, according to intelligence officials familiar with the document. The report exposes significant divisions within the Bush administration over the so-called democratic domino theory, one of the arguments that underpins the case for invading Iraq. The report, which has been distributed to a small group of top government officials but not publicly disclosed, says that daunting economic and social problems are likely to undermine basic stability in the region for years, let alone prospects for democratic reform.

You know, I was wondering what State thought of Bush's "domino" theory of democracy. It's not a remotely logical theory in its own right, and it's especially silly to try to apply it to the Middle East, where democracy tends to result in Islamist governments, at least in the short haul. And as this Monitor article notes, most of the current Middle Eastern regimes aren't particularly interested in increasing democracy in their countries. Autocrats generally aren't. (Purely a side note: the Monitor also calls Russia a "largely successful democracy", which makes one wonder what the criteria for "successful" would be.)

Even in Iraq, once the occupation is over, the democratic process is quite likely to result in an anti-American government. After all, they hate our government nearly as much as they hate Iran. Ten years of bombing and (so it is alleged) using depleted uranium weapons will produce that sort of reaction, unsurprisingly.

From the LA Times article: State Department officials declined to comment on the report. Intelligence officials said the report does not necessarily reflect the views of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell or other senior State Department officials.

Well, if it doesn't reflect the views of Powell or senior State Department officials, whose view is it? And why on earth wouldn't it reflect their views? After all, one would hope they're not stupid, and would recognize the various obstacles present in this sort of mission.

By some estimates, 65 million adults in the Middle East can't read or write, and 14 million are unemployed, with an exploding, poorly educated youth population. Given such trends, "we'll be lucky to have strong central governments [in the Middle East], let alone democracy," said one intelligence official with extensive experience in the region. The official stressed that no one in intelligence or diplomatic circles opposes the idea of trying to install a democratic government in Iraq. "It couldn't hurt," the official said. "But to sell [the war] on the basis that this is going to cause 1,000 flowers to bloom is naive."

Or, you know, entirely disingenuous. And I would not now accuse the administration of being particularly naive about that region.

Some officials said the classified document reflects views that are widely held in the State Department and CIA but that those holding such views have been muzzled in an administration eager to downplay the costs and risks of war.

How very surprising.

Posted by iain at 12:42 PM

 

The Air Force would not appear to be having a good week, in Albuquerque or Colorado Springs particularly. To go in escalating order of importance...:

Group Says Air Force Base Poisoned Prairie Dogs Behind Commander's House (KRQE News 13, March 13, 2003): Kirtland Air Force Base is under fire from an animal protection group who says the base poisoned about fifty Prairie Dogs behind the base commander’s backyard. Just months after a public outcry encouraged the City of Albuquerque stop poisoning the tunneling rodents, a group calling itself Prairie Dog Pals said they received calls Wednesday from people working on base, alerting them to the mass poisonings. A spokesperson for Kirtland did not deny the poisoning and said the Prairie Dogs pose a health hazard to humans.

You know ... most people out west seem to regard prairie dogs as burrowing rats, and a pain in the rear. Who knew they could cause such agita?

Surge in Sex Cases at Air Force Base
(Washington Post, March 12, 2003): An Air Force base in Texas responsible for training intelligence specialists and firefighters experienced a surge in cases last year involving sex between instructors and students, resulting in court-martial proceedings against four instructors and one student, according to Air Force officials. [...] Nonetheless, the sudden increase in 2002, after a total of only two instructor-student sex cases in the previous five years, suggests that the Air Force may be confronting a broader problem in the enforcement of proper sexual conduct in its education and training system. The rise in violations at Goodfellow occurred despite steps taken by Air Force authorities months earlier to update codes of conduct and to ensure that instructors and students were receiving regular briefings on what constitutes proper behavior.

You know ... if most very large organizations had a grad total of five cases of technically consensual sexual misconduct inside a year, most people would not refer to that as a "surge" in anything. (Although the fact that four of the cases occurred in March -- and one seems to have involved a wee orgy of sorts -- would be considered unusual.) Besides, given that such cases may generally be consensual (although there may be a goodly dose of actual sexual harrassment involved), it's entirely probable that there's a great deal more of such contact that nobody besides the participants ever knows about.

Which is to say, this type of thing, given the terribly small numbers of known cases, really doesn't say anything about the Air Force and keeping order, no matter what the Post says.

Air Force Probing Cross Burning in N.M. Findlaw/AP, March 13, 2003): Military officials were investigating whether four Air Force security guards burned a cross in a home's back yard and participated in other supremacist activities. The four men, members of the 377th Security Forces Squadron at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, were relieved of duty and restricted to base, base spokesman Ralph Francis said. Their names will not be released, Francis said. He said the men had Nazi swastikas and literature from the Ku Klux Klan - things that he said are not "illegal to possess, but it depends on how it's being used." Their other alleged activities were not specified. Francis said a preliminary internal investigation showed that the cross-burning was not directed at anyone.

"Not directed at anyone"? They run around burning crosses just for fun?

If they did in fact burn crosses as has been alleged, then either they're lying, or they're just too damn stupid to be working security for anyone. How could you burn crosses in this day and age and not realize that it would not go over terribly well?

Academy Culture and Sex Charges (Christian Science Monitor, March 14, 2003): ...... A growing rape scandal is raising tough questions about a male-dominated military culture - and about a leadership structure that may have both allowed it to happen and left it unpunished. The Academy says it has received 56 reports of sexual assault in the past 10 years - although research on rape reporting suggests the number of actual assaults may be far higher. [...] A few areas of concern have surfaced, including a hierarchy that gives upperclassmen near-total control over freshmen, or "doolies." "Lowerclassmen kind of exist at the whim of upperclassmen," says Kate Summers of The Miles Foundation, a nonprofit in Newtown, Conn., that examines domestic abuse and sexual assault in the military. "Freshmen are like slaves. Because of that, you have very systemic problems, with the Academy as well as within the military."

So basically, you combine freshman hazing with the fact that some of the freshmen are women, and you have a disaster waiting to happen. (This would also imply some interesting things about freshman hazing generally at the academy, assuming that it's a particularly harsh version of the sorts of things that young men seem to do to each other with appalling regularity.)

The Pentagon hopes to make its recommendations later this month, says Air Force Lt. Col. Dewey Ford. Reform proposals may include segregating cadet dorms by sex - an idea that sexual-assault groups say would exacerbate the problem - and training Air Force nurses and investigators to deal with sexual assaults.

I must confess, I don't understand why sex-segregated dorms would aggravate the problem. I don't see how they could possibly make it any worse. And I find it shocking that Air Force nurses, in particular, weren't trained to deal with sexual assaults. To be honest, that sounds like standard medical training, given the world we live in. To be sure, some sort of specialized approach might be needed because of the specialized environment. (The investigators' lack of training would be less surprising, all things considered.)

Posted by iain at 01:27 AM

 

How very ... odd.

The Beaumont Enterprise: Beaumont men divorce, believed a legal first for area: What is likely Jefferson County's -- and perhaps the state's -- first same-sex divorce was granted earlier this week, even though Texas law does not recognize same-sex marriages. Judge Tom Mulvaney of the 279th District Court signed the divorce decree. He said it was a first for him. Russell Smith, 26, and John Anthony, 34, both of Beaumont, traveled to Vermont in February 2002 to get a license of civil union. The couple quit living together four months later and divorced on grounds of insupportability.

One wonders why it would be necessary to have a legal dissolution in Texas of a contract that Texas does not recognize to be valid. In any other state but Vermont, that civil union is just an interesting piece of paper, nothing more. Any business partnerships and properties that they held together would have had to be handled separately, in order for Texas to recognize that the partnerships and property were held jointly in the first place, and anything that happened with the civil union itself wouldn't affect that.

A puzzlement.

Posted by iain at 10:45 AM

 

Judges decry DoJ perjury in Net-porn crackdown | The Register (Posted: March 8, 2003 at 01:22 GMT): Overzealous FBI agents may have ruined one of the biggest raids of Internet kiddie porn traders by lying on affidavits to obtain search warrants against the suspects. [...] The mere fact of having joined the group is not sufficient grounds for search warrants to be issued, the judges ruled. The FBI will have to come up with actual evidence of KP trading independent of the warrants issued on the basis of its perjury. [...] The FBI "acted with reckless disregard for the truth" and exhibited "more than a mere failure to investigate or an innocent or negligent mistake," New York judge Denny Chin wrote. He determined that the majority of group members had not elected to receive KP images via e-mail. [...] US Attorney General John Ashcroft trumpeted the investigation last year on national television as a great triumph for the forces of righteousness. But now it seems that many of the roughly 1,800 people under investigation may have had their homes invaded and their property confiscated illegally, and many pending cases may have to be dropped because of it.

It will be fascinating to see what comes of this. Faulty warrants mean that evidence seized as a result of those warrants must be thrown out. Since any images found on those computers as a result of the search constitutes pretty much the entire case against those people, it means that cases against people in actual possession of "KP" will be dismissed.

The FBI may appeal, but it's hard to tell what the grounds for the appeal would be. Lying to federal judges to obtain warrants is something that they don't particularly appreciate, up and down the line. The fact that some of the people were in actual possession of the material is not a defense for a warrant obtained through material deception.

Posted by iain at 12:36 AM

 

Wired News: Court Nixes Child Net Porn Law: A federal appeals court has ruled that a law meant to safeguard children against Internet pornography is riddled with problems that make it "constitutionally infirm." A three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that the Child Online Protection Act restricted free speech by barring website operators from posting information inappropriate for minors unless they limited the site to adults. The ruling upheld an injunction blocking the government from enforcing the law.

Interesting.

The appeals court seems to have been rather determined to get rid of this law. Of course, now it's on track to go back to the Supreme Court, this time after they will have likely decided to uphold CIPA. To be sure, since COPA isn't a fiscal pursestrings law, it's more likely to have problems at the higher level, now that they're going to have to deal with the merits of the law. (Assuming they decide to hear the case. If the Court rejects the case, then it doesn't matter.)

Posted by iain at 06:55 PM

 

ABCNEWS.com : Air Force Reports 54 Rapes, Assault: The Air Force has identified 54 cases of rape or sexual assault in its investigation into impropriety at the Air Force Academy and there are likely many more cadets who will not come forward, Air Force Secretary James Roche said Thursday. "The part that is the saddest thing ... whatever we see, whatever the number is, 25, 50, there are probably a hundred more that we do not see," Roche said during a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. It wasn't immediately clear when the assaults occured. "We're learning enough to realize that change must occur change in the climate, change in how we manage"

If the Secretary of the Air Force thinks that there are probably a hundred more that will never be reported ... there are probably quite a few more than that. These things tend to be vastly underestimated.

But still, the victims are concerned it will continue to be swept under the rug. "I'm very skeptical about the Pentagon investigating the Air Force Academy," says one victim. She said she went there to learn to serve her country, and if that means testifying against those who taught the Air Force way, she will.

Previous commentary: the wild blue yonder.

Posted by iain at 12:48 AM

 

Because, really, Easter just isn't Easter without the promotion of violence and mayhem, is it?

The Village Voice: Features: Full Metal Bonnet by Erik Baard: National retailers like Kmart and Walgreens have stocked their shelves with baskets in which the traditional chocolate rabbit centerpiece has been displaced by plastic military action figures and their make-believe lethal paraphernalia. Tri-state Rite Aid, Genovese, and Wal-Mart stores promise their martial Easter baskets will arrive soon. At the Astor Place Kmart, the encampment is on display just inside the main entrance. A camouflaged sandy-haired soldier with an American-flag arm patch stands alert in a teal, pink, and yellow basket beneath a pretty green-and-purple bow. Within a doll-arm's reach are a machine gun, rifle, hand grenade, large knife, pistol, and round of ammunition. In the next basket a buzz-cut blond with a snazzy dress uniform hawks over homeland security, an American eagle shield on his arm, and a machine gun, pistol, Bowie knife, two grenades, truncheon, and handcuffs at the ready. [...] Not surprisingly, the merger of religious observance and jingoistic lust sparked the ire of Christian leaders. Bishop George Packard, who oversees spiritual care for Episcopalian members of the armed services, worries about practical issues. He's concerned about creating a backlash against the military, and questions the message sent to Muslims by the melding of a Christian holiday with images of war.

Well, you know, I can't imagine that Muslims would be terribly concerned over the contents of a Christian Easter basket, of all things. Besides, the message really seems quite blunt enough, all things considered.

Posted by iain at 10:25 PM

 

States grapple with gay rights and definition of the family | csmonitor.com: Two court cases this week have the potential to push America toward a broadening definition of family that is increasingly inclusive of homosexuals. In Boston, the state's top court is considering the legality of same-sex marriage. If the justices side with the plaintiffs - seven gay and lesbian couples - Massachusetts could become the first state in the country to sanction gay marriage. In Miami, a federal appeals court heard from four men who have been barred from adopting the children they take care of because of Florida's categorical ban on adoption by gay individuals. Though Florida is currently the only state with such a law, a ruling could have implications on adoption practices around the country.

You know, it makes perfectly good sense that Massachusetts' case could have national implications. At the moment, most states have some sort of Defense of Marriage act, defining marriage as being between one man and one woman. Since no state currently has legal nonmonogamous nonheterosexual marriage, the fact that these laws are in blatant defiance of the Constitution's Full Faith and Credit section -- all states have to honor certain contracts made in other states, such as marriage -- can be ignored. If Massachusetts actually legalizes such marriages, however, then that will spark battles throughout the country.

Should the plaintiffs win in Massachusetts, this case is also quite likely to produce a constitutional amendment specifically defining marriage (The Federal Marriage Amendment has already been proposed, in fact, although this particular bill ought to be a dead letter, since it was proposed in the previous session of Congress), since even the federal DOMA is unconstitutional once there is a significant change in one of the other states. Somehow I don't believe that's quite the response that the people bringing this case will want, but it's almost certainly the response they'll get. And the Supreme Court, as a constitutional court, is not legally competent to rule that a constitutional amendment is unconstitutional -- and isn't terribly likely to make that ruling about this type of thing in any case. (It is noteworthy that in its current form, the Federal Marriage Amendment makes no sense whatsoever. The second sentence says, "...neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor State or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups." Now, you know, it's not actually possible to confer marital status on married people. They already have it. It is, in fact, only possible to confer marital status on currently unmarried people. I realize that this is an attempt to get rid of all those domestic partner registries -- most of which don't even attempt to confer marital status -- and Vermont's civil union, but really, people drafting constitutional amendments ought to try using a little precision in their language.)

I must admit to being puzzled as to why a federal court would have accepted the Florida adoption case. Normally, district courts try to stay out of things involving the state constitution; a state's supreme court normaly is considered the final arbiter of a state constitution, absent some constitutional issue. The ACLU is arguing that it denies equal protection, but that would seem a somewhat tenuous argument. Still, it will be interesting to see what happens with it. Many of the people who passed it seem to now oppose the law, according to the ACLU, and Florida's head of the Department of Family and Children considers it counterproductive, but I don't know if any of that is relevant for a federal court.

Posted by iain at 06:27 PM

 

Shelf-Censorship - The Supreme Court finds a library porn filter it can love. By Dahlia Lithwick: Today's case, United States v. American Library Association, represents Congress' 2,000th (or so it feels) attempt to regulate Internet pornography, as it relates to children. [...] The Children's Internet Protection Act requires that public libraries receiving federal funds install filters for every computer connected to the Internet, whether used by adults or children. Almost immediately, a special three-judge panel in Philadelphia enjoined the government from enforcing it. The panel unanimously found CIPA facially invalid because it forced libraries, as state actors, to violate the First Amendment rights of the public. The provision relating to public schools was never challenged. Nobody, it seems, is actually for encouraging kids to access Internet porn from public libraries; the problem is that most of the current filtering software both "underblocks" and "overblocks," meaning, respectively, that lots of smut still gets through the filter and that lots of blocked Web sites contain constitutionally protected and educationally important material. (Sites banned by the porn filter include the Knights of Columbus Council 4828, the California Jewish Community Center, and Orphanage Emmanuel, the Republican National Committee's Web site, a juggling site, and health sites devoted to baldness and halitosis.) Plaintiffs in the suit include a teenager unable to research homosexuality on the Web and another who couldn't research his mother's breast cancer. As my colleague Julie Hilden has observed, it's silly to look to software to make determinations about what is obscene, patently offensive, or harmful to minors, given that humans can barely manage to do so either. [...] Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Antonin Scalia have no interest in hearing that libraries are public forums; in fact Scalia is of the opinion that libraries can and do censor what he calls "garbage" all the time. Justice Stephen Breyer worries that if you can't constitutionally filter porn in public-school libraries, public schools are all going to stop using computers for anything. And O'Connor makes it amply clear that she thinks it's way too premature to start "importing wholesale public forum analysis into libraries."

Interesting. At the moment, it looks like CIPA will actually survive court review.

To be sure, Scalia isn't wrong about how a library functions, although it's somewhat incorrectly stated. After all, a library doesn't "censor", as such; it doesn't refuse to allow people to write and publish. It simply declines to stock certain books that its bibliographers deem unworthy, for whatever reason. And to the outside viewer, those reasons probably seem fairly arcane. That said, most libraries have a written bibliographic selection plan, outlining the specific points of consideration for each subject area, detailing how selection is done. If a patron/author asks, the bibliographer will write a letter, telling them point by point exactly why a given book was not included in the collection. For that matter, it may be a simple case of being unaware that the material exists; it's not possible to know about everything, after all. Thus, one of the points of comparison fails: although libraries do select materials, it's possible not only to find out how and why, but also sometimes to get a decision changed or to alter the selection criteria within the library itself. The blocking software is not only patented, and its lists of criteria and sites closely guarded, but even when the librarians discover that a site should be accessable to all, they have no means of enforcing that decision.

CIPA surviving the Court would not be a terribly surprising result. The Court has traditionally given great deference to Congress' ability to condition how the national funds are spent. Technically speaking, if any library were willing to forego federal grants and subsidies, they could provide unfiltered computers without violating the law. Of course, Congress knows full well that no public library or public school system is in any financial state to forego federal funds (or was even when the law was first passed), so in some ways, it's something of a deception. However, when it comes to strings attached to financial aid, the Court has generally been quite happy to let Congress speak with a forked tongue.

If anything makes the Court overturn this law, I suspect it will be the fact that it restricts access to constitutionally protected materials without allowing the librarians or the public at large to know exactly what is being restricted, or how it's being done. (Halitosis? What on earth is sexual or obscene about bad breath? Are there some bad breath fetish sites out there that only the porn filter companies know about?) But frankly, given the apparent hostility of the majority to the "open forum" argument, I don't expect any free-speech type of argument to have swayed them.

Eh. CIPA will survive on a 5-4 or 6-3 vote. I would expect that Souter, Ginzberg and Stevens will all likely oppose the law; the only question is whether or not Kennedy, "whose love of free speech borders on the obscene", will side with them.

Posted by iain at 12:28 PM

 

FindLaw's Writ - Ramasastry: A Recent Oregon Ruling Allowing Secret Warrants in Domestic Terrorism Cases May Set A Troublesome Precedent: Last week, an Oregon federal court heard oral arguments on a motion in United States v. Battle, a case against five terrorism suspects. The defendants are accused of conspiring to assist al-Qaeda forces in fighting U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Arrested last October, the five are predominantly African-American converts to Islam; the government alleges that together, they constituted a terrorist cell. In their argument, the defendants contended that the government should reveal the justification that support the issuance - by the clandestine Foreign Intelligence surveillance Act (FISA) Court - of the secret warrants that enabled the FBI to surveil them. Specifically, the defendants seek to review the warrant applications the FBI submitted to the FISA Court, on the basis of which the warrants were granted. Pursuant to the warrants, the FBI secretly wiretapped the suspects' phones and planted microphones in their homes. As a result of its surveillance, the FBI ended up intercepting more than 271 conversations. Without knowing the basis for the warrants, the defendants contend, they cannot know if their Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures were abridged. The judge ruled, however, that the basis for the warrants will remain secret.
     This is a very troubling development. Unless the ruling is reversed on appeal, it will mean that a U.S. citizen can now be convicted of a crime, without ever knowing the reasons why the government was given permission to spy on them in the first place.

It will be interesting to see what happens with this case. For one thing, I'm surprised that the government is even allowing it to be heard in open court; FISA warrant cases are normally channeled through the FISA appeals court (constituting the FISA justices en bank plus Rehnquist) and thence to the Supreme Court.

To be honest, I've never understood how a FISA case could even be tried in district court. Surely the Constitution would require the disclosure of all available evidence to the defense; how can you defend yourself against anything if you don't know how and why you've been charged? It wouls seem reasonable that the result of any FISA-initiated criminal case would be that the charges should be summarily dismissed for the up-front, in your face Constitutional violations involved.

Apparently, the government doesn't worry about silly little things like the Constitution any more.

Posted by iain at 01:27 PM

 

(NY Times, registration required) Forfeits at Cricket World Cup Won't Be the Last... At the current cricket World Cup, New Zealand declined to set foot in Kenya, and England refused to play its match in Zimbabwe. Those decisions had nothing to do with the possible war in Iraq but rather with conditions in the two host countries. New Zealand managed to play into the second round despite the forfeit, but England was eliminated yesterday as a direct consequence of not showing up in Zimbabwe. [...] The cricket forfeits, however, have direct implications for international tournaments. Planners must consider the potential for politics, protests and downright violence years down the pike.

The NY Times deigns to even notice that cricket exists? ... whatever. Although why they think that Americans would care utterly escapes me. But I digress, already.

The real glamour event upcoming is, of course, the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. That is just going to be one big, luscious, tempting target for terrorists of all stripes. It's close to the Middle East, so Israeli athletes will likely be targeted in their own right. The American athletes will, of course, have a large, "Just shoot me/kidnap me/blow me up now" target on their backs, as well. Maybe a few British and Australians, too.

It's not as if there isn't cause for concern. In a rare public rebuke, the IOC has criticized Athens for being so very behind on venue construction. It's looking increasingly as though several venues will be unable to hold their test events prior to the Olympics themselves; the test events would enable them to identify shortcomings in security and other areas. (After all, if the stadium isn't actually there before the event, you can't see the blind spots, can't identify or eliminate hiding places, can't make sure that all the security cameras are where they need to be ... you can't even be sure that the event area itself has everything you need to stage the event.) Athens strengthened its antiterrorism laws in response to some very sharp and pointed criticism (and, more importantly, the loss of the centennial games to Atlanta and the millenial games to Sydney, with security being a stated major concern both times) Athens also seems to be under some misapprehension that a trial of some captured November 17 Group terrorists will show that their security is effective; why a trial in and of itself would have anything to do with effective security, I'm not sure.

Posted by iain at 01:05 PM

 

ABC7Chicago.com: Madonna writes series of children's books: Singer, actor, now writer Madonna has taken up the pen. Penguin Group announced Monday that the singer has written five illustrated story books for young readers aged 6 and above. The first title, "The English Roses," will be published in hardcover in September and distributed simultaneously worldwide, Penguin Group said. No further details were given.

Well, that's ... different.

I suppose it's one of those examples of how maturity changes people. After all, a decade ago, she herself would probably have laughed at the very idea of writing children's books.

Still seems odd, though.

Posted by iain at 05:07 PM

 

Media Relations: love and marriage, love and marriage/ March 3, 2003

Posted by iain at 12:30 PM

 

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