Media Relations: ... and music, music, music/ April 29, 2003
Posted by iain at 11:00 PM
Judge: File-swapping tools are legal | CNET News.com: A federal judge in Los Angeles has handed a stunning court victory to file-swapping services Streamcast Networks and Grokster, dismissing much of the record industry and movie studios' lawsuit against the two companies. In an almost complete reversal of previous victories for the record labels and movie studios, federal court Judge Stephen Wilson ruled that Streamcast--parent of the Morpheus software--and Grokster were not liable for copyright infringements that took place using their software. The ruling does not directly affect Kazaa, software distributed by Sharman Networks, which has also been targeted by the entertainment industry. "Defendants distribute and support software, the users of which can and do choose to employ it for both lawful and unlawful ends," Wilson wrote in his opinion, released Friday. "Grokster and StreamCast are not significantly different from companies that sell home video recorders or copy machines, both of which can be and are used to infringe copyrights." The ruling is the second major setback to date to the entertainment industry's efforts to keep a tight rein on online file-swapping, following a similiar decision in the Netherlands last year that found that Kazaa was not liable for its users' copyright infringements. If upheld, the decision could lead artists, record labels and movie studios to cast new legal strategies that they have until now been reluctant to try, including bringing lawsuits against individuals who copy unauthorized works over Napster-like networks.
How ... interesting.
Technically, the legal precedents would support this decision. (Which hasn't stopped other courts from ruling otherwise, as noted in the article.) If the various appeals courts follow normal rules, then this decision will stand all the way up the line; upper courts will refuse even to hear the appeals.
What eventually happened with videotapes was that the television industry won from Congress the right to include a small increase in the prices that accounts for the amount lost to piracy. Unfortunately, this model isn't helpful for the recording industry now. After all, who do you charge? And for what? Charging for blank CDs doesn't get you anywhere; most people don't actually burn pirated songs to CD. Manufacturers of various MP3 players will resist strenuously having to pay any of their profits to the recording industry, on more or less the same grounds as the file sharing services won this round; the technology itself has nothing to do with the illegal use thereof.
One wonders what happens after all the lawsuits are done.
Posted by iain at 10:56 AM
HoustonChronicle.com - Ex-agent indicted in Tulia drug cases, By JIM HENDERSON, Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle: The undercover officer who ran a controversial drug investigation in Tulia four years ago was indicted Thursday on charges of lying under oath during recent hearings to determine if the convictions he obtained were legitimate. A three-count indictment handed up by a Swisher County grand jury accuses Tom Coleman, 43, of making false statements about legal problems he faced in another county while working for the Panhandle Drug Task Force. "These were the three strongest cases," said Rod Hobson, a Lubbock attorney who is working as a special prosecutor on the Tulia investigation. Coleman could not be reached for comment. [...] Last month, in evidentiary hearings ordered by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to determine whether the convictions should be reconsidered, Coleman was questioned about when he knew he was facing a criminal charge and his actions afterward. The indictment alleges that he gave conflicting testimony. At one point, he testified that he did not learn of the Cochran County theft charge until August 1998, but other testimony indicated he knew about it three months earlier but continued working as an undercover agent. The indictment also alleges that he lied about stealing the gasoline in Cochran County and about contacting the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Education to notify it of the charge against him.
No, I shouldn't imagine that he could be. If he's got lawyers worth a plugged nickel and pays attention to what they say, we won't hear another word from Coleman for quite some time to come.
CNN indicates that Coleman was in fact charged with three counts of aggravated perjury.
Assuming that Coleman is convicted -- not really a sure thing -- the results could be sincerely fascinating. The individual lies and things about which he lied, in and of themselves, are fairly picayune (if you ignore the fact that the police aren't supposed to do such things, never mind lie about it). Then again ...
Under Chapter 37 of the Texas Penal Code Coleman was charged with aggravated perjury because the false statements are alleged to have been made "during or in connection with an official proceeding," and said statements were "material" (although that would be determined as part of the trial). Aggravated perjury is a third degree felony punishable "punished by imprisonment in the institutional division for any term of not more than 10 years or less than 2 years." (Just a bit of a sentencing range, there.) So if he does get convicted, he'll be a crooked ex-cop sent to prison where everyone will know that he sent nearly 40 probably innocent people to jail.
He'll be in protective custody for his entire sentence. Even then, given Texas' notorious prison system, one expects that he'll probably be dead, or wish he were, within a year of sentencing.
However, the fun is still not over for those wrongly sentenced, oh no no no.....
The innocent keep waiting for justice By THOM MARSHALL, Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle, April 24, 2003, 10:46PM: ... Meanwhile, up in Swisher County, Tom Coleman was indicted by a grand jury Thursday. Three counts of aggravated perjury. That is a third-degree felony with a penalty range of two to 10 years, if he's convicted. Coleman was the lone undercover cop responsible for a 1999 drug bust in Tulia that resulted in the wrongful convictions of 38 people, 13 of whom still are locked up. A judge recommended a few weeks ago that all 38 convictions be overturned, including all who were coerced into accepting plea bargains, because Coleman's testimony was not credible.
I called the Court of Criminal Appeals in Austin to ask whether there was some way to let those 13 people out immediately, like maybe on personal recognizance bonds, pending completion of all the paper shuffling and red tape. The high court's staff attorney, Richard Wetzel, said he knows of no provision in the law that would allow for such a release, but if their defense attorneys have some idea how to do it, the defense attorneys could file a request. We had a spirited discussion. He kept explaining to me how the court operates and how the law is working as it is supposed to work in keeping those people locked up. I kept asking him how that is serving justice. "Precedent," he said, "would indicate there is not a means to release them on bail." I suggested that, considering the recent developments in the Tulia drug bust cases, someone surely could take this dilemma by the horns and find a means to set those people free. They've already been unjustly locked up almost four years. Every additional minute of delay is another minute of justice denied.
Many illegals can be jailed indefinitely / Ashcroft rules that granting bail could threaten national security: Attorney General John Ashcroft says entire groups of illegal immigrants seeking asylum can be locked up indefinitely on national security grounds, if their release on bail might encourage a surge of illegal immigration. Ashcroft's decision, which was signed last Friday and surfaced Thursday, is a significant expansion of government detention authority.
Not remotely surprising, unfortunately.
The fun part is that this does, for the second time, quite explicitly defy Congressional dictates. As previously noted herein, Congress was quite clear that indefinite detention was something that they would not tolerate in Constitutional Evisceration Act I, a.k.a. the USA PATRIOT Act. He requested it, they declined to allow it. He usurped the power by issuing a Justice department directive, just as he has done in this case, and Congress said ... nothing. Absolutely nothing. And now he's done it again.
The interesting thing is that this particular finding is both very targeted and very broad. It's aimed specifically at Haiti, but can be used generally.
One wonders, now that we are apparently past the immediate crisis -- well, after nearly two years, one would hope -- now that we are apparently done with most of the direct combat in Iraq ... one wonders if Congress will decide that, yes, it does have certain powers, and one of those powers is that of oversight of executive agencies. And said power includes dictating to executive agencies that blatantly violating the Constitution and ignoring Congressional directives is perhaps not how our government's official advocates of Constitutional law are supposed to behave.
One rather doubts that they'll get around to that any time soon, however.
Posted by iain at 12:55 PM
U.S. Planners Surprised by Strength of Iraqi Shiites (washingtonpost.com): As Iraqi Shiite demands for a dominant role in Iraq's future mount, Bush administration officials say they underestimated the Shiites' organizational strength and are unprepared to prevent the rise of an anti-American, Islamic fundamentalist government in the country. The burst of Shiite power -- as demonstrated by the hundreds of thousands who made a long-banned pilgrimage to the holy city of Karbala yesterday -- has U.S. officials looking for allies in the struggle to fill the power vacuum left by the downfall of Saddam Hussein. As the administration plotted to overthrow Hussein's government, U.S. officials said this week, it failed to fully appreciate the force of Shiite aspirations and is now concerned that those sentiments could coalesce into a fundamentalist government. Some administration officials were dazzled by Ahmed Chalabi, the prominent Iraqi exile who is a Shiite and an advocate of a secular democracy. Others were more focused on the overriding goal of defeating Hussein and paid little attention to the dynamics of religion and politics in the region.
And in other news, dog bites man.
I don't even vaguely understand how they could have missed that, especially when everyone else in the world was saying, "You do realize that this will happen, right?" I mean, simple geography would have led any reasonable person to that assumption; Iraq is essentially surrounded by fundamentalist Muslim states.
Frankly, any reasonable person -- assuming that they were plotting Hussein's overthrow in the first place -- would be fools not to try to align themselves with major religious figures if possible. It might not have worked, but at least the attempt should have been made. To have thought that Iraq would remain secular after having had its religions so severely suppressed, when all about it are fundamentalist Muslims of various stripes ... that's beyond foolishness.
Of course, we have a government of fools.
Posted by iain at 04:24 PM
Certain Words Can Trip Up AIDS Grants, Scientists Say (NY Times, April 18, 2003, registration required): Scientists who study AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases say they have been warned by federal health officials that their research may come under unusual scrutiny by the Department of Health and Human Services or by members of Congress, because the topics are politically controversial. The scientists, who spoke on condition they not be identified, say they have been advised they can avoid unfavorable attention by keeping certain "key words" out of their applications for grants from the National Institutes of Health or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those words include "sex workers," "men who sleep with men," "anal sex" and "needle exchange," the scientists said. [...] The official said researchers had long been advised to avoid phrases that might mark their work as controversial. But the degree of scrutiny under the Bush administration was "much worse and more intense," the official said. Dr. Alfred Sommer, the dean of the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, said a researcher at his institution had been advised by a project officer at N.I.H. to change the term "sex worker" to something more euphemistic in a grant proposal for a study of H.I.V. prevention among prostitutes. He said the idea that grants might be subject to political surveillance was creating a "pernicious sense of insecurity" among researchers. [...] In another example of the scrutiny the scientists described, a researcher at the University of California said he had been advised by an N.I.H. project officer that the abstract of a grant application he was submitting "should be `cleansed' and should not contain any contentious wording like `gay' or `homosexual' or `transgender.' " The researcher said the project officer told him that grants that included those words were "being screened out and targeted for more intense scrutiny." He said he was now struggling with how to write the grant proposal, which dealt with a study of gay men and H.I.V. testing. When the subjects were gay men, he said, "It's hard not to mention them in your abstract."
So.
Apparently the administration (and, to some extent, conservative members of Congress) now does not want the groups which have traditionally been most at risk for these diseases to actually be studied.
Well.
How very very special of them.
This is, of course, part and parcel of the administration's documented approach to health care information. The CDC's site was cleansed of controversial information, and the dance the administration forced on the CDC about the connection (or pronounced lack thereof) between abortion and breast cancer was simply unspeakable. More recently, when SARS first broke out, CDC doctors said, almost immediately, that it wasn't a result of terrorism. Then, oddly, when asked that question a couple of weeks later, they hemmed and hawed and said that they weren't sure. It is, of course, entirely possible that the CDC decided that it wouldn't be prudent to commit themselves until more information was available. Given past practice, it is far more likely that the administration demanded that they stop saying that SARS wasn't terrorism related for political reasons; after all, they've been trumpeting the dangers of biological agents for nearly two years now, and yet we haven't seen one single such use. (This is most emphatically NOT to say that it isn't possible; only that it's very difficult to keep people afraid of an event when it resolutely fails to happen.)
And now the administration is requiring researchers to avoid mentioning certain terms, because they will refuse to fund such grants. To be sure, the administration, in one sense, has a right to restrict how its funds are spent. But in another ... one would think that their responsibility to the public health of this country would make them simply fund those projects which will best contribute to that.
One would, quite apparently, be wrong.
Posted by iain at 02:34 PM
Media Relations: spike? ... SPIKE?/ April 15, 2003
Posted by iain at 10:24 PM
Atheist wins right to pray before council (Provo Daily Herald, a.k.a. HarkTheHerald.com, Saturday, April 12, 2003): If atheist Tom Snyder still wants to pray before the Murray City Council to Mother in Heaven for deliverance from weak and stupid politicians, he has the blessing of the Utah Supreme Court. The court on Friday ruled that if Murray officials want to pray during government-sponsored events, the chance to offer the prayer must be equally accessible to all who ask. The Supreme Court's 4-1 ruling reversed the dismissal of a lawsuit that Snyder, 71, filed in state court in 1999.
"I'm pleased as punch," Snyder said in a news release. "There is more than one school of thought as to religion in Utah. Thanks to the Supreme Court for reaffirming that constitutional protection. There should be no government preference for one religion over another or a preference for religion over nonreligion."
Somehow, I suspect that Murray will end up junking their prayer, rather than allowing this particular prayer to be read at any city function. Which, to be sure, is what Mr Snyder is really after. (It is a rather impressively sententious and pompous prayer.)
One suspects that if this made it to the US Supreme Court, the reaction would be, more or less, "Why the hell are you reading denominational prayers at city functions in any event? Stop that."
Posted by iain at 12:29 AM
First, a resolution (eventually) to a previously mentioned situation in Jacksonville, Arkansas, Junior High:
American Civil Liberties Union : Arkansas School District Agrees to Guarantee Gay Student's Right to be Out at School: In a court conference held this afternoon, the Pulaski County Special School District agreed with the American Civil Liberties Union and a federal judge that students have a Constitutional right to be openly gay in school.
"We're very pleased that the court recognized right away that a school has no place telling gay students that they can't be out of the closet at school," said Leslie Cooper, a staff attorney for the ACLU Lesbian and Gay Rights Project. In talks with ACLU attorneys representing 14-year-old Thomas McLaughlin and counsel for the school district, U.S. District Judge G. Thomas Eisele said that under the First Amendment schools cannot silence or restrict students' speech unless it is disruptive. The school's attorney agreed when Judge Eisele asked if the school would adhere to the conditions the ACLU had asked for in its motion: that the school not restrict McLaughlin's speech during non-instructional time with regard to his sexual orientation or punishments he has received from school officials. Judge Eisele went on to tell attorneys that he would expedite the trial in McLaughlin's lawsuit, which the ACLU filed Tuesday.
That is, frankly, a better resolution than anyone might have expected. I suspect that the school district looked at what they'd done, looked at the massive liability they had hanging out there because of teachers proselytizing at a student and forcing him to take it, and their lawyers said, "You guys are screwed, you know. Any jury ruling in accordance with the law is going to hang you out to dry, whether or not they like this kid."
On the other hand, it might have taken a few rounds of trials to get through to that result. Arkansas only lost its sodomy laws in 2002 ... because they were found unconstitutional by a judge from the selfsame country in which the current unpleasantness is taking place, ironically enough. One suspects the end of that road would have been a thoroughly pissy but unanimous opinion coming out of both the Arkansas Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals, slamming the school district.
Meanwhile, back at the ranchlands:
Court says school personnel liable in anti-gay taunt case (SFgate.com, Wednesday, April 9, 2003): In a ruling that could lead to new protections for gay students, a federal appeals court ordered a trial Tuesday in a suit that accuses Morgan Hill school officials of brushing off years of complaints of anti-gay taunts and abuse. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said school administrators can be held personally responsible under federal law for failing to protect students from harassment based on sexual orientation.
The lawsuit was filed by six former students who said they were either gay or perceived as being gay. Although no federal statute expressly protects gays or lesbians, the three-judge panel pointed out that a 1990 appellate ruling established that "state employees who treat individuals differently on the basis of their sexual orientation violate the constitutional guarantee of equal protection." A prominent gay-rights lawyer said Tuesday's ruling, binding in nine Western states, was the first of its kind in the nation.
It will be interesting to see the flight of this case. On the one hand, the school district could appeal for a full en banc hearing of the appeals court -- that is, they could ask to be heard by the full court, and not just a three-judge panel -- and thence to the Supreme Court if they didn't like the results. On the other, they rather make themselves out to be bigoted the more they pursue the case, don't they?
That said ... if the school district didn't have a policy in place, they would, in all likelihood, not be liable. The real problem is that they had such a policy and did not enforce it. (I am a mite puzzled as to how that constitutes a failure of equal protection, as far as the Constitution is concerned, however.)
The federal government has, startlingly enough, taken a position on this issue, although it's not precisely helpful:
... Although Title IX does not prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, sexual harassment directed at gay or lesbian students that is sufficiently serious to limit or deny a student’s ability to participate in or benefit from the school’s program constitutes sexual harassment prohibited by Title IX under the circumstances described in this guidance. For example, if a male student or a group of male students target a gay student for physical sexual advances, serious enough to deny or limit the victim’s ability to participate in or benefit from the school’s program, the school would need to respond promptly and effectively, as described in this guidance, just as it would if the victim were heterosexual. On the other hand, if students heckle another student with comments based on the student’s sexual orientation (e.g., “gay students are not welcome at this table in the cafeteria”), but their actions do not involve conduct of a sexual nature, their actions would not be sexual harassment covered by Title IX.
So in other words, grabbing someone's crotch would be against the rules of Title IX, but calling them faggot or lesbo isn't covered. And hitting them with bricks isn't covered. And shoving them to the floor because the bathroom "is where they belong" isn't covered.
Kids in the crossfire, by Mara Leveritt (Arkansas Times, April 11, 2003): But, aside from his decision to confront the abuse, Thomas McLaughlin is not unique. For many GLBT kids, walking into school means confronting harassment in the halls, accompanied by the certainty that the adults in charge will do nothing to stop it. Mainly, the assaults are verbal. As Thomas puts it, "just mostly calling names, like 'queer,' 'fag,' stuff like that." His approach was to "just ignore them." Occasionally, the attacks were worse. Once, he says, "This one guy spit on me and one of my friends. We reported it to the office. The assistant principal was supposed to suspend him [the spitter] for five days. He only suspended him for one."
..... Joseph Powell, then a student at Sylvan Hills High School, didn't see the brick coming. His attacker struck from behind, sending Powell, now 23, to the hospital with a concussion.
The attack at Hall High School was different. Jeana Huie, now 18 and a dropout, saw the girls coming. She recalls them slowly surrounding her, shoving, taunting, calling her "dyke" and "bitch." They pushed her into the boys' restroom and knocked her to the floor. "This is where you belong," they said.
Powell and Huie are among the growing number of high school students, in Arkansas and nationally, who are daring to identify themselves as other than heterosexual. In doing so, they find themselves - often alone and undefended - on a cultural battlefield. [...] Though Joseph Powell did not instigate the attack that sent him to the hospital, he - though not his attacker - was sent to another school. Huie, in a decision she now regrets, dropped out of school altogether rather than brave its halls again.
Attack on Judicial Nominee Leads Senate Panel to Delay Vote (NY Times, April 10, 2003, registration required): The Republican majority on the Senate Judiciary Committee delayed a vote today on an Arkansas lawyer's nomination to the federal bench, after Democrats attacked his writings on religion, abortion and the role of women. The delay, requested by Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, was an unusual step for the committee's Republicans, who generally unite firmly behind President Bush's nominees. This 52-year-old nominee, James Leon Holmes, former president of Arkansas Right to Life, seeks a seat on the Federal District Court in Little Rock, his hometown. Dr. Holmes, whose nomination was sent to the Senate in January, holds a Ph.D. in political science from Duke University and graduated first in his class at the University of Arkansas School of Law, where he is now an adjunct professor. An editorial in The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette called him a "superbly qualified nominee" and an "outstanding lawyer, working scholar and eminent spirit among us."
But Democratic senators said today that whatever Dr. Holmes's professional and scholarly credentials, some of his writings warranted concern, particularly with regard to equality for women. One example the Democrats cited was a 1997 article that Dr. Holmes and his wife, Susan, wrote for a newspaper, Arkansas Catholic, about men, women and Roman Catholicism. The article said that "the wife is to subordinate herself to her husband" and that "the woman is to place herself under the authority of the man" in the same way that "the church is to place herself under the protection of Christ." The same article went on to say, "It is not a coincidence that the feminist movement brought with it artificial contraception and abortion on demand, with recognition of homosexual liaisons soon to follow."
So, thus far, we have two outright and continuing filibusters with Owen and Estrada, and a nomination hearing delayed by the Republicans with Holmes.
At this rate, if ever the White House sends forward someone who isn't a thoroughgoing ideologue, the Senate may well fall over itself confirming them, in the sheer relief at seeing someone generally acceptable. Of course, there's no sign that the White House is changing course, so one expects that there may be ideologue after ideologue tramping up the Hill to be sat on.
I must admit, I am moderately astonished that the president would send forward a person with that sort of published record. Anyone with a shred of sense would realize that the person was going to run into a buzzsaw, even before the Owen and Estrada nominations ran into trouble.
Posted by iain at 01:03 PM
Charlotte Observer | 04/03/2003 | Baptism pool lures grimy soldiers: In this dry desert world near Najaf, where the Army 5th Corps combat support system sprawls across miles of scabrous dust, there's an oasis of sorts: a 500-gallon pool of pristine, cool water. It belongs to Army chaplain Josh Llano of Houston, who sees the water shortage -- which has kept thousands of filthy soldiers from bathing for weeks -- as an opportunity. "It's simple. They want water. I have it, as long as they agree to get baptized," he said. And agree they do. Every day, soldiers take the plunge for the Lord and come up clean for the first time in weeks. "They do appear physically and spiritually cleansed," Llano said. First, though, the soldiers have to go to one of Llano's hour-and-a-half sermons in his dirt-floor tent. Then the baptism takes an hour of quoting from the Bible. [...] Earlier this week, word went out that portable showers might be installed here soon, but Llano was undaunted. "There is no fruit out here, and I have a stash of raisins, juice boxes and fruit rolls to pull out," he said optimistically.
Leaving aside how unspeakably vile this man is .. one wonders if he realizes just how damaging this could be to the cause he professes. After all, how attracted will decent people be to a religion that attracts converts using this type of petty extortion?
To be sure, a bath under these circumstances is not an absolute necessity. And I should imagine that the military does make certain that its soldiers aren't suffering from scurvy, so the fruits won't be any sort of necessity either. Nonetheless, the army cannot possibly be well-pleased with this chaplain; not only is he practicing a sort of religious blackmail on their soldiers ... but he's also giving them an impressive set of bad publicity. On top of everything else, he's the army chaplain. It would be one thing if he were some sort of camp follower, taking advantage of an opportunity (not that CENTCOM would let him, in that case, but that's beside the point), but he's supposed to minister to spiritual needs only if asked. He's not supposed to force it on people in exchange for baths. I'm rather surprised that Command hasn't ordered him to behave. Apparently, religious blackmail doesn't bother them much.
Posted by iain at 11:34 AM
Airstrike targets senior Iraqi officials (CNN, April 7, 2003): The U.S. military dropped a "large amount of ordnance" on a building in a residential neighborhood of Baghdad on Monday based on "time-sensitive intelligence" that some senior Iraqi officials, possibly including Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his two sons, were there, U.S. officials said early Tuesday. U.S. Central Command said that at 3 p.m. [7 a.m. EDT], a B-1 bomber dropped four 2,000-pound bombs equipped with JDAM guidance systems on the target. The building was destroyed.
You know ... I understand, somewhat, that our government is suffering from an almost Oedipal obsession with this war. I mean, I don't understand the obsession itself, but I understand that they are obsessed.
But ... they just dropped four bunkerbusters on a residential neighborhood in Baghdad in an attempt to get Hussein and his sons. Even if they got him, they most assuredly killed many more innocent civilians to do so.
I suppose, considering as the noncombattant death toll is probably well over a couple thousand throughout Iraq, that asking them to have anything resembling a sense of proportion would be ridiculous. Certainly at this point of things, anyway. But still ...
Rumsfeld: Plans for new Iraq unfolding (CNN, April 7, 2003): Casting Saddam Hussein as an increasingly irrelevant figure, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Monday the Iraqi leader "no longer runs much of Iraq" and that plans for a new Iraq are unfolding. [...] U.S. plans call for a civilian administration, headed by retired Gen. Jay Garner, to help with the transition to a new Iraqi government. "It has currently moved from the United States to Kuwait, and it will eventually move to Iraq," Rumsfeld said of that effort. Under the interim authority, a group of approved Iraqis will run non-controversial government agencies, such as the agriculture ministry, according to Pentagon officials. That authority will also work on new laws and establishing an electoral process. The United States, Rumsfeld said, does not want to impose a government on the Iraqi people. [.....]
Now, let me get this straight-ish. The US does not want to impose a government on the Iraqi people. Therefore, the assumption is that, given free choice, the Iraqi people would choose to be governed first by an American general, working through Iraqi puppets ... er, pardon, working through "a group of approved Iraqis [running] non-controversial government agencies". Moreover, the assumption is that, having spent much in men and materiel to accomplish ... whatever it is that they've accomplished, the US would be willing to sit back and tolerate the Islamist and stridently anti-American government that would almost certainly be elected were the Iraqis to be allowed free rein -- or free reign, as the case may be. (Well, let's face it: if we were to be allowed to choose a government after someone had just bombed the crap out of us, one suspects that it might be hostile to those who did the bombing, yes?)
Right. Sure. Lotsa people out there who believe that one, I'm sure.
Both irony-impaired (Operation Iraqi Freedom, my big fat black ass) and honesty-impaired, this administration is.
Blair to press Bush on UN role in Iraq (The Scotsman, April 8, 2003): GEORGE Bush, the United States president, arrived in Belfast last night for a two-day summit with Tony Blair to take stock of the war and try to resolve differences over the reconstruction of Iraq post-Saddam Hussein. [...] Mr Blair hopes to hammer out a compromise with Mr Bush, giving the United Nations a prominent, but not leading, role in rebuilding post-war Iraq. The Prime Minister is confident he can persuade the president to return to the UN for a new resolution, despite the bruising experience of trying to win Security Council backing for military action. Downing Street said the principles of UN involvement had been agreed. "There are practical, common-sense issues that have to be sorted out and we will approach this in a practical and common-sense way," said Mr Blair’s spokesman .
TO: Tony Blair, Prime Minister, Britain
FROM: George H. W. Bush, President, United States
RE: Iraq
Tony:
If you seriously think that you can persuade this administration to go back to the UN for another resolution on Iraq, you are smoking some truly epic crack.
Could you give some of that crack to Colin Powell? It might help him get a bit less upset about being hung out to dry on such a very regular basis. (Actually, I think he may have gotten into the stash a while ago. He seems to think that there is actually some chance that we'll hand over things to a nongovernmental organization or -- HA! -- the UN. Maybe he's been hanging out with you a little too long.)
Sincerely,
George.
Posted by iain at 12:31 AM
Things can only get better ... I hope.
Prison Rates Among Blacks Reach a Peak, Report Finds (NY Times, April 7, 2003, registration required): An estimated 12 percent of African-American men ages 20 to 34 are in jail or prison, according to a report released yesterday by the Justice Department. The proportion of young black men who are incarcerated has been rising in recent years, and this is the highest rate ever measured, said Allen J. Beck, the chief prison demographer for the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the statistical arm of the Justice Department. By comparison, 1.6 percent of white men in the same age group are incarcerated. The report found that the number of people in United States jails and prisons exceeded 2 million for the first time last year, rising to 2,019,234.
Over the next few years, I would expect that the number of people in prisons will drop slowly. Not because of any change in actual social policy or thought, but because states simply can't afford to imprison people for comparatively minor nonviolent offenses any more.
Interestingly, the article uses the issue of black men in prison as its lead, and then doesnt mention that aspect again until the end.
Mr. Beck said that the 12 percent of black men in their 20's and early 30's in jail or prison was "a very dramatic number, very significant." That is just the rate on a given day, Mr. Beck said. Over the course of a lifetime, the rates are much higher, he said. The Bureau of Justice Statistics has calculated that 28 percent of black men will be sent to jail or prison in their lifetime.
And yet, somehow, the nation remains serenely unconcerned about the fact that nearly 30 percent of one group will be sent to prison, or the reasons why that should be so. Even if you accept the argument that blacks simply commit more crimes than others, it simply beggars understanding that the difference between blacks and whites would be that sharp. Either whites are not being caught for a great many crimes which they commit, or a great many blacks are being incarcerated for crimes that they did not, in fact, commit. Both of the latter explanations probably apply.
The actual report itself is fascinating, in a sort of appalling way. For example:
- what on earth is going on in Rhode Island that it experienced a 17+% increase in its prison population in one year?
- What precisely does account for the sharply variant incarceration rates among the states?
- Why are overall 60% of inmates minorities? That would seem statistically rather improbable.
- How is it that the majority of inmates in jails have only been charged, and not convicted? Do conviction rates really drop that sharply from charges? If so, perhaps that would indicate something about the ways in which people are charged with crimes.
- How is it that Los Angeles, with far fewer overall people than New York City, outranks it in the numbers of people imprisoned, and what on earth is going on in Phoenix to put it at number 4 when it is far down the list in overall population?
Of course, all of those are questions of social policy, what is important (or not) to us as a society, and we are not, at the moment, minded to look at those things too closely.
Pity.
Posted by iain at 01:27 PM
Are Scott, Carly and Larry risking time at Camp X-Ray? (The Register, Posted: 01/04/2003 at 12:01 GMT): Making a charitable donation could find you in Camp X-Ray. Scott McNealy, Larry Ellison and Carly Fiorina, please note, you've been doing it too. As we'll explain. And you could be at risk too, dear reader: if it's the wrong charity ... at the wrong time.
Take the case of senior Intel Engineer Maher Mofied 'Mike' Hawash. Hawash has been arrested on undisclosed charges and detained. He has not been accused of any wrongdoing, but owes his loss of liberty - and constitutional rights - because he has detained as a "material witness" on the grounds of giving to a charity. Senior Intel VP Stephen McGeady - a guy with very cool timing, as we recall from the Microsoft antitrust trial - has rallied to his support:- "Americans are taught that the Constitution protects us against arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, and that our freedom and these constitutional liberties are what we are fighting for in Iraq and elsewhere," McGeady wrote to the Oregonian. "Yet one of our neighbors can be taken from his home or office and held without charge for weeks or months."
Think this is a particularly unique situation?
Drawing the line between asylum seekers and safety (Christian Science Monitor, April 03, 2003): At the same moment President Bush ordered troops into Iraq, he also tightened requirements on those seeking entrance into the United States. Refugees from 33 nations with possible links to the Al Qaeda terrorist organization now will automatically be held in confinement when they request asylum upon arriving in the US. [....] "It's two-faced for the administration to declare war on Iraq in the name of liberating Iraqi people and at the same time jail them when they come here escaping human rights abuses," says Wendy Young of the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children in Washington. The new US approach to screening refugees from the 33 "blacklisted" countries is likely to come as a rude shock to people fleeing them. They are expecting a sympathetic ear - not months in a jail.
That was true for Ali Abbod, who asked that his real name not be used to protect his family in Iraq. Mr. Abbod expected the US would surely grant him asylum after he fled Iraq via Syria and China in the summer of 1999, arriving in Los Angeles in November. His hopes were riding on America's longtime opposition to Saddam Hussein's regime. Abbod told US officials he had been imprisoned and tortured in Iraq because of his religious beliefs. Despite a dentist's report that Abbod likely had been tortured several times, the former engineer was held in federal detention facilities near Los Angeles for 16 months before his plea for asylum was officially rejected. He was shocked by what had happened, he says. He is appealing the decision and is now living in the Los Angeles area. "When I leave China, I had other choice," says Abbod, who over the past four years has learned to speak broken English. "It's easy to me to go to Canada, easy to me to go to Europe, but I choose United States because I believe 100 percent I will get asylum." Abbod's request was rejected, say his lawyers, because the judge who heard his case did not believe his story. While Abbod's detention was unusually long, it occurred at the discretion of a federal official. Under the new policy, refugees like Abbod will face prolonged detention - without exception. Before the latest change, most detentions lasted up to six months.
From Baghdad to Brooklyn: Immigrants Brace for Backlash but Fear Alerting NYPD (Village Voice, April 2-8, 2003): ..... "Why did you place the bomb?" "What will cause it to explode?" "Where is the bomb?" These are some of the questions on a "bomb threat checklist" that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) recommends mosques and other Muslim, Arab, and South Asian community organizations keep posted near their phones in the increasingly likely case that someone rings up with a threat. The idea is to keep the caller on the line as long as possible, take down a detailed description of the voice, and quite possibly save some lives. The checklist is part of a "safety kit" that CAIR began distributing to mosques and Islamic centers across the country last week as the war on Iraq began producing the "collateral damage" of hate crimes at home. Panic is running high in communities that saw murders, arson, assaults, and countless acts of violence after 9-11—and that are now hearing anti-Muslim vitriol spill out of right-wing radio as it cheers on the war. [...] over the last year and a half, immigrants from Muslim, Arab, and South Asian backgrounds have had ample reason to become wary of anyone in a uniform. First, the post-9-11 sweeps in Muslim and Arab neighborhoods that resulted in thousands of detentions and deportations seemed to contradict the president's official condemnation of hate crimes immediately following the twin tower attacks. The roundups were experienced as racial profiling of the lowest order, tearing apart families and disrupting whole communities. In a category of incidents not compiled by the FBI—"FBI/Police/INS intimidation"—CAIR counted 224 reported cases. Then came "special registration," the requirement that non-immigrant visitors from countries deemed to be of the "highest terrorism risk" report to INS offices to be photographed and fingerprinted. The program has decimated neighborhoods like Midwood, Brooklyn, which has seen hundreds of breadwinners detained because of visa violations, and hundreds more trying to flee to Canada. And now, the federal government has reported a war contingency plan to enlist the Joint Terrorism Task Force—which includes state and local police, among them the NYPD—in selectively targeting thousands of Iraqi and other immigrants for interviews and investigations. FBI officials have repeatedly stated that anyone found in immigration violation during these sweeps will be detained. "People are really afraid," says Ahmad Razvi, a co-director of the Council of Pakistan Organization, a community center in Midwood founded in the wake of 9-11. "FBI, INS, police—they've gone to businesses and homes in this neighborhood conducting raids. Why would our people trust them?"
People are now subject to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment. The material witness statutes have been grossly abused. The government resists allowing detainees to see their lawyers, even when they are American citizens arrested on American soil. The government issues federal gag orders to prevent people from discussing their imprisonment and reasons wherefore. Refugees fleeing arbitrary torture and imprisonment abroad come here, only to face even more arbitrary imprisonment -- and given that most of them are sent to federal prisons and kept with career criminals, probably further torture, as well, if not quite state-administered. Immigrants are required to register and are targed for expulsion based purely on their country of origin, a type of discrimination long thought unconstitutional.
One wonders whether, in their limitless zeal to perform this task they have given themselves, this government simply does not believe that we the people are any longer entitled to the protections offered by the constitution. Or rather, one wonders precisely which people the government believes are entitled to its protections. One suspects that it would only be members of the government, and those who loudly, vociferously and oh so very publicly support its policies.
One also wonders, precisely, what it is that the government believes it is doing.
FBI jails ex-Intel worker (San Francisco Chronicle, Wedhesday, April 2, 2003): ..... Hawash was picked up by FBI agents at about 7 a.m. on March 20 as he arrived at the parking lot for his job at Intel's Hawthorne Farms office in Hillsboro, Ore., said Steven McGeady, Hawash's former boss and friend, in a telephone interview with The Chronicle on Tuesday. At about the same time, armed federal agents wearing bullet-proof vests stormed into Hawash's home and seized his computers and files, said McGeady, who spoke with Lisa Hawash about the incident. Hawash's wife and their three young children were asleep when authorities arrived at their home, McGeady said. "Lisa wasn't taken into custody, but they seized all their computers, files and left her with a grand jury subpoena," he said. Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said FBI agents also have searched Hawash's cubicle and computer system at work. Although Lisa Hawash has been able to visit her husband a couple of times a week, neither of them has been told by authorities why he is being detained, McGeady said.
Arab-American held two weeks in Oregon without charges (Sacramento Bee, April 3, 2003): Dressed in flak jackets and armed with assault rifles, FBI agents surrounded Maher "Mike" Hawash in an Intel Corp. parking lot while another heavily armed FBI team swept through his suburban home.
Two weeks later, the Intel contractor sits in a federal prison in solitary confinement, strip-searched every time he leaves and re-enters his cell for an hour of exercise, his friends say. The father of three has not been charged with any crime. "They haven't even questioned him once in the entire two weeks," said Steven McGeady, a former Intel executive who was Hawash's boss. [....] Material witness laws were intended only to ensure testimony, not to hold people indefinitely, said Phil Heymann, a Harvard law professor. "It was not meant to be used this way," Heymann said, noting that the number of material witness detentions has increased since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack. The Justice Department has declined requests from The Associated Press and other media to release figures on witness detentions linked to terrorism investigations. But The Washington Post interviewed defense attorneys around the nation and found at least 44 people being held by the federal government - an unprecedented number, Heymann said. "Under this interpretation, any one of us could easily be treated as a material witness - anybody who is suspected of anything, it could be the slightest of suspicion," Heymann said.
Why, if you are detaining someone as a material witness, you would hold them all this time without asking them one question -- not one single solitary question -- about what it is they are supposed to testify about.
To be sure, some states are beginning to protest government actions. However, since they are nonbinding resolutions, to date, they are protests without teeth.
How many of these choices the government has made will later be found to have been abuses of power, for which we will pay? We will pay, make no mistake. We will pay both financially -- this sort of abuse of discretion invites and demands lawsuits -- and in an increased and deserved lack of trust in the various institutions of our government. After all, it's quite clear that the Justice Department can no longer be counted on to enforce even an elementary version of "justice", whatever that might be. It's also clear that the Justice Department is serving the needs of the administration; why should we then trust the administration? Many immigrants now feel that they cannot trust either the government or the police; how long will it be before many of them start taking justice and retribution into their own hands, because they feel that there is simply no other way? How long until that spreads?
One wonders whether this government has lost sight of the concept that it may not be worth protecting the people of this society with such passion that you gut the principles on which the society itself is based. What profits us to retain the document containing the Bill of Rights if we no longer retain the rights contained therein?
Posted by iain at 12:59 PM
Petitioner ends battle over same-sex divorce (The Beaumont Enterprise, 04/02/2003): A state judge here signed a non-suit Monday on a controversial same-sex divorce, ending a debate over whether the divorce was legal under Texas law. Russell Smith of Beaumont, who first called for the divorce, voluntarily withdrew his petition. The other man, John Anthony, also of Beaumont, did not object. Judge Tom Mulvaney of the 279th District Court signed the non-suit Monday. This effectively ends a battle between local lawyers and the Texas Attorney General's Office over whether the divorce is lawful in Texas. The two Beaumont men were joined in civil union under Vermont law in February 2002. An uncontested divorce was granted in early March, but was later vacated by Judge Mulvaney after Attorney General Greg Abbott intervened. Lawyers for the two men contended that the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which requires states to recognize marriages performed in other states, applied also to the civil union.
An unsurprising result, really. I expect that the men thought about how far they wanted to take this, how much it would cost, how long it would take, and decided that it just wasn't worth it to them to make the point for someone else. Since all of ther other connections would have to be separately and legally dissolved in any event, getting an actual divorce would only be symbolic for them.
I'd also imagine that the chief judicial administrators for the district yelled at Judge Mulvaney rather a lot after that decision.
Of course, they are right about the Full Faith and Credit Clause. Article IV, Section 1 of the Constitution actually reads: Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof. In short, it applies to all public acts, records, and proceedings, not just marriage between one man and one woman.
Eventually, of course, someone will have the endurance and bloody-mindedness to take this issue all the way to the Supreme Court. I don't expect that the court will ever rule on it, though; if it seriously looks like it's going up that high, the Federal Marriage Amendment will almost certainly make its way out of the various committees it's been locked up in, and it will pass. It shouldn't -- it's a national admission of bigotry, after all -- but it will.
My, what a lot of things seem to be happening in Texas recently.
Posted by iain at 12:14 PM
Judicial Nominee Distances Herself From Past Positions (NY Times, April 2, 2003, registration required): Carolyn B. Kuhl, President Bush's nominee to a federal appeals court, faced a withering barrage of questions from Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee today and responded that many of her staunch conservative positions over the years were not relevant to her being a judge. Judge Kuhl, now in State Superior Court in Los Angeles, regretted and distanced herself from several of those positions she took as a lawyer, saying she was merely an advocate for her clients. As to the times during her state judgeship when she was pointedly reversed, she told the committee that she was grateful to have had the issue clarified and would surely rule that way in the future. [...] Judge Kuhl told the committee that she was wrong to have argued vigorously as a lawyer in the Reagan Justice Department that the administration reverse a longstanding policy and provide tax-exempt status to Bob Jones University, despite its racial discrimination. [...] She said that she was a young lawyer at the time and did not realize that it was the obligation of the Justice Department to defend rulings like the one made by the Internal Revenue Service on the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University.
So let me get this straight-ish: a government employed lawyer did not realize that it was the job of government employed lawyers to defend the positions of the government.
Well, all-righty, then!
To be sure, that's somewhat facile. After all, if said government lawyer believes that the government's position is wrong, it's certainly her job to advocate that the position be changed. (And, to be quite honest, I suspect that she's right when she notes that the revenue service could use the authority it used against Bob Jones University to end tax-exempt status at women's colleges. I wonder how she'll feel when various conservative groups start going after them. After all, given the attacks on affirmative action, they have to be up there on the radar screen. But I digress.) That said ... surely any government lawyer, no matter how young and new, would realize the utter political disaster that would await once you put the government on the side of racial discrimination.
Leaving that aside, one also wonders about the discretion of a judge that brings her own religion into a hearing. Not only was it utterly irrelevant to the issue at hand, not only was it utterly inappropriate to discuss religious matters as such during a confirmation hearing, but pointing out that her religious beliefs could have any bearing on her positions is just plain stupid. It would indicate that she would consciously allow her religious positions to have some effect on her judicial opinions; why on earth would you want to make that point so noticeable?
One wonders why Bush isn't trying to appoint people whose judicial and legal qualifications are so apparent that even a hostile Senate would have to allow them through. After all, that's how Scalia managed to get through a Democrat-controlled Senate, for heaven's sake, even though everybody knew that his opinions were very conservative. By aiming for people with relatively little on the record, he's simply not helping his cause. (Of course, it may well be that such people are looking at the confirmation process and deciding that they absolutely do not need to deal with that political mess, in which case their core sensibility would be confirmed.)
Posted by iain at 11:57 AM
HoustonChronicle.com - Judge urges throwing out Tulia drug convictions (April 2, 2003, 9:56AM): The 13 Tulia residents still serving time after being arrested in a controversial drug bust four years ago may soon be free. A judge reviewing four of the cases for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said Tuesday he will recommend that all the convictions resulting from the bust be vacated because of the conduct of the lone undercover officer working for the Panhandle Drug Task Force. "It is stipulated by all parties and approved by the court that Tom Coleman is simply not a credible witness," said retired state District Judge Ron Chapman of Dallas.
Chapman said he will recommend that the appeals court grant new trials to all 38 defendants, most of whom are black -- a fact that led to charges the sting was racially motivated. However, Ron Hobson, a special prosecutor assigned to help Swisher County with the cases, said that because the state had stipulated that Coleman was not credible, it will not try the defendants again. "If the appeals court sends them back, we'll dismiss them," he said. "It would be foolish for us to go forward."
Jeff Blackburn, an Amarillo attorney who has worked for the past three years appealing the cases of two of the defendants, described Tuesday as "a big day."
"It's not over, but it's a strong beginning toward total victory," he said. "Now we need to use this to bring the real wrong-doers to the bar of justice." Several family members of those convicted were in the courtroom in Tulia on Tuesday, when the hearings were supposed to resume with more testimony from Coleman. Instead, the judge announced that the state had come around to the defendant's argument: Coleman could not be believed.
"I am so happy," said Mattie White, whose two sons, two daughters and one son-in-law were arrested in the sting. Three of them are still behind bars. "I keep saying they'll be home in two months. I don't know how long these things take, but I keep saying two months."
The appeals court could reject Chapman's recommendation, forcing the defendants to continue the fight in federal court, Blackburn said, but "we're feeling real optimistic."
I can't imagine why on earth the appeals court would reject the recommendation, given that it's going to be supported by both the prosecution and the defense, and the prosecution has already stated that it won't retry the case.
So after four years, several trials, several convictions -- and one wonders about those jurors, one really does -- and some people who have already served their sentences and been released ... it may all just go away. After all these people were charged and convicted, the state says, "Ooops! Sorry!"
Finally, good news for 13 from Tulia, By THOM MARSHALL (Houston Chronicle, April 1, 2003, 9:33PM): DEAR TULIA 13,
Good news. Although you don't need to pack your suitcases just yet, it looks like you finally may be set free.
I know I haven't written you since last summer, but I wanted to wait until there was something good to report. Also, I hope you don't mind my printing this letter here because it'll get delivered much quicker this way to all the different prisons across the state where you are being held.
Your lawyers probably already told all of you that the special judge who was brought in to review the evidence that landed you behind bars four years ago is going to recommend to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that you be released.
According to the story that broke on Tuesday, he will recommend that all 38 cases based upon the word of a lone, itinerant, undercover drug task force cop be vacated. That includes the 13 of you still in prison. If the appeals court goes along with the recommendation, yours and all those other jury convictions and plea bargain arrangements will be tossed out the window.....
Media Relations: scare tactics redux/ April 1, 2003
Posted by iain at 09:10 PM
