Law

Via Steve’s No Direction Home Page: Apparently presidential wiretapping is frowned upon–when it’s done by Clinton. Some of the reader comments are hilarious, viz.: “Any chance of Bush rolling some of this back?" “As quietly as possible (although it sometimes breaks out into the open, usually with the sound of gunfire and the death of innocents), a “shadow government” has been set up all around us my friend. It’s foundation is not the constitution, but Executive Orders, Presidential Procalamations, Secret Acts, and Emergency Powers." “This is wherein the danger lies in the precedent set by the Clinton criminal administration. God only knows who will be in power next, but there are no checks and balances anymore. This is exactly the SORT of thing I’ve been protesting all along. Libs just don’t see this!" ...

A “Terrorism” bill in UK Parliament, as amended in the House of Lords on January 25, 2006, looks like it could have considerable impact on ISPs. The first section of the bill, titled “Encouragement of terrorism,” makes it a crime to publish a statement or cause another to publish a statement with the intended effect (or with recklessness to the possibility of such an effect) of directly or indirectly encouraging members of the public “to commit, prepare or instigate acts of terrorism or Convention offences.” “Indirect encouragement” means “the making of a statement describing terrorism in such a way that the listener would infer that he should emulate it." The second section of the bill, titled “Dissemination of terrorist publications,” is more problematic. It makes it a crime to disseminate terrorist publications “with the intention of directly or indirectly encouraging or inducing the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, or of providing information with a view to its use in the commission or preparation of such acts” (or with recklessness to the possibility of such an effect). The definition of “dissemination of terrorist publications” is extremely broad, and includes those who “provide a service to others that enables them to obtain, read, listen to, or look at such a publication, or to acquire it by means of a gift, sale, or loan” and anyone who “transmits the content of such a publication electronically” or “has such a publication in possession with a view to its becoming the subject of conduct” falling within any of the preceding sections (including transmission). This means that mere possession of such material isn’t a crime, but possession with intent to transmit (e.g., hosting or having it in a location shared via P2P) is a crime, as is the transmission itself (if done with intent or recklessness). The proposed statute provides that someone accused of this crime has an affirmative defense by showing that the material does not express their views and did not have their endorsement and that it was “clear, in all circumstances of the conduct” that those two conditions were met–except in the case of a notification from a constable in section 3 (which applies sections 1 and 2 to “Internet activity”). This notification provision is similar in many respects to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in the United States–if a constable provides notification to a “relevant person” that he is hosting “terrorist publications,” that person has two working days to take down the material, or else it is then deemed to have endorsed the publication (unless they have a “reasonable excuse” for their failure to take it down). Unlike the DMCA, there is no counter-notice provision. The section about Internet activity doesn’t define how the constable determines who to notify, or who is responsible for material located downstream of an ISP. If providers are responsible for anything downstream, then this could force an upstream provider to blackhole a server IP that provides many websites to many customers because of illicit content provided by one person. It’s also not clear whether a provider could be held responsible for material that it transmits but does not host–in which case this would force ISPs operating in the UK into acting as managed content filtering service providers for the UK government any time a constable designates online material as a “terrorist publication." The offense carries a maximum prison sentence of seven years. ...

Security and cryptography expert Bruce Schneier gave a talk yesterday to the ACLU Washington’s membership conference at which he argued that massive automated wiretapping generates too many false alarms to be useful, as described in the Seattle Times. As a commenter on Schneier’s blog notes, mathematician John Allen Paulos (author of Innumeracy and A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market, both of which I highly recommend), writing in a New York Times op-ed titled “Panning for Terrorists,” makes the same point. The problem is essentially the same one that makes it pointless to engage in programs of blanket drug-testing of grade school children or mandatory HIV testing in order to obtain a marriage license–the population being tested contains such a small number of people who meet the criteria being tested for, which means that even a highly accurate test returns vastly more false positives than true positives. Paulos points out that a 99-percent-accurate sorting mechanism for detecting terrorist conversations, on a population of 300 million Americans that includes one-in-a-million with terrorist ties (300) will identify 297 of them, along with 3 million innocent Americans. That’s 297 true positives and 3 million false positives, producing a new sample population that is .009% terrorists and 99.99% innocent Americans who may be wrongly investigated.

While we’re legislating what abortion facilities must tell patients about fetal pain, how about also requiring them to tell them that fetuses aborted before the “age of accountability” are guaranteed entry to heaven, while those which are born who grow up to reach such an age may end up spending eternity in hell (not to mention that such unwanted children may be more likely to become criminals)?

Sam Coppersmith complains that legislators seeking restrictions on eminent domain abuse are wasting their time (and apparently that they are trying to create a diversion from other more important issues). Sure, Arizona has better protections in place than most states (as demonstrated by the decisions in Bailey v. Myers (link is a PDF) and City of Tempe v. Valentine) , but why is it any surprise that there is extensive support for expanding such protections in the aftermath of the Kelo decision? The failure of his column to even mention that decision strikes me as disingenuous. The Castle Coalition and the Institute for Justice have very strong grassroots support on this issue, and it’s not a partisan issue.

The two major skeptical organizations in the U.S.–Michael Shermer’s Skeptics Society and Paul Kurtz’s Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) (or, actually, its parent organization, the Center for Inquiry)–have both decided to use combatting the threat of Intelligent Design as a major platform of their most recent fundraising campaigns. The Skeptics Society sent out a card-sized folded mailing with a photo of Darwin on the front with the caption “Help us keep religion out of the science classroom!” The inside reported on recent events, such as Cardinal Schonborn’s New York Times piece that the Discovery Institute and their PR agency, Creative Response Concepts, helped arrange. It continues with facts about the amount of funding the Discovery Institute receives, quotes from Phillip Johnson, William Dembski, and Jonathan Wells, Harris and Pew poll results showing the general public’s ignorance on evolution. So how will collected funds be used to combat Intelligent Design? Apparently Shermer has a new book coming out this year titled Why Darwin Matters: Evolution, Design, and the Battle for Science and Religion (Henry Holt/Times Books), copies of which will be sent “to every Congressman, Senator, and Governor in America, along with the relevant state boards of education, and state legislative bodies contemplating passing pro-creationist legislation.” That doesn’t strike me as a particularly productive way to combat ID–I suspect most of the recipients will not read the book. There are other bullet items listed–publication of “a special volume of essays on evolution and Intelligent Design creationism collected from the pages of Skeptic magazine, to be published by the Skeptics Society and widely distributed to science teachers throughout America to give them the intellectual tools they need to deal with ID and creationism.” Another is to “distribute free copies to teachers” of the existing booklet How to Debate a Creationist. That sounds much more worthwhile, though I think that it would be more productive to give teachers tools like Eugenie Scott’s Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction and Mark Isaak’s Counter-Creationism Handbook (the online version of which is here–some of the best teacher and student resources are already free and online). The bonuses for contributors include a free book from a selection of six for $100 “Supporters” (In Darwin’s Shadow by Tim Callahan is the only one that appears directly relevant to the topic). $500 “sponsors” get a free 3-year subscription to Skeptic; $1000 “benefactors” get two free tickets to the 2006 Skeptics Society conference on “The Environmental Wars”; and $5000 “patrons” get dinner with Shermer and “a world-renowned scientist (to be announced)” and a private tour of Mt. Wilson’s 100-inch telescope and use of the 60-inch telescope, along with the gifts the other levels get. The Center for Inquiry sent out a more elaborate package, including a DVD presentation promoting the “New Future Fund,” a campaign to raise $26.6 million, “the largest sum ever raised in the name of humanism, skepticism, and scientific naturalism.” The four major goals for the use of the money are “Legal Activism,” “Opposing Creationism/Intelligent Design,” “Transnational Development,” and “Outreach and Education.” The second item, “Opposing Creationism/Intelligent Design,” discusses Intelligent Design, and says that “CSICOP is fighting back, mobilizing grassroots outreach and expert scientists when ID proposals threaten. We’re especially aggressive online, publishing a stable of online columnists and a dynamic new website, Creation & Intelligent Design Watch.” The website has a pretty substantial amount of content, with the November/December Skeptical Inquirer (a special issue on “Evolution and the ID Wars”) as the centerpiece (along with other CSICOP-related articles, including many of Chris Mooney’s Doubt and About articles), links to items appropriate for classroom use on the left side, and links to current news stories on the right side. Now, I’m all in favor of a diversity of approaches to promote critical thinking and combat Intelligent Design’s political actions, but everyone should keep in mind that the two organizations actually doing the most in this arena are the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), which is the only organization devoted entirely to fighting creationism and promoting accurate teaching about evolution, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has provided the legal support for every major creation/evolution courtroom battle. By all means support the Skeptics Society and Center for Inquiry’s programs, but if Intelligent Design is a concern, please be sure to support the NCSE and ACLU.

The ACLU has filed a lawsuit against the NSA asking for an injunction against warrantless interception of communications to international destinations. The plaintiffs include James Bamford (author of The Puzzle Palace, Body of Secrets, and A Pretext for War), Christopher Hitchens, Greenpeace, Larry Diamond of the Hoover Institution, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and others.

I make no claim to have accurate gaydar, but did anybody see the video of Sam Alito walking down the street in D.C. (shown as the “moment of zen” on the Daily Show, Thursday, January 12) and not think he appeared to be a gay man (of the closeted, married variety)? Apparently he does have a gay-friendly past. Of course, he defended privacy rights back then, too. Unfortunately, closeted gay conservatives of the Roy Cohn and Terry Dolan variety are not generally good for the country…

Grass Collective makes “moving art” which includes a DVD of Los Angeles traffic at nighttime. It’s pretty hypnotic. (Hat tip to BLDGBLOG.) Historical Comments Einzige (2006-12-09): Would that Google Earth looked that cool!:)

John Yoo publicly argued there is no law that could prevent the President from ordering the torture of a child of a suspect in custody - including by crushing that child's testicles.John Yoo is one of the primary legal advisors to George W. Bush, responsible for legal reasoning to justify torture, warrantless wiretapping, and virtually anything else the president feels is necessary. Here's the exchange with Yoo, from a December 1, 2005 debate in Chicago with Notre Dame professor Doug Cassel: Cassel: If the President deems that he's got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person's child, there is no law that can stop him? Yoo: No treaty. Cassel: Also no law by Congress. That is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo. Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.More description and a link to an audio clip here.