Law

America’s Blog has brought up a story that was published in the mainstream media last year (in the Washington Post) and a few days ago (in the Chicago Sun-Times) but which for some reason hasn’t resulted in an uproar. The story is that there are sites on the Internet from which you can purchase copies of calling records for cell phones and land lines, such as Locatecell.com. John in DC, who runs America’s Blog, purchased his own cell phone records, and indeed got a list of all the numbers he had called. Cingular thinks this is an “infinitesimally small problem” for them. How are sites such as Locatecell getting their information? They could be purchasing it from insiders, they are no doubt using “pretexting” (social engineering) to persuade customer support representatives to give them the information, or gaining access to customer account information via the web (Verizon Wireless had another major security hole in their online billing system last year, similar to one in 2001 which they took two weeks to act upon). Whichever mechanisms are used, it is clear that privacy is being violated and likely that laws are being broken, yet there seems to be little visible interest on the part of the telephone companies in going after the criminals–perhaps because doing so might expose how poorly they are securing the information. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has a good collection of material on this issue here. (Updated January 9: They filed a case against Bestpeoplesearch.com, which admits to using “pretexting” as their method to obtain the information.) (Thanks to cowmix for bringing this to my attention.) ...

The Boston Globe reports that the “signing statement” issued by George W. Bush after signing the bill outlawing the torture of detainees contains caveats that indicate that the restrictions in the law can be bypassed in situations where he sees fit. Bush seems to be under the impression that executive powers granted to him as president allow him to violate any law he deems inconvenient. It’s high time for this corrupt, dishonest president to be impeached. ...

He was in favor of states deciding the issue for themselves, until he was against it. There are lots more examples of this kind of hypocrisy across a wide range of issues documented in James Bovard’s The Bush Betrayal. Above link is to Dispatches from the Culture Wars, where readers have offered additional examples in the comments.

In a New York Times followup about the Bush-approved program to engage in interception of email and voice calls to international destinations without warrants approved by the FISA Court, it is stated that The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials. The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system’s main arteries, they said. ...

Charles E. “Chuck” Carlson (not to be confused with convicted Watergate conspirator turned evangelical prison ministry mogul Chuck Colson) runs something called “Strait Gate Ministries” and assorted websites (including one called “Al-Jazeerah”) which seem to focus on arguing that the U.S. should not be supporting Israel. He has a history of advertising these websites by sending unsolicited bulk email, also known as “spam." He has clashed with a number of anti-spammers, which has led to multiple terminations of online services that he’s used–his DSL connection as well as web hosting. He has characterized this as mugging and assault as well as censorship. (Here is a list of some of Carlson’s domains blocked by rhyolite.com for sending spam.) In August, he filed a lawsuit (PDF) in Arizona Superior Court (CV2005-052008) against Robert Poortinga, his own providers who had terminated service, and Missouri Freenet Corporation. In his complaint, he argues that Poortinga and others have defamed him by calling him a “spammer” and accusing him of sending “spam,” on the grounds that his emails do not meet the criteria in the CAN-SPAM Act. “Missouri Freenet Corporation,” named as a defendant in Carlson’s suit, doesn’t actually exist–the person he’s intending to sue is Alif Terranson (on whose site the above lawsuit complaint PDF is hosted), who is a well-known anti-spammer and formerly ran the abuse team at Savvis. Terranson has supplied Carlson with information about how to properly name and serve him. Carlson’s complaint appears to me to be without merit. His argument based on CAN-SPAM fails because that act does not define the term “spam,” which is a well-known term of art in the Internet world, not a legal term. “Spam” originally meant bulk postings to Usenet newsgroups (an action associated with a couple of immigration attorneys also based in Scottsdale, Arizona), but quickly came to mean unsolicited bulk email (UBE)–email that is both (a) not explicitly requested by the recipients and (b) sent to multiple recipients. Although the most common form of UBE is unsolicited commercial email (which is what CAN-SPAM regulates), UBE and “spam” are broader than UCE and can include religious spam, insane spam, etc. Internet RFC 2505 endorses this broader notion of “spam,” as does this definition from Spamhaus. Although there are no legal penalties for spam that falls outside of what is regulated by federal and state laws (or laws in other countries), most online providers have stricter guidelines than what the law requires as part of their Acceptable Use Policies (AUPs). Customers of online providers are contractually bound by those AUPs, and can find their service terminated for violations even if they haven’t violated the law. This has been the case since long before CAN-SPAM went into effect. Another form of social penalty for spam is having one’s email blocked by those who operate mail servers on the Internet–companies, organizations, and individuals have a variety of tools which can be used to block the vast quantities of unwanted email being spewed out daily by compromised machines as well as by those operating in a more aboveboard manner. Included in those tools are the ability to block by domain name or using IP-address-based blocking lists. What Carlson calls censorship is really just the owners of private mail servers setting rules by which their property may be used by others. (The issue is a bit more complicated in the case of an ISP, but so long as the ISP accurately informs its customers of what they’ve signed up for, they can apply filters consistent with their service. In general, ISPs want their customers to receive what the customers want to receive, as blocking wanted email leads to complaints.) I’ll keep tabs on this suit as it progresses (if it does). ...

In a New York Times op-ed defending the president’s warrantless wiretapping of international calls and emails, former Justice Department attorneys (under GHWB and Reagan) David Rivkin and Lee Casey write: Furthermore, the FISA court is not a rubber stamp and may well decline to issue warrants even when wartime necessity compels surveillance.It’s not? Let’s take a closer look (stats from EPIC by way of Talking Points Memo). The FISA court, established in 1978, had received 18,761 requests for warrants as of the end of 2004. How many were rejected? Four or five (sources disagree). Of the four which were definitely rejected (all from 2003), all four were partially approved upon reconsideration. And how many have been modified by the court from the original requests? 1978-1999: 0 (?) 2000: 1 2001: 2 2002: 2 (but the modifications were later reversed) 2003: 79 (of 1727 requests) 2004: 94 (of 1758 requests) It looks to me like the FISA court was a rubber stamp at least until 2003, and quite arguably still is. Rivkin and Casey go on to argue that Congress has no authority to regulate how the President exercises his wartime authority: The Constitution designates the president as commander in chief, and Congress can no more direct his exercise of that authority than he can direct Congress in the execution of its constitutional duties.Say what? Have they not read Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, which explicitly gives Congress authority to regulate many aspects of military and wartime activity? I’ve italicized a key passage: Congress shall have the power … To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water; ...

This is from a Mel Gibson interview with Playboy magazine in the July 1995 issue. I haven’t verified it myself, though I’ve found consistent excerpts (though they could all have an identical bogus source). The positions taken are quite plausibly attributed to Gibson, though I’m surprised at his foul mouth. On evolution: PLAYBOY: Do you believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution or that God created man in his image? GIBSON: The latter. PLAYBOY: So you can’t accept that we descended from monkeys and apes? GIBSON: No, I think it’s bullshit. If it isn’t, why are they still around? How come apes aren’t people yet? It’s a nice theory, but I can’t swallow it. There’s a big credibility gap. The carbon dating thing that tells you how long something’s been around, how accurate is that, really? I’ve got one of Darwin’s books at home and some of that stuff is pretty damn funny. Some of his stuff is true, like that the giraffe has a long neck so it can reach the leaves. But I just don’t think you can swallow the whole piece. Why does anyone think his first point is a good argument against evolution? I’ve never heard anyone argue that Italian-Americans couldn’t have come from Italy because there are still Italians there. And I wonder what book by Darwin he has. On assorted moral issues: PLAYBOY: We take it that you’re not particularly broad-minded when it comes to issues such as celibacy, abortion, birth control. GIBSON: People always focus on stuff like that. Those aren’t issues. Those are unquestionable. You don’t even argue those points. PLAYBOY: You don’t? GIBSON: No.On women: PLAYBOY: What about allowing women to be priests? GIBSON: No. PLAYBOY: Why not? GIBSON: I’ll get kicked around for saying it, but men and women are just different. They’re not equal. The same way that you and I are not equal. PLAYBOY: That’s true. You have more money. GIBSON: You might be more intelligent, or you might have a bigger dick. Whatever it is, nobody’s equal. And men and women are not equal. I have tremendous respect for women. I love them. I don’t know why they want to step down. Women in my family are the center of things. And good things emanate from them. The guys usually mess up. PLAYBOY: That’s quite a generalization. GIBSON: Women are just different. Their sensibilities are different. PLAYBOY: Any examples? GIBSON: I had a female business partner once. Didn’t work. PLAYBOY: Why not? GIBSON: She was a cunt. PLAYBOY: And the feminists dare to put you down! GIBSON: Feminists don’t like me, and I don’t like them. I don’t get their point. I don’t know why feminists have it out for me, but that’s their problem, not mine.Interesting that he thinks a woman being a priest would be “a step down.” From many occupations, I’d agree. Gibson on political conspiracy theory: PLAYBOY: How do you feel about Bill Clinton? GIBSON: He’s a low-level opportunist. Somebody’s telling him what to do. PLAYBOY: Who? GIBSON: The guy who’s in charge isn’t going to be the front man, ever. If I were going to be calling the shots I wouldn’t make an appearance. Would you? You’d end up losing your head. It happens all the time. All those monarchs. If he’s the leader, he’s getting shafted. What’s keeping him in there? Why would you stay for that kind of abuse? Except that he has to stay for some reason. He was meant to be the president 30 years ago, if you ask me. PLAYBOY: He was just 18 then. GIBSON: Somebody knew then that he would be president now. PLAYBOY: You really believe that? GIBSON: I really believe that. He was a Rhodes scholar, right? Just like Bob Hawke. Do you know what a Rhodes scholar is? Cecil Rhodes established the Rhodes scholarship for those young men and women who want to strive for a new world order. Have you heard that before? George Bush? CIA? Really, it’s Marxism, but it just doesn’t want to call itself that. Karl had the right idea, but he was too forward about saying what it was. Get power but don’t admit to it. Do it by stealth. There’s a whole trend of Rhodes scholars who will be politicians around the world. PLAYBOY: This certainly sounds like a paranoid sense of world history. You must be quite an assassination buff. GIBSON: Oh, fuck. A lot of those guys pulled a boner. There’s something to do with the Federal Reserve that Lincoln did, Kennedy did and Reagan tried. I can’t remember what it was, my dad told me about it. Everyone who did this particular thing that would have fixed the economy got undone. Anyway, I’ll end up dead if I keep talking shit. (Note added 30 December: I’ve heard from several people who have now verified the accuracy of these quotations.) ...

The Senate has voted to extend the expiring provisions by a month (five months less than a Senate proposal on Wednesday; the House reduced it to one month). The Bush administration was arguing against a six-month extension as being too short, so this seems to be a good sign.

In the UK, the Law Lords ruled early this month that evidence obtained by torture is inadmissible in court, including evidence obtained by foreign governments (such as the United States) through the use of torture–and the burden of proof that the evidence was not obtained by torture falls upon the government. Lord Bingham stated, “The English common law has regarded torture and its fruits with abhorrence for over 500 years … I am startled, even a little dismayed, at the suggestion…that this deeply rooted tradition and an international obligation solemnly and explicitly undertaken can be overridden by a statute.” The panel of seven judges was unanimous in its ruling that the evidence of torture was inadmissible, but divided on the standard the government must overcome to demonstrate the evidence was not admitted by torture once a defendant produces a “plausible reason” to think that it was. Three of the judges (including Lord Bingham) argued for a standard that the government show “no real risk” of basis on torture, the other four that the government show it “on the balance of probabilities." In the United States, President Bush and Vice President Cheney have argued strongly against any restrictions on the use of torture by the United States, while at the same time claiming that the United States does not use torture. While Bush has recently and reluctantly agreed to support the McCain amendment on torture, that amendment states that “No person in the custody or under the effective control of the Department of Defense or under detention in a Department of Defense facility shall be subject to any treatment or technique of interrogation not authorized by and listed in the United States Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation.” Ten classified pages have just been added to that manual, leading some to suggest that this has created a way around the McCain amendment. Fortunately, however, the McCain amendment goes on to say that “No individual in the custody or under the physical control of the United States Government, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.” It defines “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment” as “the cruel, unusual, and inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, as defined in the United States Reservations, Declarations and Understandings to the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment done at New York, December 10, 1984." But there seems little question that Bush and Cheney want to push the limits as far as they possibly can.

Jim Romenesko at Poynter Forums posts an incisive article on how the Fox News Channel has been pushing this phony “War on Christmas” idea as a method of division. The article is apparently by Charlie Reina, a former Fox News Channel producer. A couple key paragraphs: Fox anchors will tell you that no one in management dictates that they bring up religion. But my experience at FNC is that, once management makes its views known, the anchors have a clear blueprint of what’s expected of them. In this case, the point man is network vice president John Moody. A scholar and biographer of Pope John Paul II, John is a devout Catholic who seldom holds back on matters of the church, or in framing his views in “good guy, bad guy” terms. For example, during the 2001 Senate hearings on John Ashcroft’s appointment as Attorney General, Moody’s daily memos to the staff repeatedly touted Ashcroft as “deeply religious” and the victim of Democrats’ intolerance. One memo suggested a question of the day: “Can a man of deep Christian faith be appointed to a federal job, or will his views be equated with racism, intolerance and mean-spiritedness?” He added: “(K)eep pounding at the question: should Ashcroft’s detractors try to be as tolerant as they would have him be?”Then there’s Fox management’s view on the separation of church and state, and on those who support it. One not-so-subtle hint came in March, 2004, after a Baghdad bombing gave reporters at a hotel in the Iraqi capital a scare. Moody’s memo that day advised FNC staffers to “offer a prayer of thanks for their safety to whatever God you revere (and let the ACLU stick it where the sun don’t shine).” Not mentioned is that the book The War on Christmas is by Fox News “Big Story” host John Gibson, or the multiple fabrications by Fox’s Bill O’Reilly. (Update on the latter: Plano schools are getting some press over their response to O’Reilly’s fabricated claim that they banned students from wearing Christmas colors.)