Day One of the Retreat went better, on the whole, than I had feared.
Unlike the icky retreat Daniel Drezner recalls, we didn’t have “bad pizza, bad flourescent lighting, and bad pontificating”—or at least very little of the latter. Nor did we have Prof. Bainbridge’s “Bad coffee, bad food, uncomfortable folding chairs, bad PowerPoint” that he says probably “cut at least two millenia off [his] stint in Purgatory.” In fact, we had no PowerPoint at all. The meeting was held in a lovely resort (not hard to find in Miami), and had good food plus a lovely view of the resort’s pool and the ocean beyond it. There was an absolutely gorgeous sunset. We even got them to turn off the horrible Muzak that comes standard in the conference room.
And at dinner I learned that my collegue Alan Swan has an operatic-quality voice and is a fairly serious singer.
The basic ground rules are confidentiality as to content, so all I’ll say about that is that we’re all being encouraged to think about practical things the law school should do in the next few years — either new things entirely, or doing old things better. The negative consequence of this strategy is that it discourages any discussion of fundamental structural issues; the positive consequence is that people are being constructive in ways that may show some tangible results in due course. But it’s slow going. I can’t help but feel that we could have done a lot of this in faculty meetings, on paper, or via any of a number of nifty web-based collaborative tools, and faster too. Then again, people are busy, faculty meetings often have crowded agendas, and this at least gets everyone focusing at the same time.
Meanwhile, while I was part of a group being well behaved, mildly constructive, and somewhat bored, Eric Muller continued blogging his fantastic conference. Read the parts three, four, five, six, seven, and eight. Beats retreats any day!
One more day to go…
Eric Muller is blogging from a conference I wish I could attend, the UNC Law Review’s symposium on Law, Loyalty, and Treason. Instead I’m about to leave for our Retreat.
His second meaty post is about a paper by Marion Crain of UNC Law School and Ken Matheny of the Social Security Administration which shows that worplace disloyalty has often been treated by those in power as subversion and disloyalty akin to treason.
Does this mean that deep in their hearts Big Employers are basically feudal?
The first meaty post is about a paper from George Fletcher of Columbia Law School. Eric says he argues that “the crime of treason has become a dead letter — conceptually incoherent — because it is essentially a feudal crime that requires a specific relationship between the citizen and a “personalized” sovereign.”
So the feudalism argument is truly joined?
The Daily Princetonian reports that Threat of lawsuit passes for student, so John Halderman is off the hook. This is thus another case in which a sabre-rattling firm backed down in the face of an outcry. It is still an outrage, however, that these threats can be made even semi-credibly. Sooner or later there will be a case of outrage fatige, or a firm with no common sense at all, and we will have a lawsuit. It will probably lose, but do great damage to the defendant’s bank balance and peace of mind in the process.
The DMCA needs to be fixed. Sounds like a job for Howard Dean’s new Net Advisory Net?
As citizens we all bear a degree of collective responsibility for what our government does in our name. That responsibility is greater when we are or should be on notice. And thus, we are all responsible for what is happening in Guantanamo detention camps.
We are collectively responsible for what is happening in Camp Delta and Camp Iguana (the latter holds children). It is, or it should be, a matter of shame that our government chose to confine the Camp Delta prisoners in solitary, indefinitely, without news or the prospect of having their cases determined in the foreseeable future and where the policy is “We interrogate seven days a week, 24 hours a day.” (Interrogations, however, are limited [sic] “to no more than 16 straight hours” straight at one go.) There is no right to speedy trial (or other Geneva-convention-style hearing), or even to a trial. If and when trials do begin, there will be no right to to a proper attorney-client relationship even though the trials can end in the death penalty. Nor will there be a right to appeal the initial tribunal’s verdict to a neutral court staffed by judges with the neutrality of perspective that comes from life tenure.
As of a year ago, the BBC was reporting at least 30 suicide attempts out of a prison population of 600. While it’s possible that there is something about the population of detainees that predisposes them to suicide attempts, it’s also quite possible that it’s something about the conditions and, if so, conditions that bad arguably amount to illegal torture under international law. On the other hand, the rate of suicide attempts may be down as a recent CBS report put the total at 32.
This rich nation of ours can afford to give each detainee a first class fair trial, if it wanted to. In so doing it would send a healthy message about our values to the world. The decision not do so is a choice. By making that choice the Administration is sending a terrible message to the world. It’s also a really lousy precedent.
I also believe that it’s constitutionally wrong. Our government is, or should be, an entity subject to the Constitution. I do not read that document to allow our government to act lawlessly and without review. And certainly not indefinitely.
By holding the detainees abroad on formally Cuban [is that our model for legality?] territory, the government has persuaded our courts that its actions there are not subject to ordinary judicial review as our courts believe they lack jurisdiction to intervene. See Al Odah v. U.S., 321 F.3d 1134 (dismissing habeus petition and Alien Tort Claims act claim for lack of jurisdiction); Coalition of Clergy, Lawyers & Professors v. Bush, 310 F.3d 1153 (dismissing habeus petition for lack of jurisdiction). While those court decisions were supported by some precedent, notably Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U.S. 763 , I think these courts are fundamentally mistaken. Others, including most recently six former federal judges, agree.
All authority exercised by a government official arises from the Constitution. That document doesn’t give officials the right to act arbitrarily. Their authority is always subject to the Bill of Rights, including the due process clause.
Due process is, however, a sliding scale, which varies with the circumstances. It would be absurd to suggest that due process rights apply to armed combat. (Although the laws of war do apply.) Enemy soldiers don’t have a right to a hearing before our soldiers shoot back at them.
But it is in no way absurd to suggest that due process has something to say to military prisoners being held far from the field of battle. Indeed, the Supreme Court essentially agreed with this claim in Application of Yamashita, when it heard a petition from a Japanese general who was been tried by a U.S. military tribunal in the Philippines, a situation analogous to Guantanamo—except that hostilities were conceded to be over. (The Guantanamo detainees captured in Afghanistan may never enjoy that advantage, if only because the current hostilities—the so-called ‘war on terrorism’—has no likely end.) Suppose, to take an extreme hypothetical, prisoners were being tortured with a rack and thumbscrews. Could it be that the constitution authorizes this? Or—which to me (but, oddly, not to all constitutional theorists) is the same thing—that its silences fail to provide a mechanism to stop it?
It might be that after a proper review, a court would find the conditions in Camp Delta to be consistent with Due Process, and reject claims that detainees are being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. I don’t have the facts to know how that would come out, although I have uncomfortable suspicions.
Whatever the outcome of that review, I would like my government to be willing to undergo that examination, and to pledge to live with the results.
I’m confident, furthermore, that a reviewing court persuaded of its jurisdiction would demand that procedurally sound hearings be held posthaste to determine each detainee’s proper status.
A government sure of itself, and confident of the rightness of its actions, would not hide the detainees in legal limbo. To do so suggests a meanness of spirit at best, a tendency to lawlessness and something to hide at worst, and a tin ear to the world’s opinion at all times.
We in the US—indeed all those in the Coalition of the willing —are responsible for this. If the courts will not take jurisdiction over events at Guantanamo, then we must demand that all the prisoners held there be moved to a place where ordinary civilized rules apply.
The Simon Higgs saga continues. Some things are getting resolved, but bad customer ‘service’ seems to be eternal.
I left off yesterday (Day 6) saying something about going off and trying to find a life. Well, that got interrupted about 30 seconds after I pressed the send button.I got a phone call from a manager at Comcast saying that they were going to fix everything that afternoon. That they were going to send a tech around to check that everything works. And, of course, I had to be home when they showed up. Well, OK then. I can postpone getting a life for a few more hours.
Then about half and hour later I got a call from Ed at Comcast’s executive offices. I filled him in on the previous phone call, and he sounded rather upset that he hadn’t been told about it. Especially, as he was supposed to be calling me with the latest information. He said he was supposed to be updated on what the local office was doing. Anyway, he assured me that everything was going to get taken care of.
I figure if two people call me from Comcast that regularly don’t talk to the public, they do intend to take care of this. The problem has left the dysfunctional realm of the customer service people who answer the phones and is now in the hands of someone with the authority to a) listen to the customer and b) take some action. More on my thoughts on this later.
About noon I noticed that, indeed, something was being done. For those not following this from the beginning, my Verizon number has been active on Comcast’s network since Day One. Which is what I want. It was also still up and running on Verizon which is what we were trying to fix. Now, what is the most logical thing that Comcast can do at this point? Remember, their billing system said the work hadn’t been done and that the old number was still active. So instead of correcting their billing system, they made sure that their billing system was correct by changing the physical line plant to match. They did this by disconnecting the old number. Except they didn’t disconnect the old number because, remember, that disappeared on Day One. Yup. They disconnected the new number. The one that I was porting from Verizon to Comcast which, all along, had been working. Poof. It was gone.
If that wasn’t bad enough, at exactly the same time, Verizon’s pair with the same number on it went dead. OK. So I got 48 volts out of the line but no dial tone. And it’s supposed to be going away anyway.
I now know they’re working on this. But the number is now dead on both networks. I’m sure that if it wasn’t my number I would be laughing. Really. This whole experience has been like finding a new episode of Monty Python or Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. But it is my phone line and it’s supposed to work. So I’m really bummed in a semi-bemused state of unbelief. I resign myself to waiting for the tech to show up because I know this guy has the magic numbers to the people who can fix this.
Three hours later, I’m in the garage putting some varnish on a coffee table I’m building, and the phone rings. Randy from Comcast’s NOC was on the phone. After I explained the whole saga to him, he told me about other problems with this port that I didn’t know about, including the obligatory communication errors between Comcast and Verizon which had compounded the problem. Yet another comedy of errors triggered by an incomplete port. After explaining to him that my working number (that had not been correctly documented in the billing system) had been disconnected, he surprised me by telling me he just called me on it. Well, that’s a rather good sign. I guess this was the opposite solution to yesterday’s referral solution. Disconnect and reconnect.
While I was on the phone with Randy, two Comcast techs showed up. They were able to confirm directly with the Comcast NOC that the port had finally been done and was working. They made some additional test calls from other networks just to verify the incoming routing wasn’t getting hung up in Verizon land. So, now my number works on only one network. Yay!
The people that I’ve dealt with at Comcast have been great. Mostly. The two techs that showed up were friendly, knowledgeable and very professional. Randy at the NOC was exceptional for the few minutes that we talked. The people that called me from the executive office were courteous, friendly and professional. These people I’ll classify as “engineers”.
Who else? Ah yes, that leaves customer service. Um… how do I politely say this. These people have serious problems. Several times, those answering the 611 calls were downright rude and copped serious attitude problems before I was able to explain the situation. Several flatly refused to provide the level of customer satisfaction that every company requires of it’s staff. The bottom line is that I’ve been called a liar every single day of this ordeal by customer service staff. Even by trained supervisors. It leaves a really sour taste. NONE of the engineers did this.
I feel I am qualified to talk about this. My background includes some help desk experience. Fortunately, I’m a tier 3 person, like Randy, and don’t have to field calls directly from the public. Having said that, one of the programs I’ve worked with in the past for fielding calls from the public was “Apple Voice”. Like most things at Apple, it’s supposed to be a company secret, but it’s really just documented (and Apple-branded) common-sense. Sorry, that just sounded really bizarre, but anyway, the program has the potential to solve a bunch of ugly problems. The basic concept is that the customer service people adopt a friendly sing-songy voice to talk to the customer. I hated the idea at first. It’s very “up” and “Disney”. But I’ve discovered that it creates a non-threatening connection with the customer which actually turns out to be very important to long term customer retention. The other part of the concept is that the customer service people actually listen and take note of what the customer is saying. Like I said, it’s really common-sense.
It’s a significant contrast to how I was dealt with. The customer service staff were unable to deviate from what they saw in front of them. I understand this, but several of them were completely bloody minded about enforcing completely wrong information. Nothing annoys me more than someone telling me something that I know is wrong and then going out of their way to refuse to listen to what I have to say. This happened on several occasions because Comcast’s billing computers were wrong. And you’ve seen through my experience what it looks like from the outside world when they attempt to fix the problem with wrong information.
So my phone number is ported and now works properly. At last! Day 6! Like I told Ed yesterday, that will make me a happy camper.
I would like to thank all the people who have helped with information and suggestions. And also to those that have forwarded this message to other helpful people that remain behind the scenes and who I may never know about. Thank you.
But… it’s not over. I’ve just noticed that they still haven’t put the referral on my old number like they promised.
Oh my God. I’ve just had a customer service person, a very curt/rude one with a bad attitude, tell me that they’re not going to put the referral on after all because they gave my old number back to Verizon. They’re totally adamant about it too. As in “I don’t care if you ordered this, you can’t have this and I’m not budging on this, ever”. This person also can’t find a work order in the system for this. You’ve got to be kidding me. There are at least two work orders, a repair ticket, and several escalations that I know about… and, of course, they can’t find a supervisor for me to talk to and so we escalate this once again into never-never land. This formally concludes Day 6.
So now it is Day 7. Sorry, I’ve got to have a life today. I’m booked mixing some music today, and having lunch with some friends. Hopefully the referral will be working when I get back.
Well, I’m back and it isn’t. And it’s after hours and too late to sort out today.
Remember what I said about being left with a sour taste? A number of people from Comcast have spent the time and gone out of their way to try and make me a satisfied customer. I know what this took and I do appreciate this. But one idiot customer service rep has managed to undo it all. I know how to solve this customer service problem at Comcast, but I just don’t know which is more appropriate to recommend - .45acp or .357magnum?
Copyright © 2003 Simon Higgs, reprinted with permission
Cryptome is a website run by the mysterious (in the sense that we’ve never actually managed to meet) John Young. It has long been a cornerstone of the movement to publish government secrets that shouldn’t be secret, especially about communications interceptions and cryptography.
Cryptome has done sterling service in reprinting published works that governments tried to suppress. It’s been a thorn in the side of the UK government, for example, which has tried to recall and suppress published books. Every week is a small trove of interesting documents, most from public sources but some from anonymous, that have to do with spying or national security.
That’s the heroic part. Now for the slightly creepy part.
Recently Cryptome has been publishing an “eyeballing” series—satellite photos of interesting places…including the homes of public figures involved in clandestine or security work. I understand the point John’s trying to make—they can see us with their eyes in the sky, so why shouldn’t we see them. Nevertheless, aren’t the aireal photos of the residences of Karl Rove, John Ashcroft, George Tenet and Valerie Plame ever so slightly creepy? Not to mention the publication of their addresses and what purports to be George Tenet’s phone number. I love the idea of the CIA Chief having a listed phone number, but this doesn’t seem likely to encourage him to keep it that way. And this sort of treatment is not going to encourage the right sort of people to go into public service (I know, I know, they have all the data on us, turnabout is fair play, etc.) Please understand that I’m not saying it should be banned—just questioning if it’s wise.
And then I really get antsy about this: I think Cryptome’s going too far when it argues:
The idiot furor over naming Valerie Plame as a CIA officer, and the CIA’s phony call for an investigation, should not obscure the need to name as many intelligence officers and agents as possible. It is a hoary canard — long-practiced intelligence disinforation — that naming these persons places their life in jeopardy. On the contrary, not identifying them places far more lives in jeorpardy from their vile, secret operations and the overthrow plots they advance. These officers, their agencies and governmental funders want their names kept secret so they do not have to face retribution for cowardly misdeeds they are fearful of executing openly.Shamefully, the US continues to lead the world in criminal covert actions and secret agents, but it is hardly alone. Cryptome welcomes such secret names for publication, from any country in the world.
I don’t support the overthrow of foreign governments by covert means. (And I think that people who can be outed by John Young are generally people who could be outed by the Bad Guys.) But I do support the gathering of intelligence, including by covert means. One thing the Iraq crisis teaches us is that bringing decision makers face to face with reality is less destabilizing and more conducive to peace than letting them stew in their fact-free paranoid imaginings.
The Register has the Director of the Program on Terrorism and Trans-National Crime at the University of Pittsburgh (connected to this?) warning ‘Expect terrorist attacks on Global Financial System’. Is this more likely than other terrorist activities? As likely? Or just sufficiently bad if it happens (‘A successful terrorist attack on America’s financial infrastructure could bring the US and global economies to a standstill, and the real surprise is that it hasn’t been attempted yet.’) that we should prepare for it even on a low probability threat analysis?
I wasn’t able to find a copy of the paper on the web, so I can’t go to the source and form my own conclusions. The article tells me very little. As a general matter, I tend to some skepticism about warnings from anti-terrorism experts Their incentive structure is to be scary, as this maximizes the demand for experts. I imagine that in this business you don’t in that business get in nearly as much trouble for false alarms as you do for being asleep at the switch.
So, how to evaluate this warning (especially as the ad that happened to be served when I was reading had this graphic)?
