Monthly Archives: November 2004

My Packets Take a Detour

I am trying to telnet (remote access) to a machine about a block and a half away. But my residential DSL provider is Bell South. The machine is on the campus at UM. And tonight my packets can't quite seem to get there….could it be because my packets have to take quite a long detour — through a bad neighborhood — to get across the street?

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Posted in Internet | 5 Comments

The Tie That Might UnBind

Salim Ahmed Hamdan has smart lawyers.

Guantanamo Detainee Asks Supreme Court to Intervene: Attorneys for a detainee at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have asked the Supreme Court for emergency intervention to settle the legality of the military commissions set up by the Pentagon to prosecute hundreds of the alleged al Qaeda and Taliban fighters.

Lawyers representing a Yemeni detainee accused of serving as Osama bin Laden's bodyguard, joined by former military justice lawyers, argued that they be allowed to skip the appellate stage of their case and have the Supreme Court make a decision now. They say waiting while the case wends its way through the judicial process will leave the government's commission process in limbo and prolong the imprisonment of detainees, some of whom have been held at the U.S. military prison for nearly three years.

A federal judge ruled on Nov. 8 that the special military trials, revived by the Pentagon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, are illegal and cannot continue. He agreed with Hamdan's lawyers that the detainees — considered “enemy combatants,” not prisoners of war, by the Bush administration — were not receiving fair legal treatment under the commissions process and had no effective ability to challenge the accusations against them.

Not to mention that Chief Justice Rehnquist may not be able to sit on the case now due to ill health, but may be well (or replaced) later. And a tie vote upholds the lower court decision. And the District Court ruled for Hamdan. And who knows if maybe the Court of Appeals might go the other way, shifting the effect of a hung court…

Posted in Guantanamo | Comments Off on The Tie That Might UnBind

How Low Should We Go

Consider Many Women Say Airport Pat-Downs Are a Humiliation. If this were a Democratic administration being attacked by the GOP, you can just imagine what the bloviators on TV and radio would say about how the goverment is trying to feel up America's women, and should keep its prying hands to itself.

Democrats don't usually descend to that level of demagogary, although there are of course exceptions.

Should one fight fire with fire or with water?

Posted in Politics: US | 5 Comments

Trends in Leader Portraiture and Personality Cults

Over in North Korea, portraits of “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il are disappearing from offices and public places, creating a “baffling blankness”.

Meanwhile, back here in the US, billboard-sized portraits of “Our Leader” are springing up in public places, as a “public service” from Clear Channel Communications. Cult of personality, anyone?

Posted in Politics: International, Politics: US | 3 Comments

EFF Names Advisory Board

I've joined the Electronic Frontier Foundation's first Advisory Board. There are some amazing people in the group—it's flattering to be in such good company. My only worry is that California is a long way away…I think I'll be doing a lot of phone conferences alas. Media coverage at The Register (blush). Full text of EFF's press release below.

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Posted in Personal | 3 Comments

Brand Democrat

Brand Democrat has the sort of slogans that reflect the sort of thinking that wins elections.

OK, there's one on there I don't like, the one about WWII: even if the Republican isolationists fought entry to the war, they supported winning it, so I think it's wrong to paint it in partisan colors. I'd say the same about Vietnam, which was started by Democrats but escalated then lost by a Republican.

But otherwise, there's some great stuff there.

Posted in Politics: US | 1 Comment