Monthly Archives: January 2009

Miami-Dade Libraries to Honor Georgie & Frank Angones Tonight

Posted on January 23, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

Frank and Georgie Angones are important members of the University of Miami Law School community, and I'm a big fan of our surprisingly good local public library system, so it's nice to see the two coming together. She's our stellar Assistant Dean for Alumni Relations and Development; he was the first Cuban-American to head the Florida Bar, and has long been a good friend of the law school.

Cuban couple honored by Miami-Dade Library Foundation As children, Frank and Georgie Angones fled Cuba with their families penniless and not knowing English.

But they quickly discovered libraries could help them adapt to their new home.

''The one place that welcomed us with open arms was the public library,'' Georgie Angones said.

They never forgot, dedicating decades of volunteering to promote literacy and the Miami-Dade Library system.

Now the Miami-Dade Public Library Foundation is bestowing on the couple its third annual Library Champions award.

On Friday evening, the foundation will honor them at its Stories in the Garden event in the courtyard of the Pinecrest Branch Library, 5835 SW 111th St.

The event is tonight; I hate benefit dinners, but this is one I'd actually like to go to if only I didn't have a conflicting obligation.

Posted in U.Miami | Comments Off on Miami-Dade Libraries to Honor Georgie & Frank Angones Tonight

Gitmo Today

Posted on January 22, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

gitmo-today.jpg

A day late, but even so…

And, more importantly, here are four executive orders signed today.

These are major, major, welcome developments.

Only sour note: Adm. Dennis Blair can't bring himself to call waterboarding “torture”. [Link improved]

Posted in Guantanamo | 7 Comments

Kinda Has a ‘Smoking Gun’ Feel To It

Posted on January 22, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

This is fairly amazing: Justice Dept. snubs federal judge's ruling.

In a parting shot, the Bush administration's Justice Department shrugged off a San Francisco federal judge's order to make a classified document available to lawyers for an Islamic group challenging the legality of the outgoing president's secret wiretapping program.

National security officials, not judges, must decide whether private citizens – even those with security clearances – are entitled to see classified material, Justice Department lawyers said in a filing Monday night.

…

At the heart of the case is a document that purportedly showed the government monitored Al-Haramain's overseas calls in 2004 before classifying it as a terrorist group. The National Security Agency accidentally sent a copy to Al-Haramain in 2005, but the Islamic group, a charity that has since ceased operations, returned the document at the agency's request and is barred from revealing its contents.

Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker ruled Jan. 5 that Al-Haramain could proceed with its case, saying government statements showed that the group had probably been wiretapped.

…

Government lawyers asked Walker's permission to appeal his ruling to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco – an appeal they had already filed without his permission Friday – and did not say explicitly that they would withhold the classified document regardless of his orders.

One to watch to see if the new administration takes a different view. The next hearing is tomorrow.

Posted in Civil Liberties | 1 Comment

A Footnote on the Oath

Posted on January 21, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

I see that President Obama had the Chief Justice re-administer the oath of office (correctly) this time in an 'abundance of caution' following the imperfect recitation of the oath the first time (due to mis-prompting by the Chief during the Inaugural).

I don't think there are in fact four federal judges in the country who would have held that Obama was not in fact the President at all relevant times were the issue to have gone to trial. Even so, I agree that the re-administration of the oath of office was a fairly costless way for Team Obama to pacify the wingnuts and ultra-orthodox strict constructionists who might have been baying at the moon on this issue.

I post now, after it's (almost) all over only to make two points:

  • Those commentators (not naming names, sorry) who said the entire issue could never be decided on the merits due to the lack of probable plaintiffs with standing were in my humble opinion simply wrong. Any bill signed by the purported President would not in fact be law if the person signing it were not the office-holder. Ditto for any official act by anyone nominated by a non-President. There would have been armies of people with standing. Which makes me wonder whether Obama, in a further excess of caution, re-signed any first-day documents (such as the Cabinet nominations) post-re-administration of the Oath. In for a penny, in for a pound, I say.
  • Other than the fact that it would have cast an unwelcome and unnecessary cloud on a Presidency that has enough to worry about already, it actually would have been a fun case to watch. Since I believe every judge would have been results-oriented on this one, the process of getting to that result might have produced some interesting anti-formalist doctrine that might have had knock-on effects in other areas.

Update (1/22): From Political Animal,

Just for the record, Obama really was president after the first oath, and everything he did yesterday was legit. In 1789, George Washington was president for seven weeks before he'd taken the oath, but he still had all the authority of the office.

That sounds like contemporaneous construction to me.

Posted in Law: Constitutional Law | 2 Comments

I’m Not Complaining

Posted on January 21, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

According to TaxProf Blog: 2008 Law Prof Blog Traffic Rankings, the top 14 lawprof blogs are very, very popular.

This blog is #15 of the 35 listed.

Thank you readers, for your time and attention. There's certainly no justice here, many of the others further down the list, or not even on it, are much finer productions, but I'm not going to make a fuss.

I think (hope) posting will be a little less political in the weeks to come as my outrage muscles sidle down to a comfortable torpor, and allow me to focus on other things. We'll just have to see.

Posted in Discourse.net | Comments Off on I’m Not Complaining

Whitehouse.gov Doesn’t Like My Privacy Settings and Has Nothing on Guantanamo

Posted on January 21, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

Odd thing: when I go to Whitehouse.gov and allow Flash, the site complains about my privacy settings.

Click for a larger image.
Click for a larger image.

The error message says,

The page did not process successfully because of the following:
• Field 'Email' is invalid
• Field 'Zip Code' is empty

Second odd thing: I wanted the full text of the order postponing trials at Guantanamo, the one that caused the following motion to be filed in Guantanamo,

In order to permit the newly inaugurated President and his administration time to review the military commission process, generally, and the cases currently pending before the military commissions, specifically, the Secretary of Defense has, by order of the President directed the chief prosecutor to seek continuances of 120 days in all pending case.

The Secretary of the Defense issued his order to the Chief Prosecutor in order to provide the administration sufficient time to conduct a review of detainees currently held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to evaluate the cases of detainees not approved for release or transfer to determine whether prosecution may be warranted for any offenses those detainees may have committed, and to determine which forum best suits any future prosecution.

But when I search for “Guantanamo” at whitehouse.gov I get … nothing.

Posted in Guantanamo, Internet | 1 Comment