Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

The Sleeping Giant Starts to Stir?

Posted on August 4, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

The American public is a sleeping giant. Most of the time life is good, and it doesn’t worry about politics. Or life is busy and it doesn’t worry about politics. It can be very hard to get its attention. But when it does focus, it focuses hard.

Could the sleeping giant be about to wake on issues like Guantanamo and Padilla?

Poll on Court Cites Detainee Rights as Concern: Americans seem as interested in the Supreme Court’s approach to the rights of detained terrorists as they are in abortion, according to polling released yesterday. Both are considered very important issues facing the high court.

…

“This important question of the trade-off of civil liberties and protection is one the public takes very seriously,” said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center. “The public has been reminded recently of the ongoing threat of terrorism and what we should or should not have to sacrifice for our safety.” He did note that, until now, the question of detainees’ rights “has not been one of the issues at the forefront of debate about the Supreme Court.

Wouldn’t be the first time that the public was ahead of the media and the inside-the-beltway crowd.

Posted in Civil Liberties | Comments Off on The Sleeping Giant Starts to Stir?

Gullible Media

Posted on August 4, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

NiemanWatchdog.org — Dan Froomkin, Deputy Editor — has two new items that dare ask if the media is being too gullible when it comes to the Bush administration line on the war in Iraq.

Gen. William E. Odom, a former director of the National Security Agency, writes:

If I were a journalist, I would list all the arguments that you hear against pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq, the horrible things that people say would happen, and then ask: Aren't they happening already? Would a pullout really make things worse? Maybe it would make things better.

Odom argues that we already have civil war, loss of U.S. credibility and lack of support for the troops. He concludes:

The wisest course for journalists might be to begin sustained investigations of why leading Democrats have failed so miserably to challenge the US occupation of Iraq.

Norman Solomon, media critic and author of the new book, “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death,” asks whether the administration's sudden talk of partial withdrawals has any credibility or whether it's just a feint aimed at the 2006 elections.

Like, you have to ask? Or worse, you need a foundation to get reporters to ask?

It's surely a measure of the alternate reality we inhabit — or that the US is finally being punished for the sins of the early colonists against Native Americans — that the first appearance of questions like these in a outer-circle-of-the-mainstream site like NiemanWatchdog.org is a sign of progress. In any healthy democracy we'd all have been talking about whether and how to pull out of Iraq since the last Democratic convention. And no one would believe anything the administration says about foreign policy (or the environment).

For the record, though, I do believe Bush sometimes. For example, when he talks about wanting creationism (AKA “intelligent design”) to be taught in public schools.

Posted in Dan Froomkin, The Media | 5 Comments

Annals of Marketing

Posted on August 4, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

Miami’s Daily Business Review is a good local paper with a finance/politics focus. I was quoted a few times in an article on the DeFede case (requires paid subscription) which ran on the front page of Wednesday’s edition. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t bother mentioning this — I speak to reporters from somewhere almost every week — were it not for the follow up: yesterday morning I got a second phone call from the DBR, and an email, both offering to sell me reproduction rights to the article, which indeed doesn’t seem to available online without a subscription.

Here’s what the email offered:

Plaque: Review article reproduced on 11″ x 13″, mahogany-tone plaque with gold, bevel edge, several colors available — $150 + $7 shipping.

Double Plaque: Review article(s) reproduced on 20″ x 13″, mahogany-tone plaque, several colors available (for articles longer than one page — $195 + $8 shipping.

Copyright Permission: Permission to copy Review article (does not include web rights or photo permission). Permission renewable annually — $550.

Copyright Permission/Photography: Permission to copy Review article and photo (does not include web rights). Permission renewable annually — $700.

Photography Permission: Unlimited reproduction use of Review photograph for one year — $150.

Web Rights and Photography Permission: Post Review article and photo (if applicable) on your website. Permission renewable annually — $645.

It’s an interesting business model. And I imagine some lawyers and businesses go for it even at those shockingly inflated prices ($645 per year to post an article online!?!).

Speaking of media, I was also interviewed by CNN this past week for a segment on privacy-destroying technologies such as backscatter scanners (which see through your clothes). The short segment is due to run today, Thursday, at 8pm on “Paul Zahn Now” although I have no idea if I’ll actually be in it. And as we still haven’t gotten around to buying a TV, I suppose I won’t get to see it to find out.

Posted in The Media | Comments Off on Annals of Marketing

Gorgeous George Galloway, Sub-Loony

Posted on August 3, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

Via Crooked Timber, Gorgeous George, how are ya, part 2, a link to this extended clip of George Galloway saying wicked and stupid things.

It’s ok to be mad at Bush, Blair and Berlusconi. It’s ok to to accuse the US of imperial designs on the Middle East, although these days it’s probably shifting fast to tail-between-legs time.

But telling an Arab Muslim audience that Jerusalem and Baghdad are their beautiful daughters being raped by westerners? And that they and their governments should do more to protect those daughters? Inciting the audience with the suggestion that Western leaders (and one presumes, their soldiers?) are really just terrorists?

I called Galloway a raving loon back when he made mincemeat of Senator Coleman a few weeks ago, to some criticism. I wish now to apologize to the fine folks in the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, as I now appreciate that the Loony Party has standards; I accept that Galloway wouldn’t qualify.

Posted in Iraq, UK | 11 Comments

Today’s Essential Marty Lederman

Posted on August 3, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

Marty Lederman gives a full, and quite sickening, analysis of the legal and political context of the Iraqi torture-murder story I noted below.

This administration is not only morally bankrupt, it has soiled the military, which had, I thought, rebuilt its honor after the then-nadir of Vietnam. Official torture and murder with the connivance or malign neglect of higher-ups is almost as bad as governments get, short of genocide.

Posted in Torture | Comments Off on Today’s Essential Marty Lederman

Details of How Soldiers and CIA Operative Tortured Captive to Death

Posted on August 3, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

Documents Tell of Brutal Improvisation by GIs: they put an Iraqi Major General into a sleeping bag, wrapped him in electrical cord, and beat him until he died.

Two of the soldiers–enlisted men–are being tried for murder. (Their lawyer says that they shouldn’t be blamed as it was days of earlier torture–hitting the detainee with fists, a club and a length of rubber hose–that did him in.) The CIA’s role is being suppressed from the public accounts; there is no word as to whether the CIA’s operative will be prosecuted, although the “The CIA inspector general’s office has launched an investigation”.

An indicted soldier’s lawyer, not an unbiased source, is quoted by the Post as saying,

“The interrogation techniques were known and were approved of by the upper echelons of command of the 3rd ACR,” … “They believed, and still do, that they were appropriate and proper.”

Posted in Torture | 2 Comments