Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

CIA Has Secret Prison at Guantánamo

Posted on December 17, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

At Guantanamo, a Prison Within a Prison:

Within the heavily guarded perimeters of the Defense Department's much-discussed Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, the CIA has maintained a detention facility for valuable al Qaeda captives that has never been mentioned in public, according to military officials and several current and former intelligence officers.

But to the military's credit, they required the CIA to follow some of the most basic treaty obligations:

The U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay thus provided the CIA with an isolated venue devoid of the sensitive international politics. But it came with strings attached.

The U.S. military, which controls the base, required the agency to register all detainees, abide by military detention standards and permit the ICRC some level of access.

“If you're going to be in my back yard, you're going to have to abide by my rules” is how one defense official explained it.

Normally, as I've noted before, the evidence is that the CIA doesn't bother with the Geneva conventions, and indulges in “ghost detainees” and who knows what sort of physical and psychological pressure:

CIA detainees, by contrast, are held under separate rules and far greater secrecy. Under a presidential directive and authorities approved by administration lawyers, the CIA is allowed to capture and hold certain classes of suspects without accounting for them in any public way and without revealing the rules for their treatment.

You still have to wonder why exactly the CIA couldn't just lock these guys up at Langley? Is there any risk at all that they could get to a lawyer, or that if it did it would do them any good? Why does the CIA have to hold these guys abroad? Can there be any legitimate reason other than the desire to do things that our law would not allow? And if that is the reason, then I firmly believe it is an illegal motive. Our federal government is created by the Constitution. It has only those powers the constitution grants it. The power to act lawlessly abroad is not one of those powers. The Constitution constrains the CIA abroad just as it does domestically; if it's wrong for our agents to torture people here, it's equally wrong anywhere. And remember, they are formally our agents, We the People are formally their masters; what they do, my fellow citizens, they do in our names, more's the pity.

Posted in Guantanamo | 5 Comments

Croc II !

Posted on December 17, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Seems like the capture of “Donna” (who turns out to have been a guy, hmm…) a few days ago isn't the end of UM's crocodile saga. Now there's a second croc in the lake at the center of campus: Crocodile hunt at lake proceeds. And, yes, rather than leave our top tourist attraction, those trappers are at it again:

Some students, passing by the scene, said they were sad to see yet another unofficial mascot on the lam from trappers. On Sunday, Hardwick bagged a nearly eight-foot male croc named “Donna” from the lake.

“I think they're probably safer here than they would be wherever they're taking them,” said Nadya Verier-Taylor, a freshman at the university.

“Nobody cared he was there until 15,000 news vans showed up. It isn't like anybody's dog's been eaten.”

Hardwick agreed UM really is a crocodile's paradise, with its calm, boat-free waters and ample food supply of Moscovy duck, turtles and fish but said relocating the scaly beast was in its own best interest.

“We wouldn't want him becoming someone's fraternity prank,” Hardwick said

Actually I think the croc may be smarter than me. UM is a great place to spend late December: warm, sunny, quiet (the students are mostly gone). Idillic, really.

But I'm leaving Saturday for Didsbury, which is at the south edge of Manchester in the UK. In December it's cold and wet and dark there. (AFAIK, no crocodiles, just family.)

Posted in U.Miami | Comments Off on Croc II !

Hair Today, Tenure Tomorrow

Posted on December 16, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

A study of 1800 male UK academics reveals that professors are twice as likely to have beards as lecturers:

Women in academia lose out by a whisker: While 10.5 per cent of lecturers were bewhiskered, the figure rose to 13.6 per cent for senior lecturers, 16.7 per cent for readers and 21.4 per cent for professors.

The study's authors suggest that whatever it is that makes departments like hairy faces may also contribute to discrimination against women:

One theory is that being unshorn makes men more likely to be appointed to professorships, as facial hair is linked with high testosterone and aggression.

Hmm. Does that mean that if I want to convince my students that I'm really just a pussy cat then I should shave my beard?

Posted in Completely Different, UK | 6 Comments

UK’s House of Lords Holds that Indefinite Detention Violates European Convention on Human Rights!

Posted on December 16, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

You know you are in trouble when the House of Lords is more protective of civil rights than the US court system: Law lords back terror detainees

Detaining foreigners without trial under emergency anti-terror legislation breaks European human rights powers, law lords ruled today.

The decision from the law lords, Britain's highest court, throws the government's security policies into chaos.

A specially-convened committee of nine law lords upheld an appeal by nine foreigners who have been detained without charge or trial, most of them in Belmarsh prison, south-east London, for around three years.

Experts said today's decision would probably force the government to repeal the section of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 which has permitted the indefinite detention of foreigners.

The law lords, making the ruling in the chamber of the House of Lords, described the legislation as “draconian” and “anathema” to the rule of law.

OK, OK, my slur on our Supreme Court is ever so slightly unfair, as the US case with the most closely related fact pattern, the Padilla case, was turned down on procedural grounds. (Both cases involve domestic detention of a suspect arrested domestically; the cases differ slightly, however, in that Padilla was a US citizen while the persons in the UK case are foreign nationals, albeit presumably legally admitted to the UK.) Read between the lines of Padilla and the other detention cases and you could get to a point where we end up a bit like the UK….but my point is that this requires some squinting and meanwhile Padilla is still in jail without charges or prospect of trial or indeed any idea of when he might get out.

Note also that in the US the Bush administration has implemented indefinite no-trial detention without a shred of statutory justification. Conversely, in the UK the detentions were not by executive fiat, but pursuant to an act of Parliament. Nevertheless, the Law Lords — who once proclaimed Parliamentary supremacy, but now have new powers under the European Convention and the UK's Human Rights Act, —have struck down indefinite detention in no uncertain terms, and by an 8-1 vote, as barbaric and uncivilized.

History will be cruel to this administration, which is indeed barbaric and uncivilized. Squandering the US's moral capital while looting the Treasury for the rich and debasing our currency is an historic achievement, but not one that one wishes to live through; it seems likely that the aftermath will be substantially worse.

Posted in Civil Liberties, UK | 3 Comments

Good Defense Is Not A Victory. It Just Means You Haven’t Lost Yet.

Posted on December 15, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Back in the day — going on ten years ago — we thought the 'net would change the world. We were right about that, but not in the ways we thought — we thought PGP and onion routing and an explosion of free speech meant an end to content control.

We vastly overestimated the speed with which non-techies would take up the toys; the growing and enduring dominance of one software platform that didn't take up the toys; and especially the ability of the empire to strike back via both tech (trusted user) and law (DMCA and worse).

Some time about four or five years ago, somewhere around the Article 2B/UCITA fight, of necessity we switched to fighting defense instead of offense. And don't get me wrong, that defense is important. But it's still defense.

But it's still disheartening to read real smart people writing that it's been a good year for those of us concerned about free speech, democracy, and creativity because we beat back the baddies.

I guess I think it wasn't a bad year, and yes there were some decent court decisions, but I call it not bad only because the hardware tech and the open source is still slowly spreading, and so far at least just keeping ahead of the Empire. And especially because of the growth of 'offense' movements such as the free culture movement.

[Sorry for the obscurity of some this post and the absence of links. I'm still digging out from under our move…and I have a ton of work.]

Posted in Law: Copyright and DMCA | 7 Comments

The (Alleged) Dark Side of Google

Posted on December 15, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Speaking of Google, here's an interesting if (so far) overwrought item on The Dark Side of Google: as it puts books online it will not only know what you search for but what you read…one search history to rule them all and in the DB bind them…

Posted in ID Cards and Identification | 4 Comments