Fundrace.org isn't reachable right now because the whole world is trying to get to it, but according to this morning's paper it not only lists everyone who gave more than $200 to a Presidential campaign, but allows you to display all the contributions by your neighbors on a nice clickable map.
Sorta like Miami-Dade's map of sexual predators.
Prof. Neal Katyal of Georgetown has a depressing if unsurprising item in Slate, Gitmo' Better Blues – The folly of the new Guantanamo trials, suggesting that the first round of Gitmo charges will not be big fish, and will not be clear examples of war crimes by fiendish terrorists…but rather…an accountant and the videographer of the Cole bombing. Folks who worked with bad folks, yes, but, as Prof. Katyal puts it,
But despite the tremendous merits of our civilian conspiracy law, these military charges are unconstitutional, inconsistent with international law, and unwise.
They will demonstrate what critics of the military tribunals have been saying all along: that the administration has sought to create an end run around guarantees of fundamental rights enshrined in our Constitution and universally accepted agreements such as the Geneva Conventions.
…
While glorifying the Cole bombing and moving al-Qaida money are certainly bad acts, if there were any evidence that these two men actually engaged in serious war crimes, it would be in the indictment. It's not. Instead, the government can only allege the amorphous crime of aiding of al-Qaida.
Contrast these vague indictments with the position of Assistant Attorney General Herbert Wechsler during World War II. Wechsler, perhaps the most important 20th-century scholar of American criminal law, deplored a Pentagon proposal to file conspiracy charges against Germans who were not “prime leaders.” To Wechsler, such charges could not be based on ideas drawn from American conspiracy law without “proof of personal participation in a specific crime.” In the absence of such proof, he said, “the force of the broad criminal charge against the leaders may be seriously weakened in the eyes of the world,” especially “if too many individuals are included in it.” Today there is no Wechsler in the administration advising restraint—striking, in light of America's recent experience with the Independent Counsel Act, another device that encouraged overzealousness at the price of balance and fairness. Fairness and process, of course, can give way in an emergency or when the matter concerns Bin Laden or his close associates. But a cameraman and an accountant, even if they double as bodyguards, just don't come close.
Be proud, fellow citizens, of what your country does in your name. Or throw the rascals out.
Via Michael Geist's newsletter on Internet law, I learn that the Council of Europe's cybercrime convention has entered into force due to its fifth ratification — from Lithuania. The US has signed but not yet ratified. The key aspect of the convention is that it imposes a duty on signatories to do Carnivore-like snooping on domestic internet users at the request of a foreign government…so long as the snooping method is consistent with domestic law.
It's widely believed that the US wrote this and pushed it through the Council, both to get access to foreign communications and especially to impress on Congress that Carnivore in the US should be seen as business as usual, and something demanded by our allies.
Scalia takes 21 pages to explain why he will not recuse himself in the Cheney case
Some of the arguments are pretty good; others hover round the laugh test. Can anyone really believe that,
Nothing this Court says on those subjects will have any bearing upon the reputation and integrity of Richard Cheney. Moreover, even if this Court affirms the decision below and allows discovery to proceed in the District Court, the issue that would ultimately present itself still would have no bearing upon the reputation and integrity of Richard Cheney.
Can anyone believe that? I sure don't.
I'd post more, but I have a deadline. (Thanks, Dan, for the tip.)
Bruce Reed — DLC honcho, former Clinton domestic policy guru, and once, very very long ago, the nice Presidential Scholar from Idaho whom I met on our joint trip to Washington, D.C. (as I lived in DC my 'trip' was on the Metro) — has written a lively, funny, account of the habits of two Washington tribes, the Wonks and the Hacks. In it he suggests that the currernt administration's major failing is that it has cast its lot with the hacks, and declared war on wonks.
It's a great piece and you should read it all, but here's the irrelevant throwaway line about one of my least favorite political operatives that made me glad I wasn't drinking coffee while I read it:
For all his faults, though, [Dick] Morris was often a useful spur to the bureaucracy, because he enabled the White House policy team to deploy our own Madman Theory: If the agencies wouldn't go along with our sensible proposals, we warned them that the president might just listen to Dick Morris. Agency productivity soared as a result.
I never, ever, was able to suspend disbelief about subvocalization when reading science fiction. I could swallow warp drives, nanotech, even telephathy on a good day, but this silent speaking stuff seemed far too good to be true.
Well, NASA says it's true.
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