Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

David Sirota Thinks The Media Is Doing a ‘Brainwash’

Posted on November 21, 2008 by Michael Froomkin

David Sirota, Shaking off the brainwash – The Denver Post

If you're having trouble remembering what the recent election was all about, rest easy: You're likely experiencing the momentary effects of brainwashing.

For weeks, your television, newspaper and radio have been telling you America is a “center-right nation” that elected Barack Obama to crush his fellow “socialist” hippies, discard the agenda he campaigned on, and meet the policy demands of electorally humiliated Republicans.

This is the usual post-election nonsense from the Braindead Megaphone, as author George Saunders famously calls our political and media noise machine. When George W. Bush wins by 3 million votes, the megaphone blares announcements about a conservative mandate that Democrats must respect. When Obama wins by twice as much, the same megaphone roars about Democrats having no mandate to do anything other than appease conservatives.

I do own a TV now, but I don't ever watch the TV news; and since the election haven't watched the commentators. Sounds like I'm not missing much?

Posted in The Media | 1 Comment

Solutions Finding Their Problem

Posted on November 21, 2008 by Michael Froomkin

If we can get Congress and the electorate into a mind-set that says what the economy needs is stimulus of the electroshock variety, then all sorts of things become possible.

Here's one idea that has been floating around for years, whose time has come: Cash for clunkers.

The garbage can model of public choice decision-making describes organizations as places with 'solutions looking for problems'. I expect we might see lots of this sort of thing — and that's on the whole a good thing.

Posted in Econ & Money | 1 Comment

EFF Fighting the Good Fight on Wiretap Case Immunity

Posted on November 21, 2008 by Michael Froomkin

The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a reply brief yesterday in response to the federal government's and telecoms' motion for dismissal or summary judgment in an ongoing lawsuit against the telecoms for their (alleged) participation in illegal warrantless surveillance. The case is captioned “In re National Security Agency Telecommunications Records Litigation, Mdl No. 1791”.

This is the suit that motivated the immunity provisions of the FISA amendments. But they were drafted in a very very odd way that leaves some substantial daylight for challenges. And the great lawyers at EFF have done a first-rate job of running for daylight.

[Disclosure: In addition to serving on EFF's Advisory Board, I had a minor role in assisting the EFF legal team on one of the issues.]

Posted in Civil Liberties, Law: Privacy | Comments Off on EFF Fighting the Good Fight on Wiretap Case Immunity

Judge Grants Writ of Habeas Corpus for 5 out of 6 Gantanamo Detainees

Posted on November 20, 2008 by Michael Froomkin

Judge Orders Five Detainees Freed From Guantánamo

In the first hearing on the government's justification for holding detainees at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp, a federal judge ruled Thursday that five Algerian men were held unlawfully for nearly seven years and ordered their release.

…

Judge Leon, in a ruling from the bench, said that the information gathered on the men had been sufficient to hold them for intelligence purposes, but was not strong enough in court.

“To rest on so thin a reed would be inconsistent with this court’s obligation,” he said. He directed that the five men be released “forthwith” and urged the government not to appeal.

Judge Leon, who was appointed by President Bush, had been expected to be sympathetic to the government. In 2005, he ruled that the men had no habeas corpus rights.

I gather from people who were there that the Judge was fairly impassioned in his request to the government lawyers to let this case drop. That's really unusual, and suggests that they really had no case.

Judge Leon has issued an opinion (warning: 3.1 MB scanned .pdf), which skirts the actual evidence for security reasons, but is still good reading.

This is a historic moment — the rule of law grinds slowly, but maybe it's got some life in it yet.

Posted in Guantanamo | 4 Comments

Mr. Dennis Webb Seeks Your Advice

Posted on November 20, 2008 by Michael Froomkin

When you have an online web presence, you get asked all sorts of things.

But this was a new one, which I reprint with the permission of Mr. Dennis W. Webb of Fort Worth, TX.:

I realize you're probably very busy, so I'll get right to my problem. Tomorrow I'm to begin writing summaries of a local lawyer's court cases. (Sorry, I'm not even sure what this is called.) I've read your “Legal Writing Tips,” which seems to be straightforward advice. Can you think of anything else that may be useful in my first day on the job?

Thanks.

Got any advice for Mr. Webb?

Posted in Law: Everything Else | 3 Comments

It’s, It’s, It’s … Monty Python’s Flying YouTube

Posted on November 20, 2008 by Michael Froomkin

Free Monty Python on YouTube (spotted via Joho the blog):

For 3 years you YouTubers have been ripping us off, taking tens of thousands of our videos and putting them on YouTube. Now the tables are turned. It's time for us to take matters into our own hands.

We know who you are, we know where you live and we could come after you in ways too horrible to tell. But being the extraordinarily nice chaps we are, we've figured a better way to get our own back: We've launched our own Monty Python channel on YouTube.

No more of those crap quality videos you've been posting. We're giving you the real thing – HQ videos delivered straight from our vault.

What's more, we're taking our most viewed clips and uploading brand new HQ versions. And what's even more, we're letting you see absolutely everything for free. So there!

I think this should be a fertile source of ringtones….

Posted in Kultcha | Comments Off on It’s, It’s, It’s … Monty Python’s Flying YouTube