Looking for some ethical questions? Look no further than Kaimipono Wenger, Reparations and Net Benefit which tries to deconstruct defenses based on claims (not always plausible) of accident benefit to the victim.
Or, for something superficially less grim, see James Grimmelmann, Is Gold Farming Mandatory? A Question in Applied Virtual World Ethics
Further evidence that I am insufficiently paranoid: Dispatches from the Frozen North runs with my post on the Swede who emailed the FBI that his son-in-law was a terrorist in order to scuttle a business trip (Foreigners Still Don't Realize How Dumb Our Government Is).
He has some great scary scenarios which are likely being adopted by al Queada right now, now that he's spelled them out (and the likely over-reactions) in such lovely detail.
Only problem is that the FBI is now interviewing the author. (This last part is, I think, a joke.)
Legal papers filed in federal court Monday in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations disclose that the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) for the Department of Justice issued three secret memos in May 2005 relating to the interrogation of detainees in CIA custody. Until now, the existence of only two of those memos had been reported and it was not known precisely when the memos had been written. The memos are believed to have authorized the CIA to use extremely harsh interrogation methods including waterboarding.
No light at the end of the tunnel.
More dumb police work: Man angry with son-in-law fingers him as terrorist to FBI
A man in Sweden who was angry with his daughter's husband has been charged with libel for telling the FBI that the son-in-law had links to al-Qaeda, Swedish media reported on Friday.
The man, who admitted sending the email, said he did not think the US authorities would stupid enough to believe him.
The 40-year-old son-in-law and his wife were in the process of divorcing when the husband had to travel to the United States for business.
The wife didn't want him to travel since she was sick and wanted him to help care for their children, regional daily Sydsvenska Dagbladet said without disclosing the couple's names.
When the husband refused to stay home, his father-in-law wrote an email to the FBI saying the son-in-law had links to al-Qaeda in Sweden and that he was travelling to the US to meet his contacts.
He provided information on the flight number and date of arrival in the US.
The son-in-law was arrested upon landing in Florida. He was placed in handcuffs, interrogated and placed in a cell for 11 hours before being put on a flight back to Europe, the paper said.
Neither the FBI nor the TSA can afford to ignore emails with specific accusations. Stopping someone directly accused of being a terrorist is entirely reasonable — although you have to wonder whether the Swedish authorities were consulted at any point between receipt of the email and the passenger's arrival.
Still, if the FBI and the TSA can't do a better job of distinguishing a terrorist from an innocent visitor after 11 hours in which they have him to interrogate and during which they can presumably contact the Swedes to go talk to the sender (if they haven't already), then TSA really is not much use, since all air travel will be subject to a trivial denial of service attack. This is worse than “security theater” — it's security Grand Guignol.
Apparently the FBI did eventually get around to contacting the Swedes.
FBI contacted Swedish intelligence agency Saepo, which discovered that the email tipping off the FBI had been sent from the father-in-law's computer.
What's unclear from the story is when the request was made, and why they deported the traveler pending this report.
Bonus 'security' horror story, brought to you by those dangerous Episcopalians.
In one of the comments to my Guy Fawkes Day Musings, anonymous asks:
What exactly is your position on Islamic extremism? … Your other postings about torture, surveillance and profiling are pretty meaningless as well, as you have never articulated your assessment of threat level. …
… A google search of your blog reveals no stated position on the Israel conflict, and little in reference to Islamic extremism. I am somewhat baffled how a discussion of contemporary civil liberties can be had without a statement of position on the threat (if any) to western freedoms posed by what is perceived to be a spreading doctrine of genocidal fascism. At a bare minimum, since a google search also reveals you to be Krugmanite economist, the profound affects on our economic stability (which I assume you'd agree is closely tied to viable liberal civil liberties) certainly bear mention with regards to oil prices.
I'm surprised this needs saying, but here goes: Since I'm not running for office, I feel no need whatsoever to have a position on every issue.
I write about the things that either interest me the most, or on which I think I have some value added to contribute. There are a huge number of issues that I think are important but that I don't write about either because I don't have the time, or because I don't think my opinions are all that likely to be of interest to anyone. I have much more to say about domestic matters than foreign (as opposed to international) because I live and vote here: I'm concerned about and responsible for US policy in ways that don't apply elsewhere, so naturally I write the most about the USA. I think the suggestion that a blogger has some sort of obligation to opine on every good or bad thing that every foreign government or organization does is a fairly risible idea. It's a big world.
In any case, I don't see “Islamic extremism” as a topic, much less one on which I have much that is unusual to say. It's complex, not monolithic. Like, say, “modern capitalism” which is also complicated and varies from place to place.
I do, however, have the following opinions, which you may have free of charge:
From the e-mail inbox:
November 6, 2007, New York, NY – In a key victory in the war against torture, today a federal court ruled that the lawsuit against a private military contractor in Iraq should be heard by a jury of Americans. The action was filed in 2004 against CACI and Titan, both of which were named in the military investigation of the Abu Ghraib scandal. The Center for Constitutional rights, Burke O'Neil LLC, and Akeel Valentine, PLC brought the suit as a class action on behalf of the hundreds of Iraqi torture victims. The same firms filed an action on October 11 against Blackwater USA for the killing of innocent bystanders at Noori Square in September.
The court today ruled that the case could go forward against CACI, whose employees worked as interrogators in the prison. The court found that that there was a dual chain of command where corporate employees were obliged to report abuse up the chain of command at CACI. The court dismissed the claims against Titan, whose employees worked as translators, reasoning that the military exercised exclusive control over the translators.
Susan L. Burke, of Burke O'Neil LLC, stated, “We are delighted that a jury of Americans will soon be deciding whether an American corporation is free to torture prisoners.”
Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, stated, “This will send a message to all contractors that they cannot act with impunity outside the law and begins to answer the question of how CACI will be held accountable for the atrocities at Abu Ghraib.”
Shereef Akeel of Akeel & Valentine, PLC said, “This is a real victory for the men we represent. Now they have the chance to seek justice before the American people.”
The denial of summary judgment in the case means there will be a jury trial of a private military contractor for torture. A status conference is scheduled for December 6, and a trial date will be set then. Attorneys for plaintiffs are asking for it to be held as promptly as possible.
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