Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

But Not R-Rated

Posted on November 9, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

cash advance

That high?

Posted in Discourse.net | 2 Comments

Wikipedia Edit Voyeurism

Posted on November 9, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

WikipediaVision (beta). Anonymous edits to English Wikipedia (almost) in real-time.

Posted in Internet | Comments Off on Wikipedia Edit Voyeurism

GW Bush Out of Office Countdown Calendar

Posted on November 9, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

The nice people at Sourcebooks Publishing sent me two copies of “The Out of Office Countdown Calendar,” which covers “2008 Though the Glorious End! (Jan. 20, 2009).”

bush-2008.gifIt's graced by little quotes from our feckless leader, such as these:

“Unfair but truthfully, our party has been tagged as being against things”

“This foreign policy stuff is a little frustrating.”

“If this were a dictatorship, it's be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator.”

Thank you, and keep the blog swag coming!

Posted in Blog Swag | 3 Comments

Ethical Questions

Posted on November 8, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

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

Posted in Law: Criminal Law, Virtual Worlds | Comments Off on Ethical Questions

Paranoia By a Master of the Genre

Posted on November 8, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

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.)

Posted in National Security | Comments Off on Paranoia By a Master of the Genre

DOJ as Augean Stables

Posted on November 7, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

American Civil Liberties Union : ACLU Learns of Third Secret Torture Memo by Gonzales Justice Department

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.

Posted in Torture | Comments Off on DOJ as Augean Stables