Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

What You Don’t Know Can Hurt Someone

Posted on October 17, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

If you put stuff like this in a movie, no one would believe it: Tristero at Hullabaloo, in a post called Scandalous Ignorance, points to an op-ed in the NYT that notes how few of our decision-makers even know the difference between a Sunni and Shiite. Among the folk unclear on the concept is the Vice Chairman of the House intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence. Yes, the subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence.

Tristero’s explanation is that these guys are not curious or smart enough to find out about the enemy. Digby, though, has a more plausible and more chilling explanation in Beautiful Minds: they were reading books all right, or rather all read the same book, but it was a very nutty (and discredited) book.

Either way…

Posted in Iraq | 1 Comment

Little Miss Sunshine

Posted on October 17, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

Cheney: ‘General Overall Situation’ In Iraq Is Going ‘Remarkably Well’.

I would hate to see something he called a bad overall situation.

Posted in Iraq | 1 Comment

Fran Hill on Abramoff and Sham Charities

Posted on October 17, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

My colleague Fran Hill has an op-ed in today's New York Times, Congress's Charity Cases – New York Times.

Here's a taste:

Why were charities Mr. Abramoff’s go-to vehicles as he sought to transfer funds covertly through Washington’s corridors of power? The primary attraction was their opacity: their ability to raise money in any amount, without limit, from any individual or entity anywhere in the world without disclosing the contributors to anyone.

This makes good sense for honest charities helping people in need. But Mr. Abramoff took advantage of this situation to circumvent campaign finance laws and Congressional ethics rules and provide illicit benefits to powerful politicians.

Posted in Law: Tax | Comments Off on Fran Hill on Abramoff and Sham Charities

In Atlanta

Posted on October 16, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

I’m in Atlanta today, speaking at the Georgia State University College of Law, and so probably won’t post much.

A number of readers have sent me interesting links recently, and I invite you to post pointers to them in the comments to this item. One important request though: Please do NOT post the naked URL in the first 60 characters of your entry — it messes up the blog for IE readers.

If you know how to use HTML to create a hyperlink, you can do that anywhere in your entry. But if you are posting a link in plain text, please put it at the end of your comment describing what it is.

Posted in Talks & Conferences | 1 Comment

Dave Patlak for Congress

Posted on October 15, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

I live in Florida’s 18th District. Our current representative is dire: one of Bush’s strongest supporters in Congress — and the district is carefully drawn to be one of the safest GOP seats in the nation. As the local media consider the race a done deal for the incumbent, they haven’t covered it much…which makes theirs a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Our local part of the 50-state strategy is Dave Patlak, a 25-year veteran of the Coast Guard, a candidate who knows the district.

If you live near me, vote for Dave. Wherever you live, consider making an online donation. If you live in the area, you can volunteer for the campaign:

Democrat Dave Patlak for Congress Campaign HQ
735 Second Street #6
Miami Beach, FL 33139
Phone: (305) 531-1513

And check out Dave’s blog.

Posted in Politics: FL-18 | 1 Comment

Miami-Dade Public Library Backsliding on Whitelisting Sites

Posted on October 14, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

Back on Dec. 17, 2005, I posted an item entitled Kudos to the Miami-Dade Public Library which said,

I have to praise the Miami-Dade Public Library system. Once I escalated my complaints about their new wireless service they have done almost (but not quite) everything I asked for.

They unblocked digicrime.com from the PC network. They are going to put into place procedures which allow on-the-spot blocking overrides for the laptops they lend out in the library (!). They regret that they don’t see a secure means of providing a similar on-the-spot override for users who bring their own laptops, as they think that would ‘compromise security’.

But most importantly, they’ve unblocked port 22 so I can use ssh! And they were very nice about it, too. (Please, nobody mention some of the things you can do with ssh tunnels, ok?)

I’m impressed.

Well, a good chunk of that statement is now inoperative. I am posting this from the Kendall branch, and my attempt to reach digicrime.com just produced this glorious message:

Access to this site is restricted 1

Hacking the site is www.digicrime.com

Not only is this infuriatingly uninformative, but it represents a grave breach of faith with library patrons. How many other whitelisted sites have been surreptitiously re-blocked?

At least ssh is still open…

Posted in Miami | 2 Comments