Category Archives: Civil Liberties

Here's news from the Village Voice about a proposed NY city ordinance which, I suspect, is not unconstitutional — it's just monumentally stupid.

NYPD Seeks an Air Monitor Crackdown for New Yorkers:

Richard Falkenrath, the NYPD's deputy commissioner for counterterrorism …. and Mayor Michael Bloomberg have asked the City Council to pass a law requiring anyone who wants to own [machines that detect traces of biological, chemical, and radiological weapons] to get a permit from the police first. And it's not just devices to detect weaponized anthrax that they want the power to control, but those that detect everything from industrial pollutants to asbestos in shoddy apartments. Want to test for pollution in low-income neighborhoods with high rates of childhood asthma? Gotta ask the cops for permission. Why? So you “will not lead to excessive false alarms and unwarranted anxiety,” the first draft of the law states.

Note that there is no actual evidence to date of police resources being wasted on such false alarms. They're just planning ahead.

It may not be irrelevant that when the Environmental Protection Agency pronounced the air surrounding Ground Zero as safe, independent testers proved this to be a lie. The proposal would presumably shield the tender psyche of New Yorkers from being confronted with such discomforting truths.

There is a case to be made for thinking about the profusion and deployment of sensors, not least cameras, in our cities. Some rules about how personally-identifiable data can be stored and shared might be a good idea (although there are first amendment constraints).

But this proposal is just wrongheaded at best and the product of a deeply statist mind at worst. And Bloomberg thinks he wants to be President?

Update: Here's some news from Purdue via Slashdot that ought to make Bloomberg's and Falkenrath's heads explode — Cell Phone Radiation Detectors Proposed to Protect Against Nukes,

… researchers are developing a radiation detection system that would rely on sensors within cell phones to locate and track potentially hazardous material. From the Purdue news service: “Such a system could blanket the nation with millions of cell phones equipped with radiation sensors able to detect even light residues of radioactive material. Because cell phones already contain global positioning locators, the network of phones would serve as a tracking system, said physics professor Ephraim Fischbach. 'The sensors don't really perform the detection task individually,' Fischbach said. 'The collective action of the sensors, combined with the software analysis, detects the source. Say a car is transporting radioactive material for a bomb, and that car is driving down Meridian Street in Indianapolis or Fifth Avenue in New York. As the car passes people, their cell phones individually would send signals to a command center, allowing authorities to track the source.'”

Senator Bill Nelson of Florida voted with the GOP today to table — in effect kill — the Judiciary Committee version of FISA. In other words, he voted for the version of the bill that gives total immunity to the telephone companies for conspiring with administration officials to do a massive series of illegal wiretaps — even before 9/11. (Glenn Greenwald is great on this at Salon today and yesterday.)

How sad that even the less reactionary of my Senators believes the government should be able to conduct illegal wiretapping at will, and that its aiders and abettors in the private sector — multi-billion dollar firms with the best legal advice — should get immunity for disregarding the clear words of a statute which told them not to do it.

And the man has the nerve to send me email that says he is very concerned about protecting my civil liberties.

Then again, this is the same Bill Nelson of Florida who voted for torture, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

Senator Feingold has released a good statement on FISA:

It's Not Just About Immunity

When the Senate reconvenes next week, legislation to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) will be among the first issues we address. I am as determined as ever to use all procedural tools at my disposal, including a filibuster, to try to stop the FISA legislation if it doesn't protect the privacy of law abiding Americans or if it includes immunity for telecom companies. I am also deeply grateful for the energy this community has put behind stopping this assault on the rights and liberties of Americans – it gave a huge boost to our successful effort in December to stop a bad FISA bill being rammed through the Senate. But while we had some temporary success last month, we face an uphill battle to fix the bill, particularly since the Democratic leadership still seems intent on bringing the flawed Intelligence Committee bill to the floor, rather than the better version approved by the Judiciary Committee.

Continue reading →

The National Archives is one of my favorite DC attractions. It has a small public display area showing some major documents in American history. Among other treasures, it displays one the original copies of the Bill of Rights — with all twelve of the original proposed amendments. (There's even a special vault to protect the original Constitution and Bill of Rights at night.)

What became our First Amendment is actually the third on the original list. Sadly, it seems that the Archive's guards think the Bill of Rights is just for show.

According to this account in a Daily Kos diary, Vistiors to the Archives were kicked out for wearing “Impeach Bush and Cheney, Change History” T-shirts:

With the original First Amendment “Freedom of Speech” looking on, admirers of the U.S. Constitution in the Washington D.C. National Archives Building today were ordered to leave for wearing tee-shirts reading “Impeach Bush and Cheney.” Many of the tourist-activists were in town to hail the arrival of impeachment marcher John Nirenberg, the 61 year-old college professor who has just walked from Boston to D.C. to call attention to the need for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney.

In a telephone interview, one of the participants, Susan Serpa, age 56, told me she was looking at the displays when a female security guard approached her and said “You need to go speak to that man over there” indicating a burly security guard. When Serpa asked why, the woman said: “Your shirt.” Serpa's shirt reads on the front: “Impeach Bush and Cheney, Change History.” On the reverse it says: “MaineImpeach.org.”

Other security guards then approached Serpa and told her: “You need to leave because of your shirt.

Assuming this account is correct, what the guards did is completely, totally illegal, as the Archives is federal property, open to the public, and the wearers were not committing a disturbance. But the guards either didn't know that or didn't care.

How have we sunk to this state?

Please read JUSTICE BUILDING BLOG: IF YOU WIN….. for the appropriate response to the latest US Justice atrocity:

A jury acquits a lawful US resident who has no prior criminal record, has lived in the US for over twenty years, and has a wife and children at a home in South Florida.

What does the US government do to this Defendant who had a trial in the United States? Yes- these United States, about which our president travels the world extolling the virtues of freedom, democracy, due process, trial by jury, presumption of innocence; the bill of rights; this wonderful government of ours throws this INNOCENT man back into custody and in the dark of night drags him off to some concentration camp in Georgia, to await removal for being something he was just acquitted of.

More where that came from.