Toe Fungi

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germs of every other…No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual war.

James Madison

humanity hanging from a cross of iron

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

Dwight D Eisenhower.

it should be the Bomb

I have much to say, but I also have much to do.  Since nobody actually reads this, I am not under considerable social pressure to put anything up.

Still, we get mail here at Work.  Enjoy.

We write to congratulate your feat in developing   the super computer, and wish o request for collaboration with your company in pursing the frontier of technology and opening the GATES. It can control all that is in HEAVEN, it could also begin the process of communicating with other planets 
We are involve in application of new technological formula in Research and  production of computer that should  not just serve as  complimentary tool but an independent entity that can initiate action, reaction e tc, the way humans could  do. Instead of controlling aero plane or Electric Train It should be the flight or Transport. Instead of controlling Nuclear Bomb, it should be the Bomb. Instead of forecasting the weather, it should create the weather e t c .it should be super, but not necessarily big. 
We have already established the path and opened the GATES in the software side. We created software's that can identify a terrorist, loan default, identify the rise and fall in stock, indentify a criminal from a list of suspects, etc.

Eat My Fuck Mitt Romney

Just in case you think that Mitt Romney is not just a dick for a bunch of cross burning motherfuckers:

“You remember during the Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter debates that Ronald Reagan came up with this great thing about the misery index, and he hung that around Jimmy Carter’s neck and that had a lot to do with Jimmy Carter losing. Well we’re going to hang the Obama misery index around his neck.”
He continued, “ The fact that you’ve got people in this country really squeezed…We’re going to hang him with that, so to speak, metaphorically, with uh, you have to be careful these days.”

uh, maybe you might if anybody in the news saw this as anything more than a 'gaff'.   So while I am here, eat my fuck Corporate News Bitches.

Rule of what? So Ordered.

Two posts in one day!  Trying to clear the docket of stuff I have to rant about...


This one revolves around  a decision yesterday by a DC Appeals Court for Yasein Khasem Mohammad Esmail, detainee, Camp Delta.   As I am not well versed in reading a typical court decision, it is not my normal reading material.  Went and looked over this one though since it was referred to in a rather unhappy post on The Guantánamo Blog.  If you have never seen it, this is a very good read.


In looking over this opinion, I am struck by how arbitrary it all seems to be.  In a country where such notions as innocent until proven guilty, chain of evidence and differentiating between hearsay and verifiable evidence it is a little shocking to read.  In reading it over I hear the courts saying something like "we really don't give a shit that we tortured you, tried you on uncorroboratable hearsay, we think that there is a strong enough chance that you could have been part of al Qadea and that lets us violate all legal precedent and tradition."


I can not make this up, from the source: 

Opinion for the Court filed PER CURIAM. Concurring opinion filed by Senior Circuit Judge SILBERMAN. 

PER CURIAM: Appellant, Yasein Khasem Mohammad Esmail, a detainee at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was captured by Northern Alliance forces in December 2001 and transferred to American custody in January of the following year. In 2004, he filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus with the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The district court denied the petition, and Esmail now appeals. Because we agree with the district court’s ultimate determination that Esmail was more likely than not “part of” al Qaeda at the time of his capture in December of 2001, we affirm.

Esmail challenges the district court’s decision on a number of grounds. In particular, he argues that the district court erred in finding that statements he made to American interrogators in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay were voluntary. He also argues that the district court erred in relying on those statements despite the government’s failure to provide sufficient evidence corroborating their content. But we have no need to consider either of those issues because the record contains sufficient facts—affected neither by the alleged coercion nor by the lack of corroboration—to support the district court’s conclusion that Esmail was “part of” al Qaeda at the time of his capture. See Bensayah v. Obama, 610 F.3d 718, 724–25 (D.C. Cir. 2010) (“[T]he [Authorization for Use of Military Force] authorizes the Executive to detain, at the least, any individual who is functionally part of al Qaeda.”); see also Barhoumi v. Obama, 609 F.3d 416, 423 (D.C. Cir. 2010) (clarifying that in habeas appeals involving Guantanamo Bay detainees we review district court fact findings for clear error, and we review the ultimate issue of whether the detainee was “part of” al Qaeda de novo).

Was more likely than not "part of" al Qadea.  Perhaps I am a bit old fashioned, but that seems a little less like a burden of proof than I would like to have applied to me.

Think about what is going on here.  What sucks even more is the opinion statement in the last two pages.  It is here in part:

My second point, not unrelated to the first, goes to the unusual incentives and disincentives that bear on judges on the D.C. Circuit courts – particularly the Court of Appeals – charged with deciding these detainee habeas cases. In the typical criminal case, a good judge will vote to overturn a conviction if the prosecutor lacked sufficient evidence, even when the judge is virtually certain that the defendant committed the crime. That can mean that a thoroughly bad person is released onto our streets, but I need not explain why our criminal justice system treats that risk as one we all believe, or should believe, is justified.

     When we are dealing with detainees, candor obliges me to admit that one can not help but be conscious of the infinitely greater downside risk to our country, and its people, of an order releasing a detainee who is likely to return to terrorism. One does not have to be a “Posnerian” – a believer that virtually all law and regulation should be judged in accordance with a cost/benefit analysis – to recognize this uncomfortable fact.

     That means that there are powerful reasons for the government to rely on our opinion in Al-Adahi v. Obama, 613 F.3d 1102 (D.C. Cir. 2010), which persuasively explains that in a habeas corpus proceeding the preponderance of evidence standard that the government assumes binds it, is unnecessary – and moreover, unrealistic. Id. at 1104-05. I doubt any of my colleagues will vote to grant a petition if he or she believes that it is somewhat likely that the petitioner is an al Qaeda adherent or an active supporter. Unless, of course, the Supreme Court were to adopt the preponderance of the evidence standard (which it is unlikely to do – taking a case might obligate it to assume direct responsibility for the consequences of Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723 (2008)). But I, like my colleagues, certainly would release a petitioner against whom the government could not muster even “some evidence.”

So the (sic) Justice Department just has to come up with some evidence to detain a person - be that hearsay, or that derived by torture - to hold someone because that person was "more likely than not part of al Qadea".  And this determination is left up to a judge based on a burden that they think it is "somewhat likely" that they are even a supporter of al Qaeda?  What the fuck?

I have another post about madness at the OLC (Office of Legal Counsel) - which you may know from it's fine tradition of telling the executive branch (often post-facto) that silly things like laws and constitutionality no longer apply to them which then just seems to magically become law.  WTF?!?!

More later.  The last sentence in the decision says it all:

So Ordered.

The widespread pattern of discrimination

So scratch another state of the list of places I will ever live.  In an act of anti science dumbfuckery, the state of Tennessee has passed a bill which encourages "science" teachers to "explore controversial topics without fear of reprisal."

The bills text says that teachers will be protected if they:

"help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught," namely, "biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning." The bill also says that its "shall not be construed to promote any religious or non-religious doctrine." 

So remember this folks, Evidence Based Analysis is just a non-religious doctrine.

I hate this fucking place some times.

Are there no work houses?

In a effort to get those lazy driftless children off the public dole and out into productive society, free market hero Jane Cunningham sponsored a bill in the Missouri congress which proposes the following:

SB 222 – This act modifies the child labor laws. It eliminates the prohibition on employment of children under age fourteen. Restrictions on the number of hours and restrictions on when a child may work during the day are also removed. It also repeals the requirement that a child ages fourteen or fifteen obtain a work certificate or work permit in order to be employed. Children under sixteen will also be allowed to work in any capacity in a motel, resort or hotel where sleeping accommodations are furnished. It also removes the authority of the director of the Division of Labor Standards to inspect employers who employ children and to require them to keep certain records for children they employ. It also repeals the presumption that the presence of a child in a workplace is evidence of employment.

This is not a joke.  The text of the bill has clearly been taken over since the pdf available at the above link tracks changes made in the bill text.  Don't really know what to say about this.  It took decades of determined effort to get rid of child labor in this country when business claimed that they needed child labor to be competitive. 

I have nothing to add, but to ask Jane Cunningham what it is like to live as a person without shame.

One small step for non-crazypants wearin' people

I share with you a profoundly amusing clip of a so called representative of the Westboro Baptist Church being interviewed at the same time as a member of the Anonymous group (of which I have a soft spot in my heart for).

The representative has done the belt and suspenders thing with her crazy pants and would really not be all that much fun to spend time with in, say, a 20 hour greyhound ride.  In retrospect she is a profoundly good representative of this so called church.



I can do nothing more than ask you to watch this entire episode unfold before your eyes.  You might note that the page posted on the upload site shows a complete and total owning of the internal network of these fuckweasels and that group showed more restraint than I would have in not salting the (virtual) earth or tossing the entirety of their internal correspondence out into the sun.

War on XX, redux redux

Just in case the outstandingly (good and bad) events in WI have taken your eyes off the criminals in Washington, a quick overview courtesy of the New York Times might be in order.

Besides the gobsmackng stupidity at a variety of state levels, we have the budget bill pushed through the the House last saturday which contained:

• Defunding of Planned Parenthood
• The elimination of support for Title X, the federal family planning program for low-income women that provides birth control, breast and cervical cancer screenings, and testing for H.I.V. and other sexually transmitted diseases.
• Slash support for international Family Planning, reimposing the odious global “gag” rule, which forbids giving federal money to any group that even talks about abortions.
• Cut by 10 percent the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, better known as WIC, which serves 9.6 million low-income women, new mothers, and infants each month, and has been linked in studies to higher birth weight and lower infant mortality.
• The G.O.P. bill also slices $50 million from the block grant supporting programs providing prenatal health care to 2.5 million low-income women and health care to 31 million children annually.
• $50 million in cuts to the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant that “supports state-based prenatal care programs and services for children with special needs.”
• $1 billion in cuts to programs at the National Institutes of Health that support “lifesaving biomedical research aimed at finding the causes and developing strategies for preventing preterm birth.” 
• Nearly $1 billion in cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for its preventive health programs, including to its preterm birth studies.          

Additional bills include:

• Two bills in the Republican House would go even further than the current Democrat agreement to stop insurance companies from offering plans that cover abortions in denying coverage to the 30 percent or so of women who have an abortion during child-bearing years.        
• A bill, offered by Representative Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania, has a provision that would allow hospitals receiving federal funds to refuse to terminate a pregnancy even when necessary to save a woman’s life.       

In the opinion section there is a somewhat more strongly worded article (hooray!)  which states:

It is savagely immoral and profoundly inconsistent to insist that women endure unwanted — and in some cases dangerous — pregnancies for the sake of “unborn children,” then eliminate financing designed to prevent those children from being delivered prematurely, rendering them the most fragile and vulnerable of newborns. How is this humane?        

...

Of the 33 countries that the International Monetary Fund describes as “advanced economies,” the United States now has the highest infant mortality rate according to data from the World Bank. It took us decades to arrive at this dubious distinction. In 1960, we were 15th. In 1980, we were 13th. And, in 2000, we were 2nd.        

While I am a little anxious about graphs than mix a large number of things up on the same axis wo/ units, this still tells the tell tale story:

This is a fucking mess.  If one of these cowards who voted for this ever contends than they think of women as less than secondary citizens, call them out for the lying shitbags that they are.  Cutting access to health care to the majority of all women will require a whole lot more spine than the "firm leadership" called for in the same NYT article.  I am pleased that they printed the article, but the democrats can not be counted on to do anything but throwing women's health and equal rights issues under the bus to placate their theocrat wingnut opponents.

s.e.

Koch Whore: Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker answers his master’s call

This is just too cool...

Social engineering at it's finest - call up Her Walker and pretend to be David Koch.

http://www.buffalobeast.com/?p=5045

I have had some problems getting through since the site is getting kinda popular at the moment..



and



Just a quick taste:

Koch: Well, they’re probably putting hobos in suits.

Walker: Yeah.

Koch: That’s what we do. Sometimes.

Walker: I mean paying for the senators to be put up. I know they’re paying for these guy—I mean, people can pay for protesters to come in and that’s not an ethics code, but, I mean, literally if the unions are paying the 14 senators—their food, their lodging, anything like that…[*** Important regarding his later acceptance of a Koch offer to “show him a good time.” ***]

[I was stunned. I am stunned. In the interest of expediting the release of this story, here are the juiciest bits:]

Walker: …I’ve got layoff notices ready…

Koch: Beautiful; beautiful. Gotta crush that union.

Walker: [bragging about how he doesn't budge]…I would be willing to sit down and talk to him, the assembly Democrat leader, plus the other two Republican leaders—talk, not negotiate and listen to what they have to say if they will in turn—but I’ll only do it if all 14 of them will come back and sit down in the state assembly…legally, we believe, once they’ve gone into session, they don’t physically have to be there. If they’re actually in session for that day, and they take a recess, the 19 Senate Republicans could then go into action and they’d have quorum…so we’re double checking that. If you heard I was going to talk to them that’s the only reason why. We’d only do it if they came back to the capital with all 14 of them…

Koch: Bring a baseball bat. That’s what I’d do.

Walker: I have one in my office; you’d be happy with that. I have a slugger with my name on it.

Koch: Beautiful.

Remainder of transcript and utube links are at:

http://www.buffalobeast.com/?p=5045

s.e.

Mephistopheles dental floss, or Toe Jam

I am at a loss for the bolts falling off our so called society, so I counter the irrational fervor with a good serving of word salad.  You try putting "Mephistopheles dental floss" into google image search and see what you get.

All sorts of shit is going on now and it is getting a little weird.  What troubles me is not that I think that all of these things will pass, but what sort of world would exist if they did, and what sociopath would push for such a dream?  Quick bullet point list:

• Defunding Planned Parenthood
• Defunding PBS (ok, I get defunding Elmo...)
• Defunding NPR
• Whatever the fuck is going on in WI: War on unions (rather, those who did not suck Scott Douchbag Walkers ass), teachers, universities and other  non-trolls
• Tearing down Social Security
• Significant Defunding of many state schools
• Authorizing the assassination of medical providers (see prev post)
• And So Much More!

On the other hand, the same federal congressional brain trust voted to continue having the US Army spend more than $7 million a year to sponsor NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Ryan Newman and several million more as part of a partnership with NASCAR.  Since I lack many of the essential social boundaries that lubricate our "normal" interactions, I will indeed ask: what did Ryan have to do to who to get such an excellent contract???

This is life in new america folks.

If you are not in, you are out in the cold of some sort of Dicken's novel.  Except without any hope of a good ending.  Just a cold angry fearful place.  Just in case I am planning on re-reading The Handmaiden's Tale for homework.

As an antidote to the bile that I have been choking down, I offer you this:

For the first time in a while I am actually proud of the people who live here.  Tens of thousands of people have gone down to the capitol building for days now to protest the absurdity of our current state governor.  The mighty Mrs. set.element and I are dragging thing1 and thing2 down there to provide a little demonstration of participatory democracy.   Now that makes me happy.

s.e.

HB1171: codifying abortion provider killing

I have blovated at length about the world spinning down and the continuing war against Reason and decency.  I have scooped up a big stinking pile of shit and waited for the mushrooms to grow.  And still I wait.  So here in this happy place I discovered a new low.  Go figure.

HB1171 is a bill currently in play in South Dakota which redefines justifiable homicide in such a way as to make it legal to shoot abortion providers in cold blood.  No doubt it will not make it out of committee, but that kinda misses the point.

FOR AN ACT ENTITLED, An Act to expand the definition of justifiable homicide to provide for the protection of certain unborn children.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA:

Section 1. That § 22-16-34 be amended to read as follows:

22-16-34. Homicide is justifiable if committed by any person while resisting any attempt to murder such person, or to harm the unborn child of such person in a manner and to a degree likely to result in the death of the unborn child, or to commit any felony upon him or her, or upon or in any dwelling house in which such person is.

Section 2. That § 22-16-35 be amended to read as follows:

22-16-35. Homicide is justifiable if committed by any person in the lawful defense of such person, or of his or her husband, wife, parent, child, master, mistress, or servant, or the unborn child of any such enumerated person, if there is reasonable ground to apprehend a design to commit a felony, or to do some great personal injury, and imminent danger of such design being accomplished.

If you have the stomach, read more in a Mother Jones about this.  I am going to lose my shit for a moment.

This bill is sponsored by Rep. Phil Jensen a "committed" foe of abortion rights.  He is just another chickenshit doushbag from the religious right.  He lacks the fucking stones to actually say what he means - he says "This simply is to bring consistency to South Dakota statute as it relates to justifiable homicide" which is bullshit.  What a bastard.  Every one of these people acts like this - a fucking refusal to step up and actually own the consequences of their actions.  These fans of "personal responsibility", these baby jebus loven' freedom hating spoiled shits get the wingnuttery all riled up then sit around and have the gall to stare blankly into a camera and say they had NO IDEA that thirty years of increasingly violent hate speech would somehow be a problem after people start being killed.

I am not better now, but if I do not stop I might write something that is ALL IN CAPS and FULL OF THINGS THAT MIGHT GET ME IN TROUBLE.

Looks like the bill made it out of committee and will be on the floor of the state house.

By the way if you see the beautiful Mrs set.element today, please give her a hug cause today is a hard one.  Also I apologize to Spiros for the terrible violence I have committed against the english language.

Peace

quick amendment - the delightful Mrs set.element just pointed out the creepy master/mistress/servant language.  WTF?  These people are so many damned layers of creepy I just want to take a shower after reading this.

Another day where my head slowly spins...

In order to keep everyone as informed (and depressed) as possible, I am going to post quite a bit more for a while.  Pointless I assure you.

So todays irritant involves the collective activities of google (you know them?) as well as the Connecticut AG in a change of attitude about some activities involving privacy and data collection.

A moment about google - I acknowledge (and even embrace) the irony of using a "free" public blog hosted under google services while I call them names.  I know (as do you) that if you are not purchasing a product from a company that in fact you are the product.  And yes, Soylant Green is made of people.

A moment about what google did.  Short version - in order to have a better idea about who is exactly where when they use the google location services.  As part of the street view program (where they drive around and take pictures of streets, houses and whatnot) they hoovered up wireless data from unsecured wireless installations instead of just the id of the transmitter.  After denying that they did this (a profoundly dicky thing), they acknowledged the act and threw the programmers under the bus since that it what management does.

So who really gives a shit?

Former Attorney General Richard Blumenthal last December in response to Google's 'accidental' collection of payload data from WiFi networks had the following to say:

 “Verifying Google’s data snare is crucial to assessing a penalty and assuring no repeat. Consumers and businesses expect and deserve a full explanation, as well as measures shielding them from future spying. We will scrupulously safeguard the confidentiality of information we review.

“We will fight to compel Google to come clean–granting my office access to improperly collected materials and protecting confidentiality, as the company has done in Canada and elsewhere.”

I like this for many reasons including the simple fact that it is the right thing to do.

Enter new Attorney General George Jepsen, who is now saying:

Jepsen said Friday that his office will enter into settlement negotiations with the company without reviewing the pilfered data, which Google has steadfastly refused to share with it. Under the terms of the deal between the two, Connecticut will drop the civil investigative demand it was using to force Google to produce the data at issue here, and Google will stipulate to collecting and storing it. It will also stipulate that the data collected included confidential and private information like “partial or complete e-mail communications.”

Note that google does not have to get rid of the data that it has.

So why, good readers am I so pissed off?  We are living after all in a Business Friendly universe now.  There is a second press release which says in part:

For Immediate Release FRIDAY JAN. 28, 2011 

HARTFORD – In recognition of Data Privacy Day, Attorney General George Jepsen Friday advised Connecticut residents to protect their personal and communications data by encrypting their own wireless Internet networks. 

The recommendation stemmed from Connecticut’s investigation into Google Inc.’s collection of payload data being transmitted over unsecured business and consumer networks. That investigation led to a stipulation with Google that will avoid the need to go to court as settlement negotiations continue. 

“Google’s collection of payload data demonstrates that others may be watching your Internet activity without your knowledge,” Jepsen said. “Consumers should know that the wireless routers they purchase from the store are not automatically encrypted, and they need to activate the encryption feature to ensure better protection,” Jepsen said.

So it is the users fault. So think of it like this.  Google goes around the neighborhood and tries all the doors.  If it is unlocked they write down your address, take a picture of your house and walk in and copy any sort of mail or paperwork that happens to be sitting around by the door.  Then they leave.  They are asked about it, and deny it.  A month later they say that they were actually doing this and sorry, we were only planning on trying the doors and writing down the addresses!  The AG asks to see what sort of personal correspondence was copied and is told to go fuck himself.  Later a new AG says that the correspondence is more or less irrelevant and that people need to have done a better job of locking their doors and keeping their bills in order.

This is why I am slowly going mad.

Another day where my head slowly spins...

In order to keep everyone as informed (and depressed) as possible, I am going to post quite a bit more for a while.  Pointless I assure you.

So todays irritant involves the collective activities of google (you know them?) as well as the Connecticut AG in a change of attitude about the activities.

A moment about google - I acknowledge (and even embrace) the irony of using a "free" public blog hosted under google services while I call them names.  I know (as do you) that if you are not purchasing a product from a company that in fact you are the product.  And yes, Soylant Green is made of people.

A moment about the offense (since there seems to be no real suggestion that they did not in fact do this I remove the usual 'alleged' qualifier).  Short version - in order to have a better idea about who is exactly where when they use the google location services.  As part of the street view program (where they drive around and take pictures of streets, houses and whatnot) they hoovered up wireless data from unsecured wireless installations instead of just the id of the transmitter.  After denying that they did this (a profoundly dicky thing), they acknowledged the act and threw the programmers under the bus since that it what management does.

So who really gives a shit?

Former Attorney General Richard Blumenthal last December in response to Google's 'accidental' collection of payload data from WiFi networks had the following to say:

 “Verifying Google’s data snare is crucial to assessing a penalty and assuring no repeat. Consumers and businesses expect and deserve a full explanation, as well as measures shielding them from future spying. We will scrupulously safeguard the confidentiality of information we review.

“We will fight to compel Google to come clean–granting my office access to improperly collected materials and protecting confidentiality, as the company has done in Canada and elsewhere.”

I like this for many reasons including the simple fact that it is the right thing to do.

Enter new Attorney General George Jepsen, who is now saying:

Jepsen said Friday that his office will enter into settlement negotiations with the company without reviewing the pilfered data, which Google has steadfastly refused to share with it. Under the terms of the deal between the two, Connecticut will drop the civil investigative demand it was using to force Google to produce the data at issue here, and Google will stipulate to collecting and storing it. It will also stipulate that the data collected included confidential and private information like “partial or complete e-mail communications.”

Note that google does not have to get rid of the data that it has.

So why, good readers am I so pissed off?  We are living after all in a Business Friendly universe now.  There is a second press release which says in part:

For Immediate Release FRIDAY JAN. 28, 2011 

HARTFORD – In recognition of Data Privacy Day, Attorney General George Jepsen Friday advised Connecticut residents to protect their personal and communications data by encrypting their own wireless Internet networks. 

The recommendation stemmed from Connecticut’s investigation into Google Inc.’s collection of payload data being transmitted over unsecured business and consumer networks. That investigation led to a stipulation with Google that will avoid the need to go to court as settlement negotiations continue. 

“Google’s collection of payload data demonstrates that others may be watching your Internet activity without your knowledge,” Jepsen said. “Consumers should know that the wireless routers they purchase from the store are not automatically encrypted, and they need to activate the encryption feature to ensure better protection,” Jepsen said.

So it is the users fault. So think of it like this.  Google goes around the neighborhood and tries all the doors.  If it is unlocked they write down your address, take a picture of your house and walk in and copy any sort of mail or paperwork that happens to be sitting around by the door.  Then they leave.  They are asked about it, and deny it.  A month later they say that they were actually doing this and sorry, we were only planning on trying the doors and writing down the addresses!  The AG asks to see what sort of personal correspondence was copied and is told to go fuck himself.  Later a new AG says that the correspondence is more or less irrelevant and that people need to have done a better job of locking their doors and keeping their bills in order.

This is why I am slowly going mad.

The Grey

It has been approximately a year since I felt like there was time to sit and write out my frustrations to the world.  Well, there is even less time than before, but I am tired and need to get a few things off my chest.

I am sitting in my office overlooking a city composed from this perspective completely of muted grey, browns and white.  A single red pipe sticking up from the new construction across the way composes the only primary color in view.  The two things, the Grey and the Tired, are probably not unrelated and in part seem to be kept in check by the miracle of Modern Pharmaceuticals for which I am happy.

In reading the interwebs the other day I run across this little gem -

DOJ seeks mandatory data retention requirement for ISPs ; Joins police chief organization in calling for law to bolster enforcement efforts to fight child porn, other online crime

John Douglas, chief of police in Overland Park, Kansas and a representative of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, echoed similar concerns (PDF).  "Clearly, preserving digital evidence is crucial in any modern-day criminal investigation," Douglas said in his prepared testimony for the House subcommittee. On occasion, law enforcement has been able to use existing legal processes to get ISPs to preserve data in connection with specific investigations, he said.

However, because of widely varying data retention policies, sometimes law enforcement requests for protecting data are made too late. "There are cases where we are not able to work quickly enough -- mostly because a 'lead' is discovered after the logs have expired or we are unaware of the specific service provider's protocols concerning data retention time periods," Douglas said.

What is being asked for is that ISP's retain data about online activity for a period of two years.  The form of the data that is being asked for has not been fully described but any form of this retention represents a significant erosion of the notion of privacy.  In the more full bodied version, providers would be required to keep full session information (think of this in terms of all your "web traffic").  Two years is a long time.

Now this strikes me as a little stinky.  There is almost no discussion of privacy concerns except perhaps:

A discussion about data retention is also not about whether the government should have the ability to obtain retained data. Retained data is held by the provider, not the government. Federal law controls when providers can disclose information related to communications, and it requires investigators to obtain legal process, such as a subpoena or court order and in some cases with a search warrant, in order to compel providers to disclose it.

Any way, the same DOJ jokers who currently break the law and abuse the system will just get another tiny speed bump put in place to see whatever you have been doing on line for the past couple of years.

This is by no means a suggestion that it will be used by unethical folks for illegal actions, but really people give me a fucking break.

In a larger perspective we can look back on the NSA coercing telecommunication companies into allowing them to engage in warentless surveillance.    I have gone on and one about this in the past so, this will be short and to the point.  From one of my favorite sites:

Senator Barack Obama, desperate for some traction against Hillary Clinton in the fight for the Democratic nomination for president announced (via) he would support a filibuster if it contained retroactive immunity, but in the end he supported it. The phone companies were off the hook (har) and no one had to find out anything.

Why dredge up this ancient history? Because it sent the message to the business community that if the government comes calling it is best to go along. There is no downside to cooperating, apart perhaps from some anxiety while the pretty theater in the capitol plays out. There is a definite downside to pushing back, though.

This scenario appears to be repeating, this time with Internet companies. Twitter just received a subpoena for user data along with a gag order preventing it from telling the targets. To its enormous credit, it fought back, challenging and quashing the gag order. WikiLeaks - the target of the investigation - raised the entirely reasonable question of whether, say, Facebook and Google have received similar orders. What assurance can anyone have that their data is being protected from US government surveillance?

Honestly compared to this, the NSA buildout in various telcos is totally kids stuff.

Just another day in The Grey.

Compelling Necessity

I have been digesting this for a few days now.  Since no amount of "digestion" seems to help, I will just get it off my chest in the usual way.

On 8,  Sept the 9th Circuit ruled that the state secrets doctrine bars a court action for torture.  That means that you (yes you, citizen!) can be dragged away in secret, held for years without charges, tortured etc etc and if the government wants to call their own law breaking a secret (meaning that there are "state secrets" involved) there is not fuck all that you can do.  Full stop.

This case requires us to address the difficult balance the state secrets doctrine strikes between fundamental principles of our liberty, including justice, transparency, accountability and national security. Although as judges we strive to honor all of these principles, there are times when exceptional circumstances create an irreconcilable conflict between them. On those rare occasions, we are bound to follow the Supreme Court’s admonition that “even the most compelling necessity cannot overcome the claim of privilege if the court is ultimately satisfied that [state] secrets are at stake.” United States v. Reynolds, 345 U.S. 1, 11 (1953). After much deliberation, we reluctantly conclude this is such a case, and the plaintiffs’ action must be dismissed. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district court. 

From the Jeppesen Dataplan suit.

This is a big deal in that the same branch of the government that is breaking all these international laws, is the same one that defines what should be kept secret in the name of national security.  You do the math.

You can not tell me that the current administration is somehow innocent of this as well - they have pushed for a growth of executive privilege and pledged to ignore the self admitted crimes against humanity from the previous administration.

The ACLU’s Ben Wizner on the decision:

This is a sad day not only for the torture victims whose attempt to seek justice has been extinguished, but for all Americans who care about the rule of law and our nation’s reputation in the world. To date, not a single victim of the Bush administration’s torture program has had his day in court. If today’s decision is allowed to stand, the United States will have closed its courtroom doors to torture victims while providing complete immunity to their torturers. The torture architects and their enablers may have escaped the judgment of this court, but they will not escape the judgment of history.

I need a fucking drink.

The tendency of a principle to expand itself to the limit of its logic.

In reading (whatever the hell I manage to read in my spare time), ran across this.  More to say about it, but want to get it down now.

Korematsu was born on our soil, of parents born in Japan. The Constitution makes him a citizen of the United States by nativity, and a citizen of California by residence. No claim is made that he is not loyal to this country. There is no suggestion that, apart from the matter involved here, he is not law-abiding and well disposed. Korematsu, however, has been convicted of an act not commonly a crime. It consists merely of being present in the state whereof he is a citizen, near the place where he was born, and where all his life he has lived.

Even more unusual is the series of military orders which made this conduct a crime. They forbid such a one to remain, and they also forbid him to leave. They were so drawn that the only way Korematsu could avoid violation was to give himself up to the military authority. This meant submission to custody, examination, and transportation out of the territory, to be followed by indeterminate confinement in detention camps. . . .

A military order, however unconstitutional, is not apt to last longer than the military emergency. Even during that period, a succeeding commander may revoke it all. But once a judicial opinion rationalizes such an order to show that it conforms to the Constitution, or rather rationalizes the Constitution to show that the Constitution sanctions such an order, the Court for all time has validated the principle of racial discrimination in criminal procedure and of transplanting American citizens. The principle then lies about like a loaded weapon, ready for the hand of any authority that can bring forward a plausible claim of an urgent need. Every repetition imbeds that principle more deeply in our law and thinking and expands it to new purposes. All who observe the work of courts are familiar with what Judge Cardozo described as “the tendency of a principle to expand itself to the limit of its logic.” * A military commander may overstep the bounds of constitutionality, and it is an incident. But if we review and approve, that passing incident becomes the doctrine of the Constitution. There it has a generative power of its own, and all that it creates will be in its own image. Nothing better illustrates this danger than does the Court’s opinion in this case.

Justice Jackson, wrote this in his dissent from Korematsu v US (starting on page 322 US 243).

Impunity

So I have been on hiatus for the past six months or so, trying to catch up on work and home and all the other things that people do besides complain to the great indifferent internets.

I have read many things in that time which have caused my blood to boil, yet one small comment from some ignorant fuckwit has pushed me over the edge.  As part of my non-pseudo-anonymous life I keep up with a number of computer security related things which is all good and fun.  Just a few days ago there was some shenanigans about some software put out by some big company - the details are really not all that important.  Looking over the comments I see:

It appears this flaw was irresponsibly disclosed, that is, the vendor was not consulted for producing a hotfix before dumping the details on the web. I think sw vendors should refuse to fix irresponsibly disclosed bugs or exploits and direct users to do whatever they want to the hackers in retaliation. Maybe corporates should even have a policy of hunting down vxers and hackers, who publish zero days. I can't see why a big company, richer than many small countries, shouldn't have the authority to dispose of their enemies with impunity, in the same way any small country can, if they have a secret service.

Huh?

Anybody here see why big companies (or governments!) should not be able to dispose of their enemies with impunity?  Even if this is a contemporary Modest Proposal, I have had the misfortune of people share this very same notion after a drink or two.

Not sure exactly why this set me off, but with a little luck I might get a few things written in spite of myself.

FIN|ACK

Nuke Oklahoma, or the sancity of baby jebus

Not much time, but this is such vile bullshit.

Tuesday the Oklahoma legislature voted on two anti-abortion measures.  The first mandates that the women undergoing the procedure have to watch a detailed ultrasound and listen to a detailed description of the fetus.  The second protects doctors from being sued if they withhold  information about birth defects when the fetus is in the womb.

There are no exceptions for cases or rape or incest.

The Democratic governor attempted to veto the two measures based on the rape/incest problem, the unconstitutional intrusion into a woman's privacy and the idea that: "It is unconscionable to grant a physician legal protection to mislead or misinform pregnant women in an effort to impose his or her personal beliefs on a patient."

Both houses voted to override the vetos.

I was profoundly pissed off before I got to the last paragraph of the article.  I make the quote the color of chickenshit, because that is what it is:

“The goal of this legislation is just to make a statement for the sanctity of human life,” State Senator Todd Lamb, the majority floor leader, said in an interview after the vote. “Maybe someday these babies will grow up to be police officers and arrest bad people, or will find a cure for cancer.”

I would like to know when this becomes a civil and human rights issue for women in that they are defacto being denied medical care because it violates the delicate religious notions of a bunch of hypocritical douches. 

"Useless" Air Marshal Service too busy aiding human-trafficking ring to stop underware bomber

Catchy title, yes?

Well what can I say?  Homeland Security appropriates $860 Million for this agency who have had more air marshals arrested than actual suspects. 

We now have approximately 4,000 in the Federal Air Marshals Service, yet they have made an average of just 4.2 arrests a year since 2001. This comes out to an average of about one arrest a year per 1,000 employees.

Now, let me make that clear. Their thousands of employees are not making one arrest per year each. They are averaging slightly over four arrests each year by the entire agency. In other words, we are spending approximately $200 million per arrest. Let me repeat that: we are spending approximately $200 million per arrest. 

 From here.  Based on what I see on the web site I might have a few issues with Congressman Duncan, but this message is spot on.

If you don't click on the link, the following is a painfully true statement about the nature of almost any response to government RFPs:

Professor Ian Lustick of the University of Pennsylvania wrote last year about the money feeding frenzy of the war on terror. And he wrote this: “Nearly 7 years after September 11, 2001,'' he wrote this last year, “what accounts for the vast discrepancy between the terrorist threat facing America and the scale of our response? Why, absent any evidence of a serious terror threat, is a war to on terror so enormous, so all-encompassing, and still expanding?  The fundamental answer is that al Qaeda's most important accomplishment was not to hijack our planes but to hijack our political system.”

“For a multitude of politicians, interest groups and professional associations, corporations, media organizations, universities, local and State governments and Federal agency officials, the war on terror is now a major profit center, a funding bonanza, and a set of slogans and sound bites to be inserted into budget, grant, and contract proposals.'' 

Back to our regularly scheduled madness...