Coulter fallout continues

No update on Ann Coulter's voter fraud case, but her recent name-calling at a conservative conference continues to entertain.

So far, nine papers have dropped her syndicated column. She reportedly has 100 johns, er, clients, most of them small papers. So this has cost her maybe 10 percent of them. She's also lost some big advertisers on her Web site, including AT&T and Verizon.

Some of those papers decided to drop the column after being pressured by a gay-rights group, the Human Rights Campaign. Interestingly, liberal columnist Ted Rall opposes the campaign -- Perhaps because some of the campaign rhetoric is obnoxious:

In a Wednesday letter announcing his organization's campaign targeting individual newspapers, HRC President Joe Solmonese wrote: "Yesterday, we asked you to send a message to [President and Editor] Lee Salem ... of Universal Press Syndicate. ... You leaped into action and sent over 20,000 e-mails to Lee demanding Universal ... drop Coulter’s column. By responding so quickly, you sent a strong message that our community will not stand by silently while UPS continues to serve as a platform for hateful and destructive language in the media.

"As you may know by now, UPS has flatly defied the protests of thousands of fair-minded Americans nationwide by refusing to stop distributing Coulter’s column. ...

Bleh. Coulter is a troll, but whenever someone starts using "fair-minded Americans" to justify suppressing a viewpoint, I break out in hives. Bash her for what she says; even boycotts of advertisers is okay. But don't try to get her quashed just because you don't like what she says.

civil liberties, Coulter, politics, midtopia

Harmful books

What are the most dangerous books of the last two centuries? Here's one answer as compiled by conservatives, hence the lack of a single title by Ann Coulter.

The list, and my commentary:

1. Communist Manifesto. Okay, fair enough. Debate over the ideals and logic behind it aside, attempts to implement this little gem led to the deaths of tens of millions of people worldwide. Communism remains a nice ideal (to some) but a demonstrably horrible form of government.

2. Mein Kampf. This one's a little murkier. Yes, Adolf was a pretty bad guy, and as such perhaps his book deserves the same treatment as the Communist Manifesto, and for the same reason. Except that his book played almost no role in his rise to power. It didn't start selling until he actually took power and it became mandatory reading. Hitler bad? No question. But this ranking seems to give his rambling and incoherent book way too much credit.

3. Quotations from Chairman Mao. Another entry chosen for the same reasons as the first two. While a reasonable choice in itself, it again points up the misplaced credit given to "Mein Kampf." Because this book, like the Communist Manifesto, again led directly to myriad deaths and persecutions thanks to its influence during the Cultural Revolution.

4. The Kinsey Report. And now we start to stray into really bizarro conservative territory. After three ideologies that killed hundreds of millions, the next most harmful book is .... a study of American sexual practices. The stated reason? "The reports were designed to give a scientific gloss to the normalization of promiscuity and deviancy." Yes, I can see where that's nearly as harmful as killing or exiling millions of people.... Was Kinsey guilty of ethical and scientific lapses? Yes. Fourth most harmful book in modern history? C'mon.

5. Democracy and Education. An influential book that advocated schools spend less time teaching "character development" and memorizing facts, and more time teaching kids to think. While waves of educational fads have indeed weakened education, this was not such a fad. It makes the argument that a healthy democracy requires an educated and thinking populace more than a pliant population capable of regurgitating facts but less able to think for themselves. This is hardly radical; one commonly cited advantage of American students is their ability to think creatively, unlike their counterparts in Japan and India, for example, where students outscore us on standardized tests but often find themselves ill-prepared for more than technical jobs because while they have all the tools, they never really learned how to apply them in new ways. This may be why the most devastating thing the listmakers can think of to say about it is that it "helped nurture the Clinton generation."

6. Das Kapital. Marx/Engel's other book is apparently less dangerous than either sexuality or public education, perhaps because it's more of a critique of capitalism than an actual proposed alternative like the "Communist Manifesto." One can argue that this founding document of modern socialism contributed to the philosophical underpinnings of communism, and its calls for the abolition of private property (the full Marxist/Communist form of socialism) are offensive both morally and economically. But on the other hand socialist activists have produced much actual good, such as the five-day workweek, paid vacation and workplace safety laws. One can argue that modern capitalism is both stronger and more democratic thanks to Marx's critique, however unrealistic his alternative.

7. The Feminine Mystique. Another conservative pet peeve, feminism, nails down the #7 spot. While Betty Friedan was quite militant by today's standards -- as almost all pioneers are -- the only way one can say this book was harmful is if one also argues that it was okay to force women into subservient, gender-defined social roles. Friedan, whatever her faults or excesses, laid the groundwork for today's society, in which women are (horrors!!) allowed to choose their own life and career path. How terrible.

8. The Course of Positive Philosophy. This book is harmful because it outlines a nontheistic belief system. No, seriously. That's why it's so dangerous, because it describes a philosophy that doesn't require belief in God. If anyone was still taking this list seriously, hopefully you've stopped now.

9. Beyond Good and Evil. The infamous classic by Freidrich Nietsche argues that belief in God is a weakness, but mostly it's taken to task for its amoral, "might makes right" philosophy. I'd argue that this book is far more deserving of the #2 spot instead of "Mein Kampf", because it had more direct influence on Nazi ideology (indeed, it informed "Mein Kampf").

10. General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. The classic economic text by John Maynard Keynes, which advocated government regulation of the economy. It was indeed hugely influential. But it is harmful only if you dislike the economic course the world has taken since the Great Depression, because Keynesian economics are the rules by which the world operates today. The most notable sign of his influence is the existence of the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee, which raises and lowers interest rates to even out business cycles -- something it has done with remarkable success for nearly 80 years. The overheated booms and destructive panics of the 19th Century are largely things of the past. Was he 100% right on everything? Of course not. But on balance his theories seem to have done more good than harm.

The Honorable Mention list is even sillier, containing books such as "On Liberty" by John Stuart Mill, "Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin, "Unsafe at Any Speed" by Ralph Nader, "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carlson and "Introduction to Psychoanalysis" by Freud. I guess these are harmful if you think personal liberty, evolution, consumer safety, concern for the environment and the study and treatment of mental dysfunction are bad things. Although in the latter two cases there are legitimate criticisms of the authors for being excessive in their concern and incorrect in certain assertions, I think it would be difficult to argue that either Carson or Freud did more harm than good.

To be fair, it can be difficult to put together a good list of "harmful" books. Part of this is our national commitment to free speech; it's hard to argue that we should not be exposed to the ideas in "Beyond Good and Evil" or even "Mein Kampf," if only so they can be debated (and largely refuted) in the open light of day. So I have no other titles to offer in replacement of those above, simply because I'm not given to making such lists.

Perhaps that's the lesson to be imparted here. Ideas are not harmful; applications are. We should hold Hitler, not Nietsche, responsible for the National Socialist movement. We should hold the Soviet authorities, not Marx, responsible for the compound disaster that was the Soviet Union. Just like we don't hold Adam Smith responsible for the excesses of pure capitalism, or hold Ayn Rand responsible for the more lunatic Libertarian fringe, or hold Jesus responsible for the actions of the religious right. A book may give dullards a faux-intellectual hook on which to hang their actions; but their actions cannot be blamed on the book, any more than the killing can be blamed on the gun.

books, politics, midtopia

Another stupid flag brouhaha

I've been focusing a lot on Washington and national news lately. I wonder what's been going on here at home. Let's see:

On Thursday, the Minnesota House, after a long and emotional debate that featured members quoting Abraham Lincoln, the Pledge of Allegiance, Ronald Reagan and the Declaration of Independence, approved a measure to require that all American flags sold in Minnesota be made in America.

The vote was 83-46. The bill awaits action in the Senate.

"It's time to bring the flag home," said Rep. Larry Howes, R-Walker.

Uh, wait. What was that? The state wants to wade into the marketplace and dictate where a particular product can be manufactured? Why?

Surely they're just expressing an opinion. I mean, they wouldn't actually throw someone in jail for this....

The measure would make it a misdemeanor to sell an American flag not made in the United States.... "It feels good to be for a bill like this," said Rep. Marty Seifert, R-Marshall. But he added, "This is serious business when we are talking about 90 days in jail and $1,000 fine."

Okay, they would.

You have to love the response by the bill's sponsor, DFLer Tom Rukavina:

"That's absolutely as absurd as putting a label on your pillow saying, 'Do not remove under penalty of law.' … You can try to pretend this is going to put people in jail. It isn't," Rukavina said.

Fabulous. Make a law that you know won't be enforced because it is unreasonable on the face of it. Yeah, I'm sure that will increase respect for the law -- not just this law, but the law in general.

Rukavina has a history of stupid bills. In this session, he also introduced a bill overruling a local zoning board's decision against a friend's house addition. After enduring withering criticism, he said he wasn't serious about the bill. Which, if true, again raises the question of why he was wasting taxpayer time and money by writing it.

In 2003 he proposed selling off state-owned land in the Boundary Waters to the highest bidder, an idea so bad that Gov. Tim Pawlenty -- not exactly a noted environmentalist -- suggested Rukavina had been "drinking too much swamp water."

Earth to the entire House: the state should intervene in the marketplace -- and restrict civil liberties -- only for good reason. Trying to dictate the origin of American flags does not constitute "good reason." Nor does the mental process involved in arriving at the conclusion that such a bill is worth discussing.

There was more silliness all around:

During the debate, legislators offered several amendments, including criminalizing the destruction of the American flag, making English the state's official language and requiring lawmakers to drive American-made cars. All were ruled out of order or voted down.

The next time legislators want a pay increase, point to this debate and say "not until you stop wasting time on stupidity like this." Meanwhile, hope the state Senate isn't infected by the same strain of brain cramp.

Rukavina, Minnesota, politics, midtopia

Taxation now, representation pending

Congress is moving forward on a bill to give Washington, D.C., residents a full voting representative in the House.

As a compromise for adding a representative from the heavily Democratic District, the bill would also grant an additional seat to to Utah, a Republican state that is next in line to get a seat thanks to its growing population. Thus, the House would increase i size from 435 to 437 members.

The bill has a dubious future. It will likely pass the House, but it remains to be seen if it can get the 60 votes needed to pass the Senate. And Bush may veto it. If it does become law, it will almost certainly face legal challenges.

On the one hand, it's a matter of simple fairness to give D.C. residents representation in Congress, just like any other citizen. Right now they have a non-voting delegate, like other federal territories. But unlike those territories, they are part of the United States and thus deserve more rights.

On the other hand, it's not at all clear that representation can be achieved by simple statute. The Constitution seems to limit representation to the States, because Article I, Section 2 states that "The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States.... Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers."

On the third hand, D.C. residents are subject to direct taxes, which may imply that the phrases I quoted are not restrictive -- i.e., Congress can extend representation to geographic entities other than states. Then there's the power described under Section 8, which established the legal foundation for the District of Columbia and gave Congress full authority over it -- including, proponents argue, the authority to give it Congressional representation.

Me, I think that argument is suspect. It took the 23rd Amendment to give D.C. residents the right to vote in Presidential elections. Perhaps that was a case of "better safe than sorry", but if it took an amendment to do that, it would seem to require another amendment to give them full representation in Congress. And given the current makeup of the Supreme Court, I don't give the bill good odds of surviving Constitutional review.

But at least it's continuing the conversation, and if this route is blocked the next step would be to propose such an amendment -- a time-consuming measure that wouldn't gather serious steam until after the 2008 election. Which is just as well. Democrats can dream of having a wider majority in Congress and perhaps control of the White House by then, which would make getting the amendment through Congress that much easier. After that it would be in the hands of the states, and would probably take years to either pass or die.

Is this the most crucial issue facing the nation? No. But it's kind of important to D.C. residents. I can understand people opposing this particular bill on constitutional grounds; but I can't imagine them opposing the general principle on anything other than partisan political grounds. Basic fairness and equal representation says it's the right thing to do. So if Congress members or the White House don't like this bill, they should signal their support for a Constitutional amendment to achieve the same end.

voting, D.C., politics, midtopia

The disaster of Alberto Gonzales

It's always the small things that bring people down.

Back when Alberto Gonzales was nominated for attorney general, he was under fire for being one of President Bush's worst enablers -- finding dubious legal justification for ignoring warrants, gutting FISA, torture, almost unlimited executive power and the odious "enemy combatant" designation, under which a U.S. citizen was detained for more than three years without benefit of trial, charges, lawyers or habeus corpus.

None of that, apparently, was enough to prevent him from being confirmed. And he had one thing going for him: He wasn't John Ashcroft, a man so generally loathed that it would be all but impossible to do worse.

As Attorney General he continued carrying water for Bush, threatening journalists with jail, and denigrating habeus corpus. But that didn't threaten his job.

Then came the nakedly political firings of eight U.S. attorneys, and the revelations that the FBI had abused its Patriot Act powers.

And guess what? It's the former, more than the latter, which may end up taking Gonzales down.

The New York Times called for his resignation this weekend, citing a litany of complaints. So did Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer. Pressure has mounted amid revelations that the White House was directly involved in the decision to fire the prosecutors, and earlier today Gonzales' chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, resigned. The growing controversy finally led Gonazales, who had dismissed the uproar as an "overblown personnel matter", to say publicly that the firings were mishandled.

It seems to be a case of a relatively minor last straw tipping the balance of opinion on a roundly disliked appointee.

The New York Times said it best, I think:

During the hearing on his nomination as attorney general, Alberto Gonzales said he understood the difference between the job he held — President Bush’s in-house lawyer — and the job he wanted, which was to represent all Americans as their chief law enforcement officer and a key defender of the Constitution. Two years later, it is obvious Mr. Gonzales does not have a clue about the difference.

Gonzales can take solace in one impressive achievement: he may have secured John Ashcroft's legacy. Most people thought it impossible to be a worse attorney general than Bush's first nominee. But Gonzales has silenced the doubters. A dubious achievement, perhaps, but an achievement nonetheless.

Fire him. Not merely for the prosecutor kerfuffle, which while sleazy is at least constitutional. No, fire him for the full record of his achievements, and the disrepute he has brought upon our justice system and America's reputation.

Update: ThinkProgress (BIG grain of salt) thinks it has caught Gonzales lying under oath; Gonzales, meanwhile, categorically rejects the idea of resigning.

Update II: Hillary Clinton joins the chorus calling for Gonzales' resignation.

Gonzales, politics, midtopia

Free speech update

Over the past few weeks, I've been going through the archives and adding tags to older posts. Along the way I've taken the opportunity to update some of them with new information.

For instance, this one from June 2006. A librarian in Hasbrouck Heights, N.J., Michele Reutty, was castigated by the library board for requiring that police get a search warrant before she turned over circulation records to them -- in other words, for doing her job.

The update: After six months of wrangling with the board, Reutty submitted her resignation in October and took a job as library director in nearby Oakland, N.J.

Way to go, Hasbrouck Heights. You've set a new standard for how not to stand up for your rights.

Reutty also received the 2006 Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award and is currently vice president of the New Jersey Library Association.

civil liberties, politics, midtopia

Head-scratcher roundup

Three stories that explore the boundary between what's reasonable and what's not, what's criminal and what's not, and what's ethical and what's not.

What's reasonable?
A California school district has taken to billing parents who take their kids out of school for nonmedical reasons -- like a family ski trip. The price? $36.13 for each day missed. The reason? State aid is calculated based on daily attendance. So that's how much the district figures it loses when a kid goes absent. It's not really a bill -- parents aren't required to pay -- but some parents pay up either voluntarily or because they think it's a bill.

What's criminal?
Two Texas men were found guilty of mailing an obscene video. The video found to be obscene showed a woman being pierced with needles, but no sex. Meanwhile, the same jury said a rape video wasn't obscene -- even though the video had been deemed obscene in a 2003 trial. A third video featuring urination and defecation was also deemed unobscene.

What's ethical?
South Carolina is considering a bill that would let inmates cut their sentence by cutting out a kidney. Voluntary organ and tissue donations could shave as much as 180 days off of a jail term. While we're talking voluntary donations -- unlike, say, in China, where prisoners have been executed so the state could harvest their organs -- there's a question of whether prison is a coercive environment and whether prisoners fully understand what they're agreeing to. In addition, there's a legal hurdle: a federal law prohibiting organ donors from getting paid in any way for the donation.

All three situations raise interesting questions without any clear, easy answer. My initial reactions:

1. Parents can take their kids out of school if they want to, and a trip to Hawaii is arguably at least as educational as a week of school. I don't have a problem with the school educating parents about the importance of attendance and the costs of truancy, but the billing thing seems a little over the top.

2. I guess we'd have to see the videos in question (no thanks), but I have a hard time understanding how a video that shows no sex can be considered obscene, while the other two are not. Disgusting? Yes. Illegal? Why? At the very least we have a vague and muddy legal standard -- meaning the definition of what's illegal could vary by day and by jury. That's no way to run a legal system.

3. I'd be very, very wary of taking this step. I don't have a problem in principle with compensating donors. The problems are all practical. It only works if the entire transaction is fully transparent, and everyone is fully informed and truly a volunteer. The possibilities of abuse are high. And it exploits a vulnerable population. It's one thing to donate a kidney or bone marrow, even though both operations have their risks. What about muscle tissue or nerves or things like that? Suddenly we're in a grey area where we're mildly crippling prisoners. Do we really want people to start thinking about what body part they're willing to trade for freedom?

education, obscenity, civil liberties, politics, midtopia

FBI violated Patriot Act

An internal audit has found that the FBI routinely violated Patriot Act rules for obtaining information without a warrant, and vastly underreported how often they sought such exceptions.

Man, couldn't have seen that one coming. No siree.

The discussion involves "National Security Letters" (NSL), the authorization of which was substantially broadened by the Patriot Act. Agents can use the letters to get information from companies without a warrant when time is a factor.

Roughly a quarter of the investigations audited by the Justice Department violated the Patriot Act rules. While noting that most of the violations appeared to be bureaucratic in nature rather than criminal, the details are not encouraging:

The FBI identified 26 possible violations in its use of the national security letters, including failing to get proper authorization, making improper requests under the law and unauthorized collection of telephone or Internet e-mail records....

But that's not all. Sometimes they couldn't even be bothered with an NSL.

The FBI also used so-called "exigent letters," signed by officials at FBI headquarters who were not authorized to sign national security letters, to obtain information. In at least 700 cases, these exigent letters were sent to three telephone companies to get toll billing records and subscriber information.

"In many cases, there was no pending investigation associated with the request at the time the exigent letters were sent," the audit concluded.

The letters inaccurately said the FBI had requested subpoenas for the information requested — "when, in fact, it had not," the audit found.

Having abused the letters, the FBI grossly undercounted the true scope of their use. They issued a total of 95,000 NSLs in 2003 and 2004, but told Congress they had issued only 9,254.

It's important to note that the report says that the abuses and undercounts appear to stem from bureaucratic problems and poor recordkeeping, and said it had not uncovered evidence of criminal wrongdoing.

But that's hardly the point. The reason we've traditionally required warrants is to protect citizens from an abusive government. By allowing widespread warrantless searches, we strip away that protection and end up relying on our government's good intentions to protect us.

Which is just foolish. Human organizations cannot usually be relied upon to govern themselves; the conflicts of interest are too powerful. We gave the FBI substantial new powers, with limited requirements for independent approval or review; We should not be surprised to discover that the power was abused.

This case provides yet another reason to be thankful that the White House and Congress are controlled by different parties; we can actually expect action on this and other abuses. Further, it's yet another part of the evolving conversation over how to balance security and civil liberties in an age of terrorism. After 9/11, the pendulum swung so far toward the security side that it threatened to topple the entire apparatus. Now, thank God, it is swinging back, as a new generation learns the perils of a government saying "Just trust me!" to its citizens.

Update: Alberto Gonzales and FBI director Robert Mueller admitted the FBI violated the law, and left open the possibility of criminal prosecution. Most significantly, the FBI will no longer use "exigent" letters.

All very nice, but this isn't something that can be solved through administrative means in the executive branch. As long as Congress is revising the Patriot Act to deal with the problem of interim prosecutors, I think they should revisit some other sections as well.

Patriot Act, FBI, terrorism, civil liberties, politics, midtopia

Americans are sensible

I like Americans. They may not always pay attention, but when they finally do they usually get it right.

Americans increasingly suspect the federal government has become cloaked in secrecy, a concern they don't have with their local and state governments.

People also overwhelmingly believe that their federal leaders have become sneaky, listening to telephone conversations or opening private mail without getting court permission, according to a survey of 1,008 adults commissioned by the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

By a 2-1 margin, people want FBI agents and other investigators to obtain search warrants before monitoring private communications, even if they suspect terrorism. And more than a quarter of the people in the survey said they suspect their own phone calls and letters have been intercepted.

Warrants? What sort of commie demands warrants before searches can be conducted?

Oops, sorry. I was channeling "security at all costs" proponents for a second there.

The expressed worry that their own communications have been intercepted is almost certainly overblown, unless you're talking about one of the big datamining operations that essentially sucks in everything but analyzes very little of it in detail. There simply aren't enough people in the NSA, the CIA and the FBI put together to monitor the calls of a quarter of the population.

But it does show that people are thinking about how such things might affect them, moving past the simplistic "why are you so concerned about the rights of terrorists" demonizing. I'm not concerned about the rights of terrorists; I'm concerned about the rights of all citizens and detainees, including suspected terrorists.

Fully 70 percent think the federal government is secretive. They were split (46 percent to 45 percent) on whether the press should have reported on the NSA eavesdropping program; fewer people approved of revelations regarding CIA torture (43%), CIA secret prisons (41%) and (oddly) disclosure of the identities of the inmates held at Guantanamo (38%). Approval of disclosure rose with educational attainment.

Americans, as a whole, apparently like their freedoms, and aren't scared enough to give them up just yet.

civil liberties, politics, midtopia

Rumors to the left of me, speculation to the right...

On the right, we have rumors that a retired Iranian general has gone missing and may have defected to the United States, an event that is reportedly sparking "panic" in Tehran.

The newspaper, al-Shark al-Awsat, cited "high-profile" sources saying former Iranian deputy defence minister and Revolutionary Guard commander Ali Reza Asghari had gone over to the West.

Reports from Istanbul that General Asghari's family had also disappeared in Turkey support the likelihood that he defected rather than was kidnapped by either the CIA or by Israel's Mossad, as has been speculated. The general went missing from his Istanbul hotel a month ago.

Iranian authorities, who have been silent on the disappearance until this week, claim he has been abducted.

Defections are good. As long as it's one of theirs. Why is this particularly important? Because of this:

General Asghari's crossing of the line, whether voluntary or not, is a resounding blow for the Iranian Government since he is privy to its most intimate secrets, particularly those concerning its nuclear capabilities and plans.

He served until two years ago as deputy defence minister, a post he held for eight years and which presumably offered an uninhibited view of virtually every aspect of Iran's security apparatus.

He was reportedly closely associated with Iran's activities in support of the Shi'ites in Iraq.

If true, this is a great big birthday present wrapped in ribbons and bows. But take it with a grain of salt for now. At the moment, it's just rumors and reports from unreliable sources.

On the left, Raw Story is claiming to have seen a memo confirming that one of the secret CIA prisons was at an intelligence training school in Poland. As an aside, it says its sources all say the CIA is no longer operating secret prisons -- and probably never had anything permanent, relying instead on a series of temporary, short-term facilities that it used as needed.

Take this one with a big grain of salt. It's plausible, but there is no independent confirmation of anything within it.

terrorism, Iran, politics, midtopia

Social conservatives in action

From opposite ends of the country, two stories that will either make you laugh or simply shake your head.

First, from North Dakota:

North Dakota's House has agreed to repeal the state's anti-cohabitation law without a vote to spare, and Gov. John Hoeven is expected to sign it.

The law, which makes it illegal for a man and woman to live together without being married, has been part of North Dakota's code since statehood. It is listed as a sex crime among the state's criminal laws.

Okay. Sounds simple enough. Another outdated law removed from the books.

Except:

Representatives voted 48-41 on Thursday to repeal the law. It takes a minimum of 48 votes, which is a majority of the House's 94 members, to approve any measure in the state House.

That's right, the measure barely passed. Forty-one legislators voted to keep it a criminal offense.

The mind boggles.

Next we head south to sunny Largo, Fla., where the city found itself having to make a decision about whether to keep its city manager of 14 years. The sole reason? He wants to have a sex-change operation and become a woman.

City commissioners ended one of the most tumultuous weeks in Largo history Tuesday night by moving to fire City Manager Steve Stanton following his disclosure that he will have a sex-change operation.

A total of 480 people packed City Hall for a four-hour meeting during which one activist was arrested after police told her not to hand out fliers.

After listening to about 60 speakers, mostly from Largo, a majority of commissioners said they had lost confidence in Stanton's ability to lead.

That's right, fired for wanting a sex-change operation. It'll be interesting to see if the decision survives an anti-discrimination challenge, although his status as a manager makes him more vulnerable to such things, as the "ability to lead" argument shows.

I love the logic of some of the residents who wanted him fired:

"I don't want that man in office," she said. "I don't think we should be paying him $150,000 a year when he's not been truthful. We have to speak up. Of course, we don't believe in sex changes or lesbianism. They have their rights, but we do, too."

He wasn't "truthful" because he hadn't revealed his gender issue until now. Of course, if he had revealed it, he would have been attacked for "flaunting" his sexuality.

But this one takes the cake:

"If Jesus was here tonight, I can guarantee you he'd want him terminated. Make no mistake about it."

The speaker? Ron Sanders, pastor of Largo's Lighthouse Baptist Church.

Update: Churches from around the Tampa Bay area staged a 350-person rally in support of Stanton. I think they were motivated as much by revulsion at the words of Ron Sanders as anything.

civil liberties, morality, gay rights, politics, midtopia

You call this persecution?

The Supreme Court recently refused to hear a case in which Christians claim they are being discriminated against.

At issue in Skoros v. City of New York was whether the city's public school system is impermissibly promoting Judaism and Islam while conveying a message of disapproval of Christianity. School rules allow the Jewish menorah and the Muslim star and crescent in multireligious holiday displays but not nativity scenes depicting the birth of Jesus.

Sounds pretty bad, right? But wait:

The city says its policy treats all religions consistently by excluding "depictions of deities, religious texts, or scenes of worship such as a Christian nativity scene," says Leonard Koerner, a lawyer for the school district, in his brief to the court. "As the Christian nativity scene explicitly depicts the Christian deity [the baby Jesus] as the center of a scene of worship, it falls on the wrong side of the line."

In other words, Christians are free to display Christian symbols, but not a depiction of Jesus or the Bible. The same restrictions apply to all religions. Ergo, no discrimination.

This exposes the general hollowness of the "war on Christmas" charge. While it is possible to find instances where Christian expression is in fact suppressed while other religious expression is allowed, they are isolated and rare. And they usually arise out of a simple-if-bungled desire to be sensitive to minority religions, inasmuch as the people doing the suppressing are often Christians themselves.

It gets even sillier when activists claim that Christians are "persecuted" in this country. That's just nonsense; in a democracy, it is essentially impossible for a majority to be persecuted. Name a single Christian who has been jailed, tortured or executed simply for being Christian. Name a single Christian who has been prevented from attending the church of their choice.

What *is* happening is that the unquestioned Christian domination of cultural life in America is being questioned, and pushed back in some areas. There is increasingly vocal opposition to Christians using the levers of governmental power to promote their religion, and some longstanding practices are being revised as a result. But that's not persecution. Some of us would say it's a long overdue correction.

The sad thing is that Christians are, in fact, persecuted in other countries, sometimes horribly. By trying to claim such victim status here, Christians do their overseas bretheren a disservice by cheapening the meaning of the word.

I'm sympathetic to the plaintiffs on one score: the district allowing Christmas trees to be a symbol of Christianity. The plaintiffs don't like that because Christmas trees, while associated with Christianity, are not actually Christian symbols. Fair enough. Christians should be able to choose the symbol that represents their faith, as long as it doesn't violate the district policy in other respects. There are plenty of choices: A cross should do the trick, or rosary beads for Catholicism or a communion cup or a fish symbol.

There is another worthwhile question here: As long as the district is allowing religious displays, why restrict the content at all? I can understand banning content that explicitly attacks other religions or threatens nonbelievers with eternal damnation or the like, but if you're going to have a Christmas display alongside the Hannukah display, who cares whether there's a nativity scene in it or not?

But that's a separate issue. Having decided to write standards for such displays, the district's obligation is to make the standard objective and apply it fairly. They appear to have done so. And so the plaintiffs' complaint is without merit.

religion, civil liberties, politics, midtopia

The case of the missing DVD

Whoops.

The missing DVD dates from March 2, 2004. It contains a video of the last interrogation session of Padilla, then a declared “enemy combatant” under an order from President Bush, while he was being held in military custody at a U.S. Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. But in recent days, in the course of an unusual court hearing about Padilla’s mental condition, a government lawyer disclosed to a surprised courtroom that the Defense Intelligence Agency -- which had custody of the evidence -- was no longer able to locate the DVD.

Those sympathetic to the defense made hay with it, of course. "This is the kind of thing you hear when you’re litigating cases in Egypt or Morocco or Karachi," said John Sifton, a lawyer with Human Rights Watch -- an observation that recalls my recent comparison of the treatment of Padilla and a jailed Egyptian blogger.

The judge seems to think that, legally inexcusable as this is, the DVD isn't particularly relevant to the case. The defense was claiming a pattern of mistreatment, and such a pattern would have shown up on the other taped interrogations. As far as evidence admissable to his actual trial, there is a classified report on the interrogation that describes what went on.

Still, it's unusual. And the timing is pretty interesting. The final interrogation session took place in March 2004. Soon after -- and just before arguments on Padilla's detention were to begin before the Supreme Court -- Padilla finally was given access to lawyers. A year later, hoping to avoid an adverse ruling, the government transferred him back into the regular legal system.

So if there was going to be a session in which they pressed him hard it seems likely it would have been the final one, because they knew the case was about to go before the Supreme Court and they might be forced to give him legal rights.

As I said, it appears to have little bearing on his actual trial. But at minimum it's another example of how we've been quite cavalier with Padilla's rights. Worst case, it's a coverup of actual abuse.

terrorism, civil liberties, Padilla, politics, midtopia

Padilla found competent

Well, actually, he was a pretty incompetent terrorist, if that is what he was. But he was found competent to stand trial.

After three and a half days of an intensely argued hearing, Judge Marcia G. Cooke of Federal District Court rejected the defense lawyers’ request that Mr. Padilla be sent to a hospital for psychiatric treatment so that he could be “healed” from what they said was post-traumatic stress disorder caused during his three years and eight months in military detention.

About what I expected. Now the real battle begins: Cooke next must consider the defense motion to dismiss the charges based on what it says is the government's outrageous conduct.

The conduct was indeed outrageous; the only question is whether it was outrageous enough to compel an acquittal.

terrorism, Padilla, civil liberties, politics, midtopia

Prosecution says Padilla competent to stand trial

A prosecution expert says Jose Padilla is competent to stand trial, contradicting defense claims that his imprisonment amounted to torture that had induced post-traumatic stress disorder in the dirty-bomb suspect.

That's how it goes in these cases. The defense witnesses say he's crazy; the prosecution witnesses say he's not. The judge then has to sort it out.

I'm a bit skeptical of the PTSD claim. Solitary confinement can be mentally arduous, but it has a long history in our prison system, so it's not particularly unusual, and it doesn't routinely drive people nuts. If Padilla were particularly vulnerable it could cause problems, but in that case I would expect it to lead to something more concrete than PTSD, which while real is vague enough that it strikes me as a second-choice diagnosis by a defense team that knew a more serious diagnosis stood no chance.

Anyway, it's a sideshow. I also don't think we tortured Padilla, as the defense claims. But the government's treatment of Padilla has still been outrageous. Holding a U.S. citizen for more than three years without trial should offend everyone. And suddenly releasing him rather than face Supreme Court review of his detention -- and failing to charge him with anything related to the alleged dirty-bomb plot -- was both cynical and a tacit admission that the detention would not stand up to scrutiny.

It's good that Padilla is getting a trial. If he's guilty, he should be put away for a long time. But it should not have taken three years of legal pressure to secure such a basic right for a U.S. citizen. And the fact that so many Americans supported the government is downright disgraceful.

The PTSD debate is central to the defense's motion to have the case dismissed outright because the government's conduct has been so outrageous. I think they're arguing on the wrong basis, relying on showing torture rather than simply noting the blatant unconstitutionality of imprisoning a citizen without trial. And while I'd prefer to have a trial, I will fully understand if the judge agrees with the defense motion. It will be yet one more lesson that basic civil rights cannot be taken away by government fiat, and that trying to do so ends up harming security more than helping it.

I also find it interesting to compare our treatment of Padilla (and the political reaction to it) with the fate of the Egyptian blogger found guilty of criticizing Islam and Hosni Mubarak. Many of the same people who support holding Padilla manage to (rightly) oppose the treatment of the blogger. But who got treated better? At least the blogger was charged, tried and convicted in open court. He had a chance to challenge the evidence against him. And his lawyers are appealing the sentence. He wasn't simply picked up by security agents and thrown into solitary confinement for three years based solely on the government's say-so.

Padilla's alleged crime (not the long-dropped "dirty bomb" accusation, but the ones he is facing trial for) is more serious than simply posting opinions to a blog, of course. But the key word there is "alleged." The fact remains that Egypt -- a country known for repression, torture and other heavy-handed tactics -- treated their suspect far more in accord with American standards than we did Padilla. And that's a sad commentary on how badly the president's overreach on security matters has tarnished the proud legacy of freedom here.

civil liberties, terrorism, Padilla, politics, midtopia

World roundup

We'll finish off the evening with a quick roundup of notable events.

IRAQ
The British will cut their troop presence in Iraq in half -- events permitting -- by the end of the year. Though apparently Prince Harry will still be going there if the Daily Mirror is to be believed.

GUANTANAMO
A federal appeals court has ruled (in a decision that will be appealed to the Supreme Court) that Gitmo detainees can't challenge their internment in U.S. courts, thanks to the Republican Congress stripping that power from them last year. They can thus be held indefinitely until they are tried before the flawed military commissions that Bush has set up. Congressional Democrats have said they will revisit the commission law to fix the most glaring problems. If they plan to do that, they should get to it; it's an affront to liberty to hold people for years without charge, or try them in a court that doesn't afford them full rights.

IRAN
Iran, in a mirror image of recent U.S. charges, has accused the United States of supplying Sunni militants who last week car-bombed a bus of Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Their claim comes complete with bullet cartridges bearing U.S. markings. Does this prove U.S. involvement? No. But it's interesting to note that the Iranians have roughly as much evidence backing up their claim as we have of Iranian involvement in Iraq. And just as it's very likely Iran is meddling in Iraq, would anyone be surprised to discover that we're supporting anti-Iran militants? That is not a reason to turn a blind eye to Iranian meddling; but it is a reason to look askance at the moral outrage the White House has tried to generate over the issue. Meanwhile, there are no updates on the sniper rifles allegedly supplied by Iran. The smoking gun remains elusive.

Separately, Iran is making noises about stopping its enrichment program -- if Western countries do the same. The non-offer comes a day before the International Atomic Energy Agency is expected to issue a critical report that will trigger even harsher U.N. sanctions against the country. Iran once again demonstrates it is not serious about negotiating, and the IAEA report will show that it has expanded, rather than slowed, its enrichment activities. The question is what sort of measures Russia and China will allow the U.N. to take.

MITT ROMNEY
Mitt Romney is somewhat ironically attacking John McCain for being inconsistent on abortion. For my money, though, the funniest thing is that Mitt's guy in charge of conservative outreach is named Marx.

SOMALIA
Finally, the U.N. approved an 8,000-strong African Union peacekeeping force for Somalia, a measure that allows the AU to deploy troops and relieve the Ethiopians that have been propping up the provisional government there. It remains to be seen if such a force will be enough to stop the spiraling violence in Somalia, but it demonstrates the renewed international attention being paid to that country after years of neglect. Let's hope they pull it off.

Gitmo, Romney, Somalia, Iraq, Iran, politics, midtopia

Republicans come out against "surge"

The debate over a resolution opposing Bush's "surge" in Iraq has exposed some interesting and deep Republican divisions over the war.

On the second day of a four-day showdown over the nonbinding resolution, Democrats looked on as Republican dissidents denounced what they called Bush's ill-conceived plan to put 21,500 more combat troops in the middle of a sectarian civil war.

Some of the 11 Republicans who publicly broke with Bush were long-time opponents of the war, such as Reps. Walter B. Jones (N.C.) and Ron Paul (Tex.). But others, such as Reps. Fred Upton (Mich.) and Jim Ramstad (Minn.), had never sought the limelight and were almost apologetic in their speeches....

Those 11 could be just the tip of the iceberg. One Republican lawmaker close to the leadership, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said GOP leaders have 50 to 60 Republicans on their watch list, with between 40 and 60 expected to break with the White House tomorrow.

Wow.

The article goes on to say that while the resolution exposed deep divisions among Republicans, GOP leaders expect a debate over funding Iraq would rally their members while similarly exposing deep divisions among Democrats, some of whom want to shut down all funding for Iraq.

It also mentions Democratic plans to shut down the military prisons at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib. Whether this is a good idea or not depends on what steps are actually taken. Given the notoriety of the two sites, Shutting them down is a smart PR move. But why are they notorious? Mostly because of how they have been used, not their mere existence.

So on the one hand, I'd be satisfied with simple reform: Treat it as a secure holding pen for dangerous people awaiting trial, rather than a legal black hole, and I'm fine with it.

On the other hand, shutting them down doesn't take away the need to put dangerous bad guys somewhere. So some of their functions will simply be transferred elsewhere. Thus unless the legal abuses that led to the notoriety are also remedied, closing them will simply move the same bad behavior elsewhere -- and possibly hide it from sight until, inevitably, it is discovered again in another spasm of bad press.

Should be an interesting month.

Update: The Senate has shelved its troubled version of the resolution and adopted the simpler House version, scheduling a vote for Saturday.

Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, surge, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Pushing back on civil liberties

We have some signs that the courts aren't going to let the Bush administration skate on a couple of important civil liberty cases.

NSA WIRETAPS
When the administration recently agreed to submit its NSA eavesdropping program to court review, part of its motivation for doing so had to be the fact that a district court judge had ruled the program unconstitutional. The administration was appealing that decision, but by canceling the program and replacing it with a new one I'm sure they hoped to make that case moot and avoid the risk of an adverse ruling.

They might have a surprise coming. At the urging of the plaintiffs, the appeals court is considering continuing the case anyway.

Three federal judges hearing the first appellate argument about the legality of a National Security Agency domestic surveillance program on Wednesday indicated that they were not that convinced the issue was moot now that the Bush administration had agreed to submit the program to a secret court.

In a series of sharply worded questions to an administration lawyer defending the program, the judges noted that the administration did not promise to continue working with the secret court in the future.

“You could opt out at any time, couldn’t you?” asked Judge Ronald L. Gilman of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Deputy Solicitor General Gregory G. Garre acknowledged the possibility.

The government makes two procedural arguments, and neither should be decided in the government's favor.

The first is that the program's revamping renders the case moot. But that's little more than a dodge. When it comes to something as intrusive as warrantless surveillance, we as citizens deserve a clear understanding of what is legal and what is not. The court should make a definitive ruling on what the Fourth Amendment allows in this regard, and not simply avoid the question.

The second is that the plaintiffs do not have standing, because they cannot prove they have been harmed by the program. This, too, is a bit of sophistry, because the program is secret and thus it is almost impossible to show direct harm. Allowing that argument to stand effectively means the program can never be subjected to legal scrutiny. "Standing" is a legitimate legal concept, designed to keep people from interfering in cases that are none of their concern. But in this case one ought to be able to sue on the grounds that the program essentially affects all Americans, even if only theoretically. Our civil liberties deserve at least that much respect.

I await their preliminary ruling with interest and trepidation.

ENEMY COMBATANTS
Separately, an appeals court in Virginia heard a challenge to Bush's "enemy combatant" policy.

In a series of probing and sometimes testy exchanges with a government lawyer, two of three judges on a federal appeals court panel here indicated Thursday that they might not be prepared to accept the Bush administration’s claim that it has the unilateral power to detain people it calls enemy combatants...

“What would prevent you from plucking up anyone and saying, 'You are an enemy combatant?'" Judge Roger L. Gregory of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit asked the administration’s lawyer, David B. Salmons.

The government's response shows clearly why such a designation is Constitutional offensive:

Mr. Salmons said the executive branch was entitled to make that judgment in wartime without interference from the courts. “A citizen, no less than an alien, can be an enemy combatant,” he added.

Got that? Because we're at war, the administration has the sole authority to decide who to jail. And any person so jailed cannot contest their incarceration, and can be held indefinitely without trial. In other words, the Fifth Amendment gets suspended during wartime.

Besides being grossly violative on its face, the argument again points up the problem with trying to view the fight against terror through a "wartime" lens. The clothes simply don't fit. As one of the judges on the panel said:

“Nations have wars against each other,” Judge Motz said. “People have quarrels or fights. Individuals can be terrorists. Individuals don’t make war.”

Precisely.

civil liberties, terrorism, wiretapping, NSA, politics, midtopia

First step, get rid of the witnesses

Back in December, I wrote about a New Jersey student who recorded his history teacher engaging in lengthy religious harangues. I'll repost part of that story here:

Shortly after school began in September, the teacher told his sixth-period students at Kearny High School that evolution and the Big Bang were not scientific, that dinosaurs were aboard Noah's ark, and that only Christians had a place in heaven, according to audio recordings made by a student whose family is now considering a lawsuit claiming Mr. Paszkiewicz broke the church-state boundary.

"If you reject his gift of salvation, then you know where you belong," Mr. Paszkiewicz was recorded saying of Jesus. "He did everything in his power to make sure that you could go to heaven, so much so that he took your sins on his own body, suffered your pains for you, and he's saying, 'Please, accept me, believe.' If you reject that, you belong in hell."

Classy, no?

After hearing one such harangue, one of his students, Matthew LaClair, tape-recorded eight subsequent classes, then complained to the school district.

At the time, the district said they had disciplined Paszkiewicz, but declined to say how. Now the other shoe has dropped.

After a public school teacher was recorded telling students they belonged in hell if they did not accept Jesus as their savior, the school board has banned taping in class without an instructor’s permission, and has added training for teachers on the legal requirements for separating church and state.

Training? Fine. But banning the tape-recording of classes? Besides obstructing learning -- some students record their classes to aid in their studying -- it seems an odd thing to do after a recording documented a problem that needed to be addressed.

The school board's stated rationale is privacy:

After several students complained to the school board that their voices had been broadcast on the Internet and on television news programs without their consent, the board adopted a policy in mid-January that requires students to request permission from an instructor to record or videotape a class.

Beyond the question of whether anyone has a reasonable expectation of privacy in a classroom (answer: probably not), the problem would seem to be with the act of broadcasting, not the act of recording. So the school board's ban seems unnecessarily broad -- and raises the question of whether they simply want to avoid any more embarassing revelations.

Especially because whatever disciplinary action they took apparently didn't work:

Meanwhile, Matthew said that Mr. Paszkiewicz recently told the class that scientists who spoke about the danger of global warming were using tactics like those Hitler used, by repeating a lie often enough that people come to believe it.

Context is everything here. Schools are supposed to be about intellectual inquiry, which can include lively debate on controversial topics. And at least this isn't religious proselyzation. But it's difficult on the surface to see what relevance global warming has to American history, Paszkiewicz's assigned subject.

That's not necessarily a problem; off-topic discussions should be allowable. So if this was an open debate, fine; if it was a teacher subjecting his students to a political diatribe, it's a problem. For my money, it's difficult to imagine a teacher legitimately invoking Hitler in such a discussion.

It's up to the school district how they want to handle the teacher. But banning recording devices strikes me as a poor decision intended more to shield the district from scrutiny than to protect legitimate privacy concerns.

education, politics, midtopia

Gonzales to release details of NSA program

It's always nice to see the Attorney General respond so quickly to Midtopia's concerns.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Wednesday he will turn over secret documents detailing the government's domestic spying program, ending a two-week standoff with the Senate Judiciary Committee over surveillance targeting terror suspects....

The documents held by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court — including investigators' applications for permission to spy and judges' orders — will be given to some lawmakers as early as Wednesday.

Gonzales said the documents would not be released publicly. "We're talking about highly classified discussions about highly classified actions of the United States government," the attorney general said.

Good. Congressional oversight is needed to ensure that Congress' concerns are being taken seriously.

And as always, Gonzales is good for an Orwellian laugh:

"It's never been the case where we said we would never provide the access," Gonzales told reporters.

Technically true. What he did do was spend hours saying that turning over details might pose a security risk, with the clear implication that the administration might refuse to do so. And National Intelligence director John Negroponte said that separation of powers might prevent the administration from turning over the documents. So he did everything he could to resist such a turnover without actually saying he wouldn't turn them over.

Now we have to trust our Congressional representatives to do their job.

terrorism, FISA, NSA, Gonzales, politics, midtopia