Job Posting - New York Times

LAST month, Nadine Haobsh, an associate beauty editor at Ladies' Home Journal, was about to resign and take a job at Seventeen, where she had been offered a similar position. Then the magazines discovered she was blogging about work, and her two jobs became none. Ladies' Home Journal asked her to leave immediately; Seventeen rescinded its offer.

By JEREMY BLACHMAN
"…when it comes to keeping your job - at least in the private sector - the law hardly protects anyone. You can be fired for being ugly, you can be fired for being left-handed, you can be fired for something you say to your secretary. And if you can be fired for something you say to your own secretary, it seems silly to say you shouldn't be able to be fired for something you post on the Internet for everyone else's secretary to read.

Related
jeremyblachman.blogspot.com , anonymouslawyer.blogspot.com

Besides, there are good reasons employers might want to fire people with Weblogs. Surely it's not great for the work environment if your boss finds out that you are telling the world what a jerk he is. If you're revealing trade secrets or confidential information, clearly your employer has a right to be upset. Even if you are writing innocent content, the mere fact that there's an employee in the ranks who is communicating something to a larger audience can be legitimately scary to companies that are used to controlling the information that gets out.

But here's the problem: Weblogs are worth protecting. It used to be that if you wanted to know what it was like to work for a law firm or a beauty magazine, you had to have a friend on the inside. But now that everyone can publish online, we can get these incredible glimpses into worlds we might otherwise never get to see. People across the world can share stories, commiserate and connect with each other. Potential employees can see beyond the marketing pitches.

If no one was reading, employers wouldn't be concerned. There's a demand for the first-person narratives people are writing about their jobs. There's nowhere else to go to create honest conversation about the working world.

So maybe it does make sense that the law should provide special protection for bloggers, because of the social benefits Weblogs provide. The simplest place to start would be to put the burden on employers to show actual harm, if they are firing someone because of her Weblog.

This would protect the kind of innocent revelations that bloggers like Ms. Haobsh make on their sites, while still giving employers rights if their employees are revealing secrets, disclosing client and customer information or otherwise driving business away. In addition, companies should create Weblog policies that let employees know what management feels is off limits for public consumption.

In any case, blogs may not hurt companies as much as they fear.… "

I think it's time to reign in private sector assaults on freedom of speech.

Firing bloggers is just the latest way of silencing people who often aren't even critics.

There are law suits brought for no other reason than to silence, often totally without merit. What these methods all have in common is economic threat. You'll lose your job (and won't get another). The lawsuits eat up years and savings. You might not (in the United States) get your costs back even if you win.

If we don't stand up for free speech now, we'll find ourselves sitting still for worse abuse to come.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/31/opinion/31blachman.html

What They Did Last Fall

By PAUL KRUGMAN“In his recent book "Steal This Vote" - a very judicious work, despite its title - Andrew Gumbel, a U.S. correspondent for the British newspaper The Independent, provides the best overview I've seen of the 2000 Florida vote. And he documents the simple truth: "Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election."
Two different news media consortiums reviewed Florida's ballots; both found that a full manual recount would have given the election to Mr. Gore. This was true despite a host of efforts by state and local officials to suppress likely Gore votes, most notably Ms. Harris's "felon purge," which disenfranchised large numbers of valid voters.

But few Americans have heard these facts. Perhaps journalists have felt that it would be divisive to cast doubt on the Bush administration's legitimacy. If so, their tender concern for the nation's feelings has gone for naught: Cindy Sheehan's supporters are camped in Crawford, and America is more bitterly divided than ever.

Meanwhile, the whitewash of what happened in Florida in 2000 showed that election-tampering carries no penalty, and political operatives have acted accordingly. For example, in 2002 the Republican Party in New Hampshire hired a company to jam Democratic and union phone banks on Election Day.

And what about 2004?

Mr. Gumbel throws cold water on those who take the discrepancy between the exit polls and the final result as evidence of a stolen election. (I told you it's a judicious book.) He also seems, on first reading, to play down what happened in Ohio. But the theme of his book is that America has a long, bipartisan history of dirty elections.

He told me that he wasn't brushing off the serious problems in Ohio, but that "this is what American democracy typically looks like, especially in a presidential election in a battleground state that is controlled substantially by one party."

So what does U.S. democracy look like? There have been two Democratic reports on Ohio in 2004, one commissioned by Representative John Conyers Jr., the other by the Democratic National Committee.

The D.N.C. report is very cautious: "The purpose of this investigation," it declares, "was not to challenge or question the results of the election in any way." It says there is no evidence that votes were transferred away from John Kerry - but it does suggest that many potential Kerry votes were suppressed. Although the Conyers report is less cautious, it stops far short of claiming that the wrong candidate got Ohio's electoral votes.

But both reports show that votes were suppressed by long lines at polling places - lines caused by inadequate numbers of voting machines - and that these lines occurred disproportionately in areas likely to vote Democratic. Both reports also point to problems involving voters who were improperly forced to cast provisional votes, many of which were discarded.

The Conyers report goes further, highlighting the blatant partisanship of election officials. In particular, the behavior of Ohio's secretary of state, Kenneth Blackwell - who supervised the election while serving as co-chairman of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio - makes Ms. Harris's actions in 2000 seem mild by comparison.

And then there are the election night stories. Warren County locked down its administration building and barred public observers from the vote-counting, citing an F.B.I. warning of a terrorist threat. But the F.B.I. later denied issuing any such warning. Miami County reported that voter turnout was an improbable 98.55 percent of registered voters. And so on.

We aren't going to rerun the last three elections. But what about the future?…”

…In fact, the past will be the future unless the invertebrates in the Democratic party miraculously grow backbones. Clinton to Progressives: 'Be Tough'

Be tough, stop whining, speak from the heart, and talk to the so-called red America.

President Clinton spoke to 700 young progressive students from universities around the country at the Campus Progress' first National Student Conference in Washington, D.C. on July 13. The conference, organized by the Center for American Progress, brought together dedicated student organizers to build leadership skills and strengthen a progressive vision through workshops and speeches like Bill Clinton's.

In typical Clinton fashion -- deeply intellectual yet accessible -- he discussed four big questions progressives need to answer for themselves and others in order to win this country back. And as a leader with substantial experience in the field, he couldn't resist the temptation to answer them all while at it. President Clinton shared his insights about the fundamental nature of the modern world, progressive values, the role of government and what changes progressives need to make in their tactics. (Hint: be tough, stop whining, speak from the heart, and talk to the so-called red America.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/19/opinion/19krugman.html?ex=1282104000&en=04a58c7575b0ca68&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

The Failed State None Dare Name

“Contrary to the expectations of the early Zionists, most of the world's Jews have not joined their brethren to live in Israel. Of the world's 13 million to 14 million Jews, a minority - 5.26 million - make their home in Israel, and immigration has largely dried up. Last year, a record low 21,000 Jews immigrated to Israel”

Israel is consistantly called a successful state, a democracy with a high standard of living and many proud accomplishments, but it's not a democracy, and its failure is worse than others, because it should have been.

The Zionists expected Jews elsewhere to suffer misery that has not materialized. Over half a century after the establishment of the Jewish state, more Jews live in the United States than in Israel.

The Palestinian population has grown far more rapidly - and Palestinians have proved far more willing to fight - than many on the Israeli right had anticipated. The newspaper Haaretz reported that the proportion of Jews in the combined population of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza had dropped below 50 percent. Many Israelis argue, that unless they yield territory, they will have to choose a Jewish state or a democratic one; they will not be able to have both.

The truth is the choice was made unconciously. A Jewish state for the benefit of Jews can't be democratic any more than a White state for the benefit of Whites. You can have a democratic state period. Hyphenate it, and you have something else entirely.

Jewish immigration never achieved anticipated levels, the Palestinian population has ballooned. The question of the role played by Palestinian violence is hotly contested.

Some argue that the two Palestinian intifadas, or uprisings, from 1987 to 1993 and from 2000 to the present, drove Israel out. Others say that Israel's increasingly effective counterterror measures - the building of a barrier, killings of terror leaders and military reoccupation of selective Palestinian cities - broke the back of the insurgents, allowing Israel the sense of strength to walk away. In fact, both factors seem likely to have played a role.

"Of course terror has a role in the disengagement," said Michael Oren, a senior fellow at the Shalem Institute, a conservative Jerusalem research group. "It convinced us that Gaza was not worth holding onto and awakened us to the demographic danger. It took two intifadas for a majority of Israelis to decide that Gaza is not worth it."

A senior Israeli official who spent years closely associated with Likud leaders, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic, said that Israelis long had little respect for Palestinians as fighters, but that had changed.

"The fact that hundreds of them are willing to blow themselves up is significant," he said. "We didn't give them any credit before. In spite of our being the strongest military power in the Middle East, we lost 1,200 people over the last four years. It finally sank in to Sharon and the rest of the leadership that these people were not giving up."

Some came to a similar conclusion much earlier. The Israeli left has been calling for a withdrawal from Gaza for years, and even many on the right believed settlement there to be futile and counterproductive. Mr. Kimche, the former foreign ministry official, recalled that when Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir of the conservative Likud party was running against Yitzhak Rabin of Labor in the early 1990's, several Shamir advisers told him: "Unless you withdraw from Gaza, you're going to lose these elections." He did not withdraw; he lost.

Mr. Rabin himself said that he decided to negotiate a withdrawal with the Palestinians when he realized how unpopular military service in Gaza had become.

"He said privately - I heard him say it - that military reservists don't want to serve in the occupied territories and while they are not formally refusing they are finding excuses to stay away," Yoel Esteron, managing editor of Yediot Aharonot, recalled. "That put a real burden on the army and it meant we couldn't stay there forever."

With Gaza soon no longer in their hands, Israelis will face a much more complex set of decisions regarding the occupied West Bank. Settlements in distant corners of the West Bank are also being dismantled in the coming weeks, but no one knows how much more land Mr. Sharon and his successors will be willing to yield.

In fact, settlements in the West Bank are expanding, encroachment in East Jerusalem continues.

What is clear, however, is that the internal Israeli logic of what is taking place this week - a scaling back of ambition in the face of reality - could lead to traumatic withdrawals of larger numbers of people on the West Bank.

…. Failed states facilitate to terror. Failed democracies give us rwandas, kampucheas, and yes even Nazi Germany. Unfortunately, propping up a state militarily doesn't preserve or spread democracy. Failure to recognize the fundamental flaw turned Israel, first into a police state, lead to death squads, all because they thought they could have democracy for some, but not all. They staked their survival on it, but their continued survival may depend on whether they can abandon it.

Alfred Ingram…

Struggling to Get Soldiers Updated Armor

By MICHAEL MOSS

“For the second time since the Iraq war began, the Pentagon is struggling to replace body armor that is failing to protect American troops from the most lethal attacks by insurgents.

Workers assembled body armor made of ceramic plates at ArmorWorks in Tempe, Ariz. Specially treated plates give troops extra protection.

The ceramic plates in vests worn by most personnel cannot withstand certain munitions the insurgents use. But more than a year after military officials initiated an effort to replace the armor with thicker, more resistant plates, tens of thousands of soldiers are still without the stronger protection because of a string of delays in the Pentagon's procurement system.

The effort to replace the armor began in May 2004, just months after the Pentagon finished supplying troops with the original plates - a process also plagued by delays. The officials disclosed the new armor effort Wednesday after questioning by The New York Times, and acknowledged that it would take several more months or longer to complete.

Citing security concerns, the officials declined to say exactly how many more of the stronger plates were needed, or how much armor had already been shipped to Iraq.

"We are working as fast as we can to complete it as soon as we can," Maj. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sorenson, the Army's deputy for acquisition and systems management, said Wednesday in an interview at the Pentagon.

While much of the focus on casualties in Iraq has been on soldiers killed by explosive devices aimed at vehicles, body armor remains critical to the military's goals in Iraq. Gunfire has killed at least 325 troops, about half the number killed by bombs, according to the Pentagon.

Among the problems contributing to the delays in getting the stronger body armor, the Pentagon is relying on a cottage industry of small armor makers with limited production capacity. In addition, each company must independently come up with its own design for the plates, which then undergo military testing. Just four vendors have begun making the enhanced armor, according to military and industry officials. Two more companies are expected to receive contracts by next month, while 20 or more others have plates that are still being tested.…”

…Body armor arose as an issue in Iraq shortly after the invasion in March 2003, when insurgents began attacking American troops who had been given only vests and not bullet-resistant plates. The Army had planned to give the plates only to frontline soldiers. Officials now concede that they underestimated the insurgency's strength and commitment to fighting a war in which there are no back lines.

The ensuing scramble to produce more plates was marred by a series of missteps in which the Pentagon gave one contract to a former Army researcher who had never mass-produced anything. He was allowed to struggle with production for a year before he gave up. An outdated delivery plan slowed the arrival of plates that were made. In all, the war was 10 months old before every soldier in Iraq had plates in late January 2004.

Four months later, the Pentagon quietly issued a solicitation for the enhanced plates that would resist stronger attacks. At the same time, it worked to make improvements to the vests, including adding shoulder and side protection.

Pentagon officials said they had been hampered in their efforts by the need to make the armor as light as possible.

"You can trace this back to the early centuries ago when they started wearing body armor to the point they couldn't get on the horse," General Sorenson said. "We are doing the same sort of thing. You can only put so much armor on a soldier to the point where they can't move."

The new enhanced SAPI plates weigh about one pound more than the original plates, bringing the total body armor system with vest to about 18 pounds, military officials said.

Among the first soldiers to use the stronger armor were the military's special forces, who are known to cut the handles off their toothbrushes to reduce the weight of their packs.

Shortly after the Iraq war began, insurgents began attacking American soldiers engaged in stationary tasks like directing traffic or less arduous combat operations.…

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/14/international/middleeast/14armor.html?ei=5094&en=c79db06067b55db0&hp=&ex=1124078400&partner=homepage&pagewanted=all

(Found Below A Review Of Books on Slavery)

Talk about strange… I found this ad below this review ‘Setting Them Free’ by Adam Goodheart. This is Adwords gone berserk.

“Modern Slavery
Great deals on Modern Slavery Shop on eBay and Save!
www.eBay.com”

…This seems to be good old fashioned greed masquerading as a contextual ad. The link takes you to 263 items of modern sculpture. I guess both sculpture and slavery start with an S…, close enough?…

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/07/books/review/07COVGOOD.html?pagewanted=all

Forget the War? Many Can't - New York Times

“On CNN's 'Reliable Sources' on Sunday, there was a discussion of 'Iraq fatigue,' the idea that viewers, readers and editors are tiring of stories about the war and the number of deaths. But despite the fatigue, the war continues to force itself on us, with jolting developments like this week's terrible death toll for American marines.”

Can you hear Lincoln saying that a just God might require each drop of blood shed by the lash to be matched by one shed by the sword?

Are you disturbed by our total disregard for Iraq's innocent dead, killed by the ‘insugents’ or killed by us?

America, soldier or civilian seems stuck on the idea that Iraqi's were involved in the 9-11 atrocities. We've totally forgotten that our soldiers swear an oath to defend the constitution of the United States, and that constitution is in more jeopardy from our actions and reactions than the worst a thousand Bin Ladens could ever accomplish.

When you're heading the wrong way it's almost always better to turn around then to stay the course.

Alfred Ingram

It's Time To Call It Murder

The Natural Talent of a Burning Bush

I've Been Interviewed Part 1

I've Been Interviewed Part 2

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/04/opinion/04herbert.html

From ‘What Is The War’ Religion, Politics, And Legitimacy

“From bin Laden's 1998 fatwa:

The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies--civilians and military--is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, 'and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together,' and 'fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God.'

Clearly, bin Laden advocates the use of terrorism as a means of changing the behaviour of governments: His goal is the removal of Western troops from Muslim lands, and the creation of a single Islamic state throughout the Middle East. This seems to me political by definition. Bin Laden's objectives may be somewhat more abstract and grandiose than those of the Irish Republican Army or the Zionist Irgun, for example, but his objectives are still political, albeit a politics which is completely entwined with religion.

As to Nelson's claims about legitimacy, I also regard both the means and ends of Islamist terrorism as illegitimate, but I'd offer that legitimacy is in the eye of the beholder. In the view of a very small minority of fundamentalist Muslims, the al Qaeda ideology (and at this point al Qaeda is much more an ideology than it is an organization) and the violence it inspires are legitimate responses to what they perceive as an aggressive and invasive West. This is certainly not meant to justify or excuse terrorism, only to point out that it matters very little whether Nelson or I consider it legitimate. For those willing to kill and die for this ideology, its legitimacy is a matter of fact.… ”

It's past time to start taking Al Qaeda at its word. Al Qaeda means "the base" and tha's precisely what we're dealing with. Not a base like Fort Campbell or Dix, but base like a B-team whose purpose is to support A- teams. Al Qaeda trains and supports the trainers, provides strategic goals, but doesn't dictate tactical decisions. If we're to defeat them we must deal with them as they are, not as we believe them to be.

http://whatisthewar.blogspot.com/2005/07/religion-politics-and-legitimacy.html

No Place to Hide

In the 1990s, the data industry mushroomed. Vast computer systems quietly gathered staggering amounts of personal information about virtually every American adult, mostly for business and marketing purposes. After the 9/11 attacks, national security officials reached out to data companies for help in finding potential terrorists. Now, there may be No Place to Hide.

Since the 9/11 terror attacks, Americans have heard a stream of reports about new, eye-popping security technologies - tools to rate every airline passenger as a terrorism risk, or to sift through personal data about adults across the country and beyond. How far should the nation go in using your personal information for crime fighting and national security? In this new world, what are the rules?

There's wide agreement that after 9/11, the government needed to do a better job of identifying threats on American soil through the use of information technology. But since these technologies, in effect, monitor almost everyone, some people worry about the potential for new abuses.


The book is unevenly written, but the website and audio are fascinating.

The book is ironic and shocking. A subsidiary of ChoicePoint helped the republican party suppress the black vote in Florida in the 2000 election. Not only do they steal your identity, they steal your vote.

http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/noplacetohide/index.html

Oil and Blood - New York Times

“It is now generally understood that the U.S.-led war in Iraq has become a debacle. Nevertheless, Iraqis are supposed to have their constitution ratified and a permanent government elected by the end of the year. It's a logical escape hatch for George W. Bush. He could declare victory, as a senator once suggested to Lyndon Johnson in the early years of Vietnam, and bring the troops home as quickly as possible.

His mantra would be: There's a government in place. We won. We're out of there.

But don't count on it. The Bush administration has no plans to bring the troops home from this misguided war, which has taken a fearful toll in lives and injuries while at the same time weakening the military, damaging the international reputation of the United States, serving as a world-class recruiting tool for terrorist groups and blowing a hole the size of Baghdad in Washington's budget.

A wiser leader would begin to cut some of these losses. But the whole point of this war, it seems, was to establish a long-term military presence in Iraq to ensure American domination of the Middle East and its precious oil reserves, which have been described, the author Daniel Yergin tells us, as "the greatest single prize in all history."

You can run through all the wildly varying rationales for this war: the weapons of mass destruction (that were never found), the need to remove the unmitigated evil of Saddam (whom we had once cozied up to), the connection to Al Qaeda (which was bogus), and one of President Bush's favorites, the need to fight the terrorists "over there" so we won't have to fight them here at home.

All the rationales have to genuflect before "The Prize," which was the title of Mr. Yergin's Pulitzer-Prize-winning book.

It's the oil, stupid.…”

The point here is that the invasion of Iraq was part of a much larger, long-term policy that had to do with the U.S. imposing its will, militarily when necessary, throughout the Middle East and beyond. The war has gone badly, and the viciousness of the Iraq insurgency has put the torch to the idea of further pre-emptive adventures by the Bush administration.

Dreams of empire die hard. We're dug into Iraq, and the bases have been built for a long stay. The war may be going badly, but there is a tremendous amount of oil at stake, the second-largest reserves on the planet. The global competition for oil reserves intensifies by the hour.
/

">http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/28/opinion/28herbert.html

Reporter Malpractice, Texas Hold-em & the Plame Game

“It's not news that the U.S. has an intelligence agency, and it's not news that some of the agencies employees are double-naught spies. Further, the name of Valerie Plame isn't news, either -- there's nothing about her that makes her identity lede-worthy according to any standards of journalism I've ever seen. (If the agent were, say, Michael Jackson, that might be news, especially in today's Big Media world.)

At this point, there isn't a story in what the contact is offering (the New York Times never ran a story suggesting that this was news); the contact's actions themselves do constitute a story (‘Did White House official violate U.S. law in outing CIA operative?’ is showing serious legs); and finally, the contact has implicated the reporter in an expansive web of intrigue that may result in the reporter going to prison.

This last part is key because it goes to the core of the implicit contract between reporter and source. A great deal of attention has been focused on the misguided idea that naming Whitehouse would violate a sacred trust, but this view misunderstands the responsibilities both parties incur when such an agreement is struck.

When Bob Whitehouse dropped Plame's identity on Miller, he immediately breached his contract with her. An agreement of confidentiality binds both parties, not just the reporter. When the source swears the journalist to secrecy, he/she incurs an obligation to behave ethically, as well. A reporter's good faith oath isn't a license of indenture, and it may not be played in bad faith to place a reporter in undue jeopardy. If Whitehouse breaks that trust, the reporter is no longer under any obligation whatsoever to protect his name.

Miller needed to step back and say “thanks Bob, but no thanks -- you're the story now.” Reporters are obligated to the truth, and allowing themselves to be pimped by those who would use them as tools against the truth is a crime against the profession and the society it serves. Protecting that which you are bound to expose is malpractice.

As somebody who has given and honored his word many times, I can respect that somebody is willing to go to jail rather than do something they see as reflecting on their reputations. But in doing so, you may be acting on a personal principle, not an industry code. The distinction is important.

There are few things in our entire culture that are more essential than the freedoms codified in the 1st Amendment. Press freedom isn't just important to democracy, it's a prerequisite. Further, I'm all in favor of doing anything we can to encourage whistle-blowers in this age of high governmental and corporate kleptocracy. Most editorials and comments I'm seeing this last week or two insist that the Plame case is about just these issues.

I don't buy it. From where I sit, Miller went to jail not to protect the name of a source, but to protect the name of a former source who may be a felon.”

Former Intelligence Officers Hit White House on Plame Leak

Former U.S. intelligence officers criticized President Bush on Friday for not disciplining Karl Rove in connection with the leak of the name of a CIA officer, saying Bush's lack of action has jeopardized national security.

In a hearing held by Senate and House Democrats examining the implications of exposing Valerie Plame's identity, the former intelligence officers said Bush's silence has hampered efforts to recruit informants to help the United States fight the war on terror. Federal law forbids government officials from revealing the identity of an undercover intelligence officer.

"I wouldn't be here this morning if President Bush had done the one thing required of him as commander in chief-- protect and defend the Constitution," said Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst, who calls himself a Republican. "The minute that Valerie Plame's identity was outed, he should have delivered a strict and strong message to his employees."

When they thought it would die down they talked tough, but, when it came back to haunt them they suddenly were ‘helpless’ until the investigation was over.

Apparently, none of them imagined a prosecutor as relentless as Fitzgerald. He just kept dotting the i's and crossing the t's until he had a trail that lead him to the offices of the President and Vice President of the United States. So now, it's time to change the subject…, again…

http://editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/shoptalk_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000980907&imw=Y

Just a Sound Check

“Like it says. This is just a sound check.” ‘’

…It should also help me claim my channel at Odeo.com…

http://www.archive.org/download/Sound_Check/difficult.mp3

Imagine

Imagine

It's that day of infamy in December of '41. If you can imagine congress declaring war on torpedo bombers instead of the Japanese, then you're beginning to see the problem I have with the war on terror.

When I watched the second plane hit the World Trade Center, I turned around and said this is Al Qaeda's third attack. I expected immediate action against Bin Laden and the Taliban, but it took months despite nearly every military power on earth offering us their assistance.

An incredible amount of time was wasted trying to link the attacks to Iraq, Iran and even North Korea was dragged into the axis of evil.

In the end we declared war on the tactic instead of the enemy, making Bin Laden's escape at Tora Bora almost inevitable.…

I think it's because too many people can't imagine an attack by anything but a state, but jihads, crusades, and holy wars don't need a state in the traditional way. In any case, Al Qaeda isn't state sponsored terrorism, the Taliban was a terrorist sponsored state.

At some point in the middle ages, I'm told they tried to outlaw archery. They went so far as to hang every archer they came across, but the sanctions didn't end the problem. Only a more effective tactic (guns) succeeded in replacing bows.

The taliban weren't much of a state, and our military is geared up for war with states so we found one, pounded it into the ground, disbanded its army, defeated it in every way possible, while Al Qaeda metastesized throughout the entire Islamic world.

Al Qaeda can be defeated, but, where surgery would have been adequate, we now need chemotherapy and radiation and the patient might not survive. By the way, the patient has a large family that holds grudges, and they've already started planning the malpractice suit.

In the meanwhile, some are declaring success because it's been years since the attack. There were years betwween the embassy attacks and the U.S.S. Cole. Our interests and our servicepeople have been under constant attack. We have self inflicted wounds Bin Laden could only have dreamed of causing as we trade freedoms for “security.”

And the people of Iraq have the vote, but less security, less electricity, less gasoline, less health care, less water, but they're still giving us the benefit of the doubt. But even they aren't going to do that forever.

We've got to demand responsibility from congress, and accountability from the executive, because winning this war can't be a faith based initiative.

Since the London attacks eighteen of our twenty partners in our coalition of the willing and the billing have suffered terrorist attacks. Our soldiers, wounded in Iraq, who die in transit, or on arrival in other countries, aren't properly counted as war dead. This game of let's pretend is costing us dearly. Soon, we'll look in the mirror and won't recognize America at all.

Al Ingram (Updated July 11, 2005)

http://www.audioblogger.com/media/1468/209186.mp3

Hunting Ambassador Wilson via Valerie Plame?

Rove told MSNBC's Chris Matthews that ValeriePlame, CIA operative and wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson, was "fair game," according to an October 2003 report in Newsweek.

“This bumper sticker was spotted by Left in SF over the weekend -- disturbingly, on an SUV parked among a crowd of cars out for a gay-pride rally.

These "permits" have been around for awhile now, mostly circulating on the fringes of the far right, but they've been increasingly making their way into broader circulation. One of the Minutemen described in Andy Isaacson's mash letter to that extremist phenomenon sported just such a sticker on his rig.

The people sporting such stickers, no doubt, will contend that it's just a joke -- as though such a fig leaf could disguise the violent attitudes and beliefs required to find it humorous. Next they'll argue that stickers saying "Hitler Needed to Finish the Job" are just meant to be funny.

This is, of course, just another permutation of the rising tide of eliminationist rhetoric directed at liberals. It's everywhere -- including now, thanks to Karl Rove, the highest echelons of the Bush administration.

I can't say I was terribly surprised by Rove's remarks, but they are well worth noting for their precise content:

"Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers," Mr. Rove, the senior political adviser to President Bush, said at a fund-raiser in Midtown for the Conservative Party of New York State.

Citing calls by progressive groups to respond carefully to the attacks, Mr. Rove said to the applause of several hundred audience members, "I don't know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt when I watched the twin towers crumble to the ground, a side of the Pentagon destroyed, and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble."

...Mr. Rove also said American armed forces overseas were in more jeopardy as a result of remarks last week by Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, who compared American mistreatment of detainees to the acts of "Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others."

"Has there ever been a more revealing moment this year?" Mr. Rove asked. "Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals."”

Mystery of Karl Rove/Matt Cooper Connection Deepens

By E&P Staff

Published: July 08, 2005 10:00 AM ET

NEW YORK The mystery deepened today over top White House aide Karl Rove's involvement in the Plame case and how strongly special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is interested in that. The Washington Post's Dan Balz reports today that Fitzgerald "still appears to want more answers about Rove's role" and apparently is "focused on" his conversations with Time magazine's Matt Cooper, who has now agreed to testify in the matter.

Yesterday The New York Times reported that Cooper’s dramatic reprieve from jail, after his unnamed sourced freed him from their confidentiality agreement, came after he got a personal okay from Rove. At the same time, The Post reported that Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, denied that Rove had called him.

"Yesterday, however," Balz reports, "Luskin declined to comment on a New York Times report that the release came as a result of negotiations involving Rove's and Cooper's attorneys, nor would he speculate that Cooper was released from his pledge in some other fashion than a direct conversation with Rove. 'I'm not going to comment any further,' Luskin said."

Balz also noted that Luskin's previous confirmation that Rove had spoken to Cooper two years ago "appeared at odds with previous White House statements. In retrospect, however, these statements -- which some interpreted as emphatic denials -- were in fact carefully worded."

Rove told MSNBC's Chris Matthews that Valerie Plame, CIA operative and wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson, was "fair game," according to an October 2003 report in Newsweek. "At a minimum Fitzgerald could turn up embarrassing information that may yet become public about how the Bush White House operates," Balz writes today.
http://editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000975776&imw=Y

I think no more needs to be said.
Al Ingram

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2005/06/hunting-of-liberals.html

Contrary Brin misc aside: send books to soldiers/sailors...

We keep saying we're not at war with the Iraqi people. We're not at war with Islam. We don't even seem to be coherently at war with enemies who use terrorism. Instead we're at war with terrorism itself. We might have killed, detained, and yes, tortured fewer Iraqis and Muslims if we were at war with them. We might even apply the Geneva Conventions.

“Reasonable people can have diverse opinions about the war in Iraq. I have expressed doubts here over the way we have fumbled around over there. (As I say below, those who shamefully left Saddam in power in 1991 have no right to preen over sending our troops back 12 years later, to correct their fantastic blunder. At best, they are atoning for a horrible stain on our honor.)

Still, despite grotesque political meddling and the bad apple behavior of some horrid rogues, most our soldiers and beleaguered officers are doing their best in a very rough situation. They deserve support, whatever we think of the War Plan they are forced to execute.

I have long made a habit of mailing crates of books to military units around the world, doing my small bit as an author and reader to help ease the draggy ennui that spans the intervals between episodes of danger and courage. (Lately, the Navy Department gave me a lovely wall chatchki for donating $2,000 worth of hardcovers to ships at the San Diego Naval Base.) ”

War on Blitzkrieg.

War on Saturation Bombing.

How about a War on House to House Combat?

Isn't it time we stopped fighting a tactic and concetrated on defeating the enemy?

http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/

Expert: Grokster Decision Won't Negate Sony 'Fair Use' Law

The entertainment industry has been fighting technology in court since the invention of the player piano. American courts have the unenviable job of preserving rights in intellectual property and maintaining an environment where innovation and ideas can flourish. It's a constitutional mandate that in this decision may have been misread.

“The Supreme Court's decision Monday that Grokster and other file-swapping services can be held liable for illegal downloading doesn't overturn the 'fair use' doctrine established in the early 1980s when consumers started buying videocassette recorders to copy television shows and movies, according to a Washington-based copyright attorney.

However, how the law is interpreted by the courts will likely change, due to the massive use of digital technology to download, copy and share millions of music and video files, said Ralph Oman, former federal register of copyrights and currently an attorney in the intellectual property group of Dechert LLP, a Washington-based law firm.

The case of Sony Corp. versus Universal Studios, which established the fair use doctrine, 'is pretty much intact in, perhaps, a way limited by the facts,' Oman said. 'Three of the justices said the Sony decision is irrelevant in this case and three said [Grokster] had met the Sony criteria and by specific acts had violated those criteria of the Sony decision.'The court found that Grokster wasn't "merely selling a device that could be used for infringing activity. It was a device or software that was designed to encourage the illegal activity," Oman said.…

In that case, Grokster couldn't claim that its file-swapping service represented fair use as was deemed legal in the Sony vs. Universal decision.

Oman was one of a group of attorneys and law professors that filed a "friend of the court" brief with the Supreme Court, arguing the view that "Grokster is trading on the illegal activity of its subscribers," he said.

Removing competitors, building barriers to entry, doesn't solve the industries underlying problem. It just treats one of the symptoms.

Companies like Grokster aim to "induce the infringing activity of their customers, and they benefit from that inducement in terms of being able to sell advertising to increase the number of people who are viewing their site," Oman said.

Grokster's business plan "requires acts of infringement on a large percentage scale," and that use is "not shielded by the laws limiting liability in the Sony case," he said.

The key difference between the two cases is that the video players and recorders in the Sony case were analog devices. Owners couldn't easily use their recorders to produce hundreds or thousands of movie videos for their friends or for anyone willing to pay for them.”

So now they'll try to stuff the genie back into the bottle, right after they unscramble the eggs they had for breakfast.

The entertainment industry has been fighting technology in court since the invention of the player piano. American courts have the unenviable job of preserving rights in intellectual property and maintaining an environment where innovation and ideas can flourish. It's a constitutional mandate that in this decision may have been misread.

I think, that even if you could unscramble already eaten eggs, there's no one who will want any. You've got to sell what people want to buy, or persuade them to want what you have to sell. Removing competitors, building barriers to entry, doesn't solve the industries underlying problem. It just treats one of the symptoms.

BitTorrent files of Grokster & Betamax legal documents (from outragedmoderates.org)

On Saturday, I created a BitTorrent file of all of the briefs submitted to the Supreme Court regarding the MGM v. Grokster case, which the Court will hear tomorrow. Since then, over 170 people have downloaded the Grokster briefs, which adds up to over 378,760 pages of court documents downloaded in two and a half days. (Update - as of midnight on 4/1/05, over 580,000 pages of Grokster briefs had been downloaded.)

Below are BitTorrent links for the Grokster briefs and two new torrents: one containing documents from the 1984 Betamax case, and one containing mp3 audio files of the oral arguments in that case. (Click here for information about how to install a BitTorrent client; click here for more BitTorrent files containing government documents).

MGM v. Grokster Briefs [BitTorrent Link]
Contents: All of the briefs submitted to the Supreme Court re: MGM v. Grokster
Size: 20.7 MB (74 files)
Source: U.S. Copyright Office [copyright.gov]

Betamax Legal Documents [BitTorrent Link]
Contents: Court documents and briefs from the Supreme Court's 1984 Betamax decision
Size: 4.7 MB (42 files)
Source: the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Betamax case document archive [EFF.org]

Betamax mp3s [BitTorrent Link]
Contents: mp3s of the oral arguments in the Supreme Court's 1984 Betamax decision
Size: 52.7 MB (3 files)
Source: the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Betamax case document archive [EFF.org]

Thanks to these folks, and everyone else, who linked to the Grokster briefs torrent:
"Grokster Briefs demonstrating the point of p2p" [Lessig.org]
"Grokster briefs torrent" [BoingBoing.net]

I'm taking the Chinatown bus down to D.C. tonight, with hopes of hearing part of the oral arguments tomorrow morning. Check back here Wednesday for some blogging on Grokster. Journalists/bloggers interested in talking to someone about the political uses of P2P, please email me at info@outragedmoderates.org and leave a phone number.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1831982,00.asp?kc=ewnws062805dtx1k0000599

The War President - New York Times

America's founders knew all too well how war appeals to the vanity of rulers and their thirst for glory. That's why they took care to deny presidents the kingly privilege of making war at their own discretion.

“In November 2002, Helen Thomas, the veteran White House correspondent, told an audience, ‘I have never covered a president who actually wanted to go to war’ - but she made it clear that Mr. Bush was the exception. And she was right.

Leading the nation wrongfully into war strikes at the heart of democracy. It would have been an unprecedented abuse of power even if the war hadn't turned into a military and moral quagmire. And we won't be able to get out of that quagmire until we face up to the reality of how we got in.… ”

The administration has prevented any official inquiry into whether it hyped the case for war. But there's plenty of circumstantial evidence that it did.

And then there's the Downing Street Memo - actually the minutes of a prime minister's meeting in July 2002 - in which the chief of British overseas intelligence briefed his colleagues about his recent trip to Washington.

"Bush wanted to remove Saddam," says the memo, "through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and W.M.D. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." It doesn't get much clearer than that.

The U.S. news media largely ignored the memo for five weeks after it was released in The Times of London. Then some asserted that it was "old news" that Mr. Bush wanted war in the summer of 2002, and that W.M.D. were just an excuse. No, it isn't. Media insiders may have suspected as much, but they didn't inform their readers, viewers and listeners. And they have never held Mr. Bush accountable for his repeated declarations that he viewed war as a last resort.

The U.S. news media largely ignored the memo for five weeks after it was released in The Times of London. Then some asserted that it was "old news" that Mr. Bush wanted war in the summer of 2002, and that W.M.D. were just an excuse. No, it isn't. Media insiders may have suspected as much, but they didn't inform their readers, viewers and listeners. And they have never held Mr. Bush accountable for his repeated declarations that he viewed war as a last resort.

Still, some of my colleagues insist that we should let bygones be bygones. The question, they say, is what we do now. But they're wrong: it's crucial that those responsible for the war be held to account.

Let me explain. The United States will soon have to start reducing force levels in Iraq, or risk seeing the volunteer Army collapse. Yet the administration and its supporters have effectively prevented any adult discussion of the need to get out.

On one side, the people who sold this war, unable to face up to the fact that their fantasies of a splendid little war have led to disaster, are still peddling illusions: the insurgency is in its "last throes," says Dick Cheney. On the other, they still have moderates and even liberals intimidated: anyone who suggests that the United States will have to settle for something that falls far short of victory is accused of being unpatriotic.

We need to deprive these people of their ability to mislead and intimidate. And the best way to do that is to make it clear that the people who led us to war on false pretenses have no credibility, and no right to lecture the rest of us about patriotism.

The good news is that the public seems ready to hear that message - readier than the media are to deliver it. Major media organizations still act as if only a small, left-wing fringe believes that we were misled into war, but that "fringe" now comprises much if not most of the population.…

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/24/opinion/24krugman.html

Class Matters - Social Class in the United States of America

“A team of reporters spent more than a year exploring ways that class - defined as a combination of income, education, wealth and occupation - influences destiny in a society that likes to think of itself as a land of unbounded opportunity.…

• Multimedia & Graphics From This Series
• Interactive Graphics: Where Do You Fit In? Poll Results
• Bibliography: Selected Readings Related to This Series

• Day 1: Overview
• Day 2: Health
• Day 3: Marriage
• Day 4: Religion
• Day 5: Education
• Day 6: Immigration
• Day 7: New Status Markers
• Day 8: The 'Relo' Class
• Day 9: The Hyper-Rich
• Day 10: Class and Culture
• Day 11: Up From the Projects …

Times Books will publish the Class Matters series as a paperback in September. A limited number of newspaper reprints will also be available in three to four weeks for $2.50 per copy. To order the reprint, call 1-800-671-4332.”

http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2005/05/15/national/class/index.html?8dpc

Legal Guide for Bloggers

“Like all journalists and publishers, bloggers sometimes publish information that other people don't want published. You might, for example, publish something that someone considers defamatory, republish an AP news story that's under copyright, or write a lengthy piece detailing the alleged crimes of a candidate for public office.

The difference between you and the reporter at your local newspaper is that in many cases, you may not have the benefit of training or resources to help you determine whether what you're doing is legal. And on top of that, sometimes knowing the law doesn't help - in many cases it was written for traditional journalists, and the courts haven't yet decided how it applies to bloggers.

But here's the important part: None of this should stop you from blogging. Freedom of speech is the foundation of a functioning democracy, and Internet bullies shouldn't use the law to stifle legitimate free expression. That's why EFF created this guide, compiling a number of FAQs designed to help you understand your rights and, if necessary, defend your freedom.…”

‘’

Table of Contents…

Blogger Legal Liability Issues

The Overview of Legal Liability Issues FAQ briefly addresses some common legal issues that affect you as a publisher, especially situations where you may face legal claims or threats based on the information you published on your blog.

The Bloggers' FAQ on Intellectual Property addresses issues that arise when you publish material created by others on your blog.

The Bloggers' FAQ on Online Defamation Law provides an overview of defamation (libel) law, including a discussion of the constitutional and statutory privileges that may protect you.

The Bloggers' FAQ on Section 230 Protections discusses a powerful federal law that gives you, as a web host, protection against legal claims arising from hosting information written by third parties.

The Bloggers' FAQ on Privacy addresses the legal issues surrounding the privacy rights of people you blog about.

Bloggers As Journalists

The Bloggers' FAQ on the Reporter's Privilege is useful to bloggers who report news gathered from confidential sources.

The Bloggers' FAQ on Media Access can help bloggers who need to get access to public records and government meetings, as well as secure press passes to help with newsgathering.

Other Legal Issues for Bloggers

The Bloggers' FAQ on Election Law addresses the legal issues you may face blogging about political campaigns.

The Bloggers' FAQ on Labor Law addresses legal issues with workplace blogging, including union organizing, protections for political blogging away from the workplace, and whistle blowing.

Blogger Legal FAQs

Legal Liability Issues
Overview
Intellectual Property
Defamation
Section 230
Privacy

Bloggers as Journalists
Reporter's Privilege
Media Access

Other Legal Issues
Election Law
Labor Law
…

http://www.eff.org/bloggers/lg/

Who Pays For This?

Who Pays? 1.6MB
Updated June 13, 2005 15:59 CDT

My apologies for an inaudible audio, problems with ourmedia seem resolved now. — Al Ingram

“I started getting pulled into something--something that craved other peole's pain. Just to make sure I wasn't regarded as a "fucking missionary" or a possible rat, I learned how to fit myself into that group that was untouchable, people too crazy to fuck with, people who desired the rush of omnipotence that comes with setting someone's house on fire just for the pure hell of it, or who could kill anyone, man, woman, or child, with hardly a second thought. People who had the power of life and death--because they could.

The anger helps. It's easy to hate everyone you can't trust because of your circumstances, and to rage about what you've seen, what has happened to you, and what you have done and can't take back.

It was all an act for me, a cover-up for deeper fears I couldn't name, and the reason I know that is
that we had to dehumanize our victims before we did the things we did. We knew deep down that what we were doing was wrong. So they became dinks or gooks, just like Iraqis are now being transformed into ragheads or hajjis. People had to be reduced to "niggers" here before they could be lynched. No difference. We convinced ourselves we had to kill them to survive, even when that wasn't true, but something inside us told us that so long as they were human beings, with the same intrinsic value we had as human beings, we were not allowed to burn their homes and barns, kill their animals, and sometimes even kill them. So we used these words, these new names, to reduce them, to strip them of their essential humanity, and then we could do things like adjust artillery fire onto the cries of a baby.

Until that baby was silenced, though, and here's the important thing to understand, that baby never surrendered her humanity. I did. We did. That's the thing you might not get until it's too late. When you take away the humantiy of another, you kill your own humanity. You attack your own soul because it is standing in the way.… ”

Excerpt from Hold On To Your Humanity: A Open Letter to GI's in Iraq by MFSO member Stan Goff.

Marine Cleared in Deaths of 2 Insurgents in Iraq

By By JOHN DeSANTIS, New York Times Regional Newspapers

Second Lt. Ilario Pantano was cleared of criminal wrongdoing by the same two-star general who ordered a formal inquiry. “The killings occurred on April 15, 2004, near Mahmudiyah, as Lieutenant Pantano led a platoon to search a house suspected of being an insurgent lair. When the marines approached, two men left in a white sedan, according to testimony at the hearing, but were stopped on Lieutenant Pantano's order. No weapons were found on the men, who were handcuffed as a Navy corpsman checked their car for weapons. When he was told that weapons and other contraband were found inside the house, Lieutenant Pantano ordered the men unhandcuffed and then directed them to search their car themselves. Lieutenant Pantano supervised while the corpsman, George Gobles, and a Marine sergeant, Daniel Coburn, stood facing away as sentries. Lieutenant Pantano said that the men made a threatening move toward him after repeatedly talking with each other in Arabic and that he fired, emptying his M-16 rifle's magazine. He reloaded and emptied the second one, a total of as many as 50 bullets. He acknowledged placing a hand-scrawled cardboard sign reading "No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy" atop the car, against which the bodies lay. The sign and the number of rounds fired, according to lieutenant Pantano's statement, were meant to send a message to other Iraqis about what happens to those who join insurgents. The sign and its placement resulted in a formal accusation of desecration, in addition to the two accusations of premeditated murder.” http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/27/national/27pantano.html?ex=1274846400&en=30f7492b75f8e1fe&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Soldier Charged in Iraqi Killing Is Acquitted

By By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

A jury of four soldiers and two officers deliberated for less than three hours before finding Staff Sgt. Shane Werst not guilty of premeditated murder.

“Sergeant Werst testified that he did not regret shooting Mr. Ismail but acknowledged that his efforts to make it look like self-defense were wrong. "I would still to this day fire on that man, sir," he said.

He and a fellow soldier had gone into a house with Mr. Ismail looking for weapons. After shooting him, Sergeant Werst said, he fired the Iraqi's pistol into a couch and told the other soldier, Pfc. Nathan Stewart, to put the man's fingerprints on it.

Sergeant Werst said he had been scared because he had never shot anyone before.

The prosecutor, Capt. Evan Seamone, said the story did not make sense. "If this is a legitimate kill, if this follows the rules of engagement, why in the world would he have to create a lie?" Captain Seamone said.

He cited the testimony of Private Stewart, who said Sergeant Werst had gotten mad because he thought Mr. Ismail had lied about his identity. Sergeant Werst said, "Come on, Stewart, we're going to kill" him, Private Stewart testified.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/27/national/27forthood.html?ex=1274846400&en=81f0a9dbd7f09f24&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

We're sending a deadly message, but, not to the insurgents and not to Al Qaeda. We're sending this deadly message to those we profess to help.

Read Hold On To Your Humanity: A Open Letter to GI's in Iraq

by MFSO member Stan Goff.

" Bring 'Em On? " By STAN GOFF, Former Special Forces Soldier and Military Parent, as he responds to Bush's invitation for Iraqis to attack US Troops …

http://www.archive.org/download/Who_Pays_Audible_Version/WhoPays.mp3

A $250,000 Fine and 10 Years in Prison, Unless…

Ruling Limits Prosecutions of People Who Violate Law on Privacy of Medical Records

By ROBERT PEAR
“An authoritative new ruling by the Justice Department sharply limits the government's ability to prosecute people for criminal violations of the law that protects the privacy of medical records.

The criminal penalties, the department said, apply to insurers, doctors, hospitals and other providers - but not necessarily their employees or outsiders who steal personal health data.

In short, the department said, people who work for an entity covered by the federal privacy law are not automatically covered by that law and may not be subject to its criminal penalties, which include a $250,000 fine and 10 years in prison for the most serious violations.

The reasoning is that federal regulations establish the standards for medical privacy. The regulations apply just to "covered entities," including insurers and health care providers. Thus, only covered entities can be prosecuted for criminal violations of the law.

This interpretation is set forth in an opinion written by the office of legal counsel at the Justice Department. The opinion, dated June 1, is binding on the executive branch of the federal government, but not on judges. It was prepared over the last 16 months to answer questions from the criminal division of the Justice Department and the Health and Human Services Department.

The ruling was a surprise to many lawyers. Robert M. Gellman, an expert on privacy and information policy, said, "Under this decision, a tremendous amount of conduct that is clearly wrong will fall outside the criminal penalties of the statute," the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996.

If a hospital sells a list of patients' names to a firm for marketing purposes, the hospital can be held criminally liable, Mr. Gellman said. But if a hospital clerk does the same thing, in defiance of hospital policy, the clerk cannot be prosecuted under the 1996 law, because the clerk is not a "covered entity."

In December 2000, President Bill Clinton issued sweeping privacy standards that affected virtually every part of the health care system. President Bush allowed the rules to take effect with some changes.

The government has received more than 13,000 complaints of violations of the privacy standards in the last two years. The government has not imposed any civil fines, but it has secured one criminal conviction. A Seattle man pleaded guilty last August to wrongful disclosure of personal health information.

The man, Richard W. Gibson, admitted that he had improperly obtained a patient's name, birth date and Social Security account number while working for a consortium of cancer hospitals. Mr. Gibson used the information to obtain four credit cards in the patient's name. Using the cards, Mr. Gibson bought more than $9,000 worth of video games, jewelry, porcelain figurines, groceries, gasoline and other items for his use.

He was sentenced to 16 months in prison.

The new Justice Department opinion appears to contradict the legal theory under which Mr. Gibson was prosecuted.

When informed of the new opinion, Gregory L. Ursich, a lawyer for the patient whose rights were violated, said Monday, ‘This is a very bizarre interpretation of the statute.’ ”

So,… will the one convicted thief get out of jail free? Has the Bush Justice Department gone nuts? Was it ever sane?

Tune in folks…, this one will be in the courts for the rest of our lives. It ranks up there with not letting the FBI check the firearms records of the 9-11 hijackers, or not supporting research that could take an innocent life, at least until after they're born, then all bets are off.…

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/07/politics/07privacy.html?ex=1275796800&en=b3a375374a7aa548&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Turn On, Tune In, ..., Start the Computer Revolution

Almost every feature of today's home computers, from the graphical interface to the mouse control, can be traced to two Stanford research facilities that were completely immersed in the counterculture.…

What the Dormouse Said tells the story of the birth of the personal computer through the people, politics, and protest that defined its unique era.

“What the Dormouse Said:
How the 60's Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry” (Viking, 287 pages) is John Markoff's hymn to the 1960's, and to the social idealists and, well, acid freaks who wanted to use computers to promote an agenda of sharing, openness and personal growth.

John Markoff is a senior writer for The New York Times who has coauthored Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier and the bestselling Takedown: The Pursuit and Capture of Kevin Mitnick, America’s Most Wanted Computer Outlaw.

…

John Markoff has been writing about computers, technology and the Internet for The New York Times since 1988. Before joining the Times, Markoff covered technology for The San Francisco Examiner and Infoworld, and wrote a weekly column for the San Jose Mercury News.

Markoff started covering technology in 1977, one year after Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs founded Apple computer, and just two years after two geeks from Seattle -- Paul Allen and Bill Gates -- first got together to write software.

Under Markoff's watch, the idea that everyone could own a personal computer has gone from fantasy to reality, e-mail has transformed how we communicate, and the Internet has given everyone the ability to publish their own version of the news.

Heroic New World? How heroic can you be, if your world is filtered through psylocibin? Could you, stand up for a changed world, stone cold sober. Hacker Culture by Douglas Thomas University of Minnesota Press 2003.

It's not as gripping as “Takedown”with Tsutomu Shimomura, but definitely worth the read.…

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/22/business/yourmoney/22shelf.html?ex=1274414400&en=86e9c0ac0409a700&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

White House Downplays Missing Arms

“The White House on Friday played down a report in which U.N. weapons inspectors documented additional materials missing from weapons sites in Iraq.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the Bush administration had taken steps to ensure sites were secured, and he suggested it was doubtful the looted material was being used to boost other countries' weapons programs.

In a report to the U.N. Security Council, acting chief weapons inspector Demetrius Perricos said that satellite imagery experts had determined that material that could be used to make biological or chemical weapons and banned long-range missiles had been removed from 109 sites, up from 90 reported in March.

The sites have been emptied of equipment to varying degrees, with the largest percentage of missing items at 58 missile facilities.

For example, 289 of the 340 pieces of equipment to produce missiles -- or about 85 percent, had been removed, the report said.

Biological sites were the least damaged, according to the analysts at the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission.

Perricos said he's reached no conclusions about who removed the items or where they went. He said it could have been moved elsewhere in Iraq, sold as scrap, melted down or purchased.”

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bush-Iraq-Weapons.html

Disassembling The Truth

Amnesty International called Guantanamo Bay the "gulag of our time". Bush was scornful of this report. Bush says that some people are "trained in some instances to disassemble -- that means to not tell the truth", happily showcasing his latest line of malapropisms. "'Dissemble' means to not tell the truth. 'Disassemble' is what we did to Iraq," Stewart says.

Cheney had a similar reaction when asked about the Amnesty International report during a Larry King interview. The normally robotic stoic of a man Cheney says he was offended by it. Stewart, everyone's favorite Southern belle cries, "Offended?! Why, he's so sensitive! I declare, fetch that man a faintin' couch and some lemon water. He's got the vapors!"
from http://www.tvsquad.com/2005/06/03/the-daily-show-june-2-2005/

Meanwhile…
Iraq: U.S. Checkpoints Continue to Kill

The failure of U.S. forces in Iraq to implement basic precautions at checkpoints has led to unnecessary deaths of civilians two years after these inadequacies were identified, Human Rights Watch said today.

The March 4 killing of an Italian intelligence officer, Nicola Calipari, at a checkpoint in Baghdad highlighted this failure.

After the fall of Baghdad, Human Rights Watch expressed concern to U.S. army ground commanders about excessive civilian deaths at checkpoints. The commanders told Human Rights Watch that they had identified many problems in their checkpoint procedures and were taking steps to correct them.

Again, in its October 2003 report, "Hearts and Minds," Human Rights Watch urged the U.S. military in Iraq to take further steps to better mark checkpoints with lights and large signs in Arabic, initiate a public-service campaign to inform Iraqis of proper checkpoint behavior, and make available interpreters and soldiers with Arabic skills at all times.

"The military should immediately take the basic steps to ensure that Iraqi civilians, as well as U.S. soldiers, are safe at checkpoints," said Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch. "The fact that soldiers who man checkpoints are at real risk is not an excuse for complacency. These risks should not be transferred to civilians."

The checkpoint killing of an Italian intelligence officer shows that the army still hasn't taken basic precautions to protect civilians. On May 2, the Pentagon released a classified investigation into the checkpoint shooting death of Nicola Calipari on March 4. The Italian intelligence officer was gunned down at a U.S. Army checkpoint while escorting an Italian reporter to the airport after she had been released by Iraqi insurgents who had kidnapped her. The U.S. military investigation exonerates all U.S. military personnel involved in the shooting, but it shows that the army has failed to implement lessons learned during two years of manning checkpoints.

Checkpoints in Iraq pose dangers to both soldiers manning them and persons crossing them. The U.S. military calls the type of checkpoint where Calipari was killed a "blocking position." Blocking positions are checkpoints where military units attempt to turn vehicles away without searching them. According to the U.S. investigation, the military unit in question had been given the Tactical Standing Operating Procedures, but this set of procedures for checkpoints "does not provide guidance on blocking positions."
"There is no evidence to indicate that the Soldiers were trained to execute blocking positions before arriving in theater," the Pentagon report admitted.

The investigation found that instead of following written guidelines, the unit used informal procedures that were passed from unit to unit over time. In fact, according to the investigation, the unit was never trained in the proper procedures to operate a blocking checkpoint.

"Using untrained troops for operations as sensitive as checkpoint duty makes no sense," said Garlasco. "These practices put U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians at risk."

The recommendations of the U.S. military's report mirror many of the issues that Human Rights Watch discussed with U.S. military commanders in Iraq immediately after the fall of Baghdad in 2003. A senior officer with the Third Infantry Division had told Human Rights Watch that the importance of using signs and barriers to slow vehicles was among the lessons from the war being implemented to minimize civilian casualties at checkpoints.

Yet according to the U.S. report, on the night that Calipari was killed, the army company operating the checkpoint did not employ signs warning vehicles to slow down, nor had it deployed rubber speed bumps. These items can be easily carried and placed by the troops as they set up checkpoints. The report recommended establishing a program to inform all Iraqis of how to behave at checkpoints, to require soldiers to consider the perspective of drivers and what they might see, and to implement a "more driver friendly alert signal."

According to the Pentagon report, procedures that should have been in place for checkpoints (though not blocking positions) the night of the shooting included, "an Alert Line, a Warning Line, a Stop Line, a Search Area, and an Overwatch Area." According to the Tactical Standing Operating Procedures, the Search Area should be "a well-lit checkpoint, provide standoff from neighborhood structures, allow a sufficient area to accommodate more than one search team, the establishment of warning signs with sufficient distance for drivers to react, the use of physical barriers to force vehicles to slow down, and other barriers like tire poppers, to block movement of vehicles attempting to continue through the search area."

Furthermore, the report said that units operating checkpoints should have equipment that includes "warnings signs, triangles, sawhorses, traffic cones, and/or tire poppers." None of these items was apparently used the night of this shooting. While some of the procedures for a standard checkpoint were in place, many that may have prevented the shooting of Nicola Calipari were not.

Storm Brews Over Encryption 'Safe Harbor' in Data Breach Bills

“You can encrypt the data with a trivial algorithm and get around [the law]," Schneier said. "If you can get around a law by doing something stupid, it's a badly written law.”

By Caron Carlson

“Spurred by the ongoing flood of sensitive data breaches this spring, nearly a dozen states may have breach notification laws on their books by summer. In turn, makers of security software and companies in several other industries are pressuring Capitol Hill for a federal law pre-empting the states' measures.

In Congress, more than a half-dozen bills requiring a range of data security measures and breach notification rules are pending, and at least two more are slated for introduction in coming months.

These measures—including one under consideration by Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., and one in the draft stages by Rep. Deborah Pryce, R-Ohio—illustrate one of the most contentious questions in the debate: Should there be a notification exemption for businesses that encrypt their data?

Not surprisingly, industries for the most part are pushing for an encryption exemption to notification, a safe harbor that is included in California SB (Senate Bill) 1386, a notification law that went into effect in July 2003. The growing security software industry, a major ally in this effort, is trying to convince lawmakers that when encrypted data is stolen, the theft poses no meaningful harm to consumers.

"If the data is encrypted, it's gibberish. They don't know what it is. They can't use it," said Dan Burton, vice president of government affairs for Entrust Inc.

Some data security experts contend, however, that an encryption safe harbor could reduce data holders' incentives to implement strong protective measures in the first place. Criticizing the California notification law, Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer at Counterpane Internet Security Inc., of Mountain View, Calif., said it lets data holders bypass disclosure without necessarily protecting the data.

‘You can encrypt the data with a trivial algorithm and get around [the law],’ Schneier said. ‘If you can get around a law by doing something stupid, it's a badly written law.’

Entrust supports an encryption exemption to notification but not without other security requirements, said Chris Voice, CTO at the Addison, Texas, company. ‘Like any technological approach, it's going to require more than just encrypting the data,’ Voice said. ‘I think security controls will have to be in place regardless.’”

…Anti-Spyware Bills Pass House, Move to Senate
“The U.S. House of Representatives last week overwhelmingly passed two separate anti-spyware bills, but as the measures now move to the Senate, legislators will find most of the hard questions unresolved—a familiar scenario in Congress, where similar House bills withered last year following Senate inaction.

The SPY ACT (Securely Protect Yourself Against Cyber Trespass), authored by Rep. Mary Bono, R-Calif., takes the more active approach, requiring a conspicuous notice to users before transmitting spyware.

The SPY ACT largely resembles the Senate's SPYBLOCK (Software Principles Yielding Better Levels of Consumer Knowledge) bill, sponsored by Sens. Conrad Burns, R-Mont.; Ron Wyden, D-Ore.; and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. The sponsors are awaiting a date for a committee hearing on the bill and hope to have one before the end of the summer, an aide to Burns said.

Alternatively, the Internet Spyware Prevention Act, authored by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., focuses on penalties for fraudulent or deceptive behavior without targeting any particular technology—an approach favored by the IT industry.

Goodlatte's bill, which passed the House 395-1, makes it a crime to intentionally access a computer without authorization by causing code to be copied onto the computer and using it for malicious purposes.

From the industry's perspective, the Goodlatte approach avoids the possibility of ensnaring legitimate software downloads, such as security patches.”

I'm afraid we're going to get another CAN-SPAM act. Good only for saving legilators ‘phoney baloney jobs.’ Lets make a movie about it.

We an call it ‘Blazing Firewalls.’…

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1822182,00.asp?kc=ewnws060105dtx1k0000599