Locomotive Mule

So I’m skimming the news after a few days of blissful ignorance and I stumble across this:

Dissent Under Attack:

One of the main targets is Greenpeace. Last year, two of its activists boarded a ship that was smuggling illegally harvested rainforest mahogany and unfurled a banner that called on President Bush to act. But instead of going after the smugglers, the Justice Department went out of its way to file criminal charges against Greenpeace, citing an antiquated 1872 law. It’s the first time in our history the government has prosecuted an entire organization for the free speech activities of its supporters. If convicted, it could devastate the group and send a chilling message.

Hmmmm, this sounds kinda ugly - I’m skeptical though and decide to check ’round a bit. First stop is GreenPeace and as expected there’s a wealth of info about this case (here and here).
Well I decide that the whole story is obviously not gonna come from GreenPeace, so further checking renders this from the Miami Herald:

Greenpeace prosecuted under antiquated law

Indeed, this indictment is a puzzlement, coming so long after federal prosecution of the violators. There seems no point to it beyond vindictiveness toward a group that riles the administration. Is this the best use of federal law-enforcement resources? Is it selective prosecution? Why hasn’t Justice applied the same standards to other groups, such as pro-life activists that use similar protest tactics?

And further I find that MSNBC picks up on it as well as a few others. One interesting op-ed piece at OMBWatch states:

Greenpeace under Ashcroft Attack

Greenpeace lawyers say this is the first time an organization has been prosecuted for the actions of its members. Legal experts point out that southern prosecutors harassed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the 1950’s and 1960’s, but note this case is also unusual and questionable. Bruce S. Ledewitz, a law professor at Duquense University who has studied the history of dissent in America told the New York Times “there is not only the suspicion but also perhaps the reality that the purpose of the prosecution is to inhibit First Amendment activities.”
…
Holding an entire organization liable for the actions of a couple of its supporters sets a dangerous precedent. From the Boston Tea Party to the civil rights movement, direct action in public protest has helped to bring positive change throughout the history of the United States. Direct action is often an effective and legitimate form of advocacy, along with legislative lobbying, litigation, regulatory proceedings, rulemaking, action before administrative agencies, public education, and organizing.

So what are we seeing here? Are we truly seeing selective prosecution of an organization the administration doesn’t care for? Or are we just seeing the Justice Department cracking down on an organization that uses civil disobedience as a political tool?

If GreenPeace is guilty of conspiracy then they (the individuals) should be so charged. If not, then there should be no civil or criminal action. Using the apparent logic of the Justice Dept., Enron and WorldCom (the corporations) should be held liable for their employee’s actions but we’re not seeing anything like that.

Now I’m not a big GreenPeace advocate, but I do support their right to protest in any manner they see fit as long as no one gets hurt in doing so. They’ve been at it a long time with some good results. Should they as an organization be shut down? I’m thinking not, for two reasons:

1. GreenPeace (the people and the organization) have protected rights in this nation to speak out against what they perceive to be wrong
2. Our gonvernment is supposed to actively champion our rights - not inhibit the rights of those with which the governors personally disagree.

This is one more example of Bush&Co. thinking and acting in a plutocratic and arbitray manner. They gotta go.

US FBI applies new rules to surveillance

The result is that the FBI, unhindered by the restrictions of the past, will conduct many more searches and wiretaps that are subject to oversight by a secret intelligence court rather than regular criminal courts, officials were quoted as saying.

Secret Intelligence Court? In the US?

I know, I know - this isn’t really new if you’re paying attention but finding it in the Chinese news is a little wierd. “Secret” and “Court” just shouldn’t be used in the same sentence - not when talking about the US.

Here’s the Washington Post story.

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This whole Patriot Act (I believe) is based on the presumption that preemption is a good thing at any cost. Preemption is NOT a good thing if the only way it can be achieved is to surveil everyone with no overt reason for doing so.

The whole conept of “Innocent until proven guilty” precludes preemption. As painful as it may be, in order to have liberty we must allow all others to have that same liberty. This means that everyone must be allowed to go about their business - until they actually act. Society cannot preempt an individual’s (or nation’s for that matter) actions - to do so requires foreknowledge of their thoughts and a presumption of guilt…

Our system by definition is reactive.

The untold story of the Bush administration’s penchant for secrecy

�Important business and consumer information is increasingly being withheld from the public. The Bush administration is denying access to auto and tire safety information, for instance, that manufacturers are required to provide under a new “early-warning system” created following the Ford-Firestone tire scandal four years ago. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, meanwhile, is more frequently withholding information that would allow the public to scrutinize its product safety findings and product recall actions.

�New administrative initiatives have effectively placed off limits critical health and safety information potentially affecting millions of Americans. The information includes data on quality and vulnerability of drinking-water supplies, potential chemical hazards in communities, and safety of airline travel and others forms of transportation.

I s’pose a case could be made that “national security” would require that we hide certain information, like how vulnerable our public works systems really are, but what the hell do automobile safety and tires have to do with “national security”? It sounds to me more like a general ‘pulling the shroud’ over everything (of course there’s the obvious ‘helping your buddies’ explanation but that’s too easy).

If the government starts hiding away the ordinary stuff and they do it slowly and over a long enough period of time, then the people won’t be suddenly surprised when they can find NO information at all. This certainly fits with the overall “dumbing of America”.

Although I must admit it really smells like the “good ol’ boy” system at work - Tires? Amongst the general “national security” buzz we’ve got these days, they can hide all kinds of things because so much is being hidden. Hiding in plain sight you might say.

�Beyond the well-publicized cases involving terrorism suspects, the administration is aggressively pursuing secrecy claims in the federal courts in ways little understood–even by some in the legal system. The administration is increasingly invoking a “state secrets” privilege that allows government lawyers to request that civil and criminal cases be effectively closed by asserting that national security would be compromised if they proceed.

We need to get this “national security” and “state secret” shit under control. If I can’t hide my income from the IRS on “personal secrets” grounds, then why can the government hide anything from me?

What can possibly be so important? Sure protecting our spooks and their networks can be viewed as important but this has to be a very small percentage of criminal cases and virtually no civil cases at all. Beyond that, what the fuck is so important?

If the stuff is embarrassing then these guys need to get over it. Or better yet we need to replace ‘em with people who aren’t yet tainted by the hubris and false pride being exhibited by the current (and previous 4 or 5) administration.

30-Packs Are Whack | Beer News [ BeerAdvocate.com ]

It’s hard for many Americans to grasp this, but remember it’s all about quality, not quantity or price.

This may be a stretch but this article addresses the issue of beer quality versus quantity, touches on the typical American’s belief in advertising and the ‘me too’ syndrome.

All of the goodness typically associated with beer has been filtered, stripped clean to almost water.
They are typically made with cheap adjuncts, like rice and corn.

What holds for beer holds true for politics. We buy into the cheap 3 second sound bite and the instant analysis of the so called ‘pundits’. And worst of all we seem to like the “stripped clean” candidates which bubble to the top. The candidate with something real to say, that has something substantive to offer? They’re filtered out real early in the process.

Is there a relationship between the beer one drinks and the amount of time one spends actually analyzing the information we’re inundated with every day?

I’m sure the French would say there is. I have to agree with ‘em.

I was reading Arab News this afternoon hoping to learn something when I came across and op-ed by Dr. Mohammad T. Al-Rasheed. It’s a very interesting piece and well worth a read:

It Is Time to Wake Up

It is becoming clearer by the day that if we want to lead a happy and tranquil life, reclaim our true identity, bring up our children to be good and educated citizens, invest in our natural resources in a way that is “normal”, build up a country at peace with itself and others, we need help. There is nothing wrong with admitting that. It takes away nothing from our past nor does it cloud our future.

I thought “this guy seems reasonable and obviously thoughtful”. So I poked around and found several more pieces that should be required reading for every American - epecially all voters.

The Politics of Arrogance

Watching George W. Bush deliver his speeches is becoming more alarming as his diction and body language become ever so transparently arrogant. Only people who are oblivious to the other as a living concept are capable of such behavior. The President issues statements that polarize and divide: ‘You are either with us or with them,’ is the most obvious. There are plenty of such declarations that an elected official is not supposed to contemplate let alone utter. This diction is the linguistic realm of the dictator who has to answer to no one

Whoa! Reading on:

Sour Memories

The Americans (or a sizable majority of them) are baffled by the Arab response to their “War of Liberation” in Iraq. They are also flabbergasted at the response of the Iraqi people to the US/UK invasion. The resistance they are facing is not exactly the welcoming flowers strewn in the path of the liberators. Faced with realities that do not conform to the Hollywood scripts they are used to, many Americans have turned emotional, throwing insults around as if the whole matter is nothing more than a private relationship gone wrong.

Not only is he right, we know he’s right. And yet we don’t reflect or ponder where we’ve been or where we’re going.
Well right now I’m rather embarrassed to be an American. Not only embarrassed for what “my country” is doing right now, but for being what the rest of the world expects me to be: an Ugly American.

I suggest you read more: Dr. Mohammad T. Al-Rasheed

Delivered Into Hell by US War on Terror

My interrogation in the United States took days. Shuttling in shackles among immigration officials, FBI agents and police officers, I asked repeatedly for a lawyer but was told that I didn’t have the right to one because I was not an American citizen.

Though I’m not a lawyer, I see nowhere in my Constitution where it claims to apply only to citizens.

Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

This is past frightening. The Justice (!) Department, that upholder of our liberties, is becoming the primary abuser of those liberties. All in the name of “national security”. When will this medium be deemed a threat to “national security” and uncerimoniously terminated?

We’ve already seen that the Constitution no longer applies even to citizens - the Executive can declare anyone an enemy combatant - the rules no longer apply.

All that’s left is for the President to declare martial law to make it official.

Let’s not let that happen.

The other day my friend J tells me “Go to Google and search for “miserable failure”. I did that and the first result is a link to Biography of President George W. Bush at whitehouse.gov.

“That’s cute” I thought. Then it hit me: “Google has sold out - they’re letting politics pollute their system. Google can no longer be trusted”. I immediately removed my Google buttons and resolved to find another search engine. “CRAP! My current project
is based on their API!”

J was, I believe, somewhat surprised by my reaction. She was perfectly fine with Google (apparently) making a political statement through its service.

As a software engineer, this struck me hard. “How could Google do this? It’s wrong on so many levels: they’re contaminating their code base (or database) for personal reasons, they’re pandering, they’ve lost their credibility. Whether I agree with their view or not, it’s wrong.”

Today I find out that it’s not Google doing this but users are simply manipulating the technology: ‘Miserable failure’ links to Bush.

Well I’m relieved. Google is still trustworthy and remains (at least for now) unsullied by the content they grind continuously through. I sent a short message to J with the above link and entitled it “Faith Restored”. And now she’s the one with the problem:

um, NOT . . . now I’m the one with the problem. I was OK with the idea that it originated
with Google as a single, one-time thing. I don’t like the idea that anyone and everyone on
the planet can similarly influence search results . . .
why can’t Google protect against this?

Again we disagree.

As long as Google’s technology is free of bias, let the user community manipulate it to their own ends. Better the users be able to warp the tool (and this means ALL users) than the tool be biased. As long as Google does not prevent this type of abuse, it will continue to happen. If they try to prevent it from happening then they degrade their thechnology (which I’m sure some people are already screaming for) and everyone suffers.

The internet is a free and wild place with lots of dark corners and fun things with which to play - let’s keep it that way. Asking the Google people to detune their technology is not in the best interest of anyone.

If users are duped by such manipulations then they’re either truly naive or the manipulators are really good. Either way it’s up to the users of the tool determine the appropriateness of the result - not the tool itself.

If the powers (and you know who they are) start pressuring Google to disallow this type of manipulation, I believe they should do no more than place the following near the top of their pages:

Caveat Utilitor

Related Stuff:

Google: miserable failure’
Google: weapons of mass destruction this is really well done - I wish I had that much free time

BBC NEWS | Americas | ‘Miserable failure’ links to Bush
BBC News | SCI/TECH | Google hit by link bombers
BBC NEWS | UK | England | West Midlands | WMD spoof is internet hit

All The Flags We’ve Hung

Excerpt:

I think the flag as flown so recently and plentifully may indicate a shortcut, history as the crow flies. A straight shot from George Washington and the American Revolution to George Bush and the War on Terrorism. No arduous detours through the prickly thickets of broken treaties, World War II internment camps, Vietnam, COINTELPRO, institutional racism, Iran/Contra, failing public schools, no actual evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. I worry that we haven’t learned from history as we should have done. I worry that we are acquiring still more of that history we will not learn from, and will therefore repeat.

Taiwan Warned By U.S. (washingtonpost.com)

On the eve of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit, the Bush administration signaled a tougher stance on Taiwan’s moves toward independence yesterday, warning the island not to take any unilateral steps that might provoke the government on the Chinese mainland.

U.S. Bars Iraq Contracts for Nations That Opposed War

The Pentagon has barred French, German and Russian companies from competing for $18.6 billion in contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq, saying the step “is necessary for the protection of the essential security interests of the United States.”

These are not the actions of my country. My country would stand by its allies. My country would understand that friends don’t always agree, that sometimes being a friend is difficult but always worth the effort. My country wouldn’t shit on its allies.

We need friends right now and there aren’t many to be found. With actions like these, the few we have left are going to become more guarded and suspicious. And who could blame them?

Israel Trains U.S. Assassins In Iraq

The U.S. army in Iraq is enlisting Israeli experts to train its forces on assassinating resistance leaders, a move which a former U.S. intelligence official warned would further entrench the perception of America as another “Sharon” in Iraq, a British daily unveiled Tuesday, December 9 .

No, these are not the actions of my country.

The true patriots will not be flying the flag this coming year. No, the true patriots will be spending every waking moment working within the system to vote the traitors out of office. The true patriots will be at the water coolers and the golf course, cajoling and convincing their anesthetized friends and neighbors that it’s time, it’s our turn to step up and protect the legacy for which so many before us have fought.

Bush & Co. are finishing the job of finishing my country. I don’t know what kind of country they’re going to make me live in but I do know I studied its predecessors in school.

And they were always portrayed as evil and wrong.

RE: Newsday.com - Clark’s Testimony To Be Censored

Dear Mr. President:

What are you afraid of here, Mr. Bush? Are you afraid that General Clark may say something embarrassing to the U.S.? Are you afraid he’ll give away military secrets? Or are you just afraid?

If you’re worried about embarrassing the U.S., well it’s a little late for that. You could start reconciling our differences with the world by showing everyone that we’re not affraid to air our laundry.

Or is it the ‘military secret’ thing. If this is what you’re afraid of, then you’re missing a great campaign opportunity, i.e. If general Clark lets a secret or two slip out, then he’s certainly not presidential material is he? (You can use it.)

But since I doubt General Clark would allow any really juicy secrets out (you don’t get to be General by blabbing) and you’ve already embarrassed us enough to let a few more ‘minor incidents’ bother you, I’m left to the conclusion that the reason for hiding his testimony is just plain Nixonian campaign paranoia.

I mean really, Wesley Clark is such a threat that you have to further insult the U.S. and the rest of the world in order to prevent him a day or two of headlines?

Come on, George, play fair.