Monthly Archives: December 2005

Join Me at the MIT Real ID Conference

Posted on December 5, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

Join me today, in person or virtually, at the MIT Public Forums on the REAL ID Act of 2005.

Posted in ID Cards and Identification, Talks & Conferences | 1 Comment

More Illegality & Cover-up at the FBI

Posted on December 3, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

Not only did the FBI bungle a terrorism investigation and drive the whistle-blower out of the agency, but the FBI is unable to determine who among its staff falsified a report with correction fluid. Is this incompetence, or willful ignorance, and does either answer mean anything less than a thorough house-cleaning is in order? (I mean, wouldn’t SOP be to polygraph the lot of them?)

Report Finds Cover-Up in an F.B.I. Terror Case – New York Times: Officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation mishandled a Florida terror investigation, falsified documents in the case in an effort to cover repeated missteps and retaliated against an agent who first complained about the problems, Justice Department investigators have concluded.

In one instance, someone altered dates on three F.B.I. forms using correction fluid to conceal an apparent violation of federal wiretap law, according to a draft report of an investigation by the Justice Department inspector general’s office obtained by The New York Times. But investigators were unable to determine who altered the documents.

Posted in Law: Criminal Law, National Security | 5 Comments

A Real-Life Perry Mason Moment

Posted on December 2, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

I don’t know how many people are initially attracted to a career in the law because of the mystique of the courtroom moment of truth, the largely fictional stock-in-trade of courtroom dramas and TV shows such as Perry Mason. I wasn’t one of them myself (from the beginning I was 2/3 policy wonk at heart with a minor in deep theories of everything), but one meets lots of them in law schools (although far more among the students, who presumably go into trial law, than among the professoriate), and it’s easy to understand the attraction.

Real life, of course, never serves up such moments. Never? Well, hardly ever…and when it does they can be quite beautiful: Snagging a Rogue Snitch – Los Angeles Times.

Posted in Law: Criminal Law | 2 Comments

Floored

Posted on December 2, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

We may have somewhat unhappy looking carpet in parts of our law library, but here's a problem we don't have:

Leiter Reports: Time to clean the floors…: A colleague, perhaps prone to hyperbole, writes: “In view of the condition of the floor in the faculty lounge, I suggest that we only go into the kitchen area in pairs. A solitary visitor may become stuck, perhaps in a position making it impossible to reach the phone or the door to call for help. Those of you who have seen the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles can appreciate the problems that conditions like this pose even for creatures as powerful as early reptiles.”

Besides…this week they're replacing the underperforming carpet on my floor with nice new clean and modular carpet. Now when someone spills industrial strength coffee on the rugs, and the inffectual cleaners spread it around, they can just take up a section a yard square or so and replace it.

Posted in U.Miami | Comments Off on Floored

Wikipedia is the Proto Galactic Encyclopedia

Posted on December 2, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

The Wikipedia is amazing. In addition to being one of the best sources of news about major current events, it has code snippets, like this one to fight Referer spam.

Posted in Internet | 3 Comments

Mystery Solved: It’s Just More Bush Sleaze

Posted on December 2, 2005 by Michael Froomkin

The other day my eyebrows shot up when I read that the US government had awarded a $750,000 contract to Creighton University School of Law in Nebraska, to study issues relating to seized property in Cuba. It seemed like the sort of thing that UM might have had an interest in and would be uniquely qualified for (and if not UM, then maybe FIU) — and it was the first I’d heard of it (although, since it has nothing to do with the work I do, that in itself isn’t so odd).

It may be that Creighton in fact has an expertise in expropriation, restoration, and Caribbean or Latin American property rules. Then again, it may be that there’s another explanation…According to the Washington Post, there’s A Grateful Student behind the contract award:

Tired of those whining letters from your alma mater, the ones telling you that only your $200 check will keep the endowment from falling below $20 billion?

Well, maybe Adolfo Franco, assistant administrator of the Agency for International Development for Latin America, might get a reprieve for a couple of years from Creighton University School of Law in Nebraska, his alma mater.

An AID panel of career folks has decided to give the law school, which has no expertise in Cuba policy, a $750,000 grant over two years to study what is to be done about the properties Cuban dictator Fidel Castro seized from Americans some 45 years ago. We’re told this was a highly competitive process.

Franco even went out to Omaha last week to hand over the award, reestablishing the long-standing Havana-Omaha linkage.

Posted in Politics: The Party of Sleaze | 1 Comment