Monthly Archives: August 2006

This is Beautiful

Posted on August 11, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

slacktivist: How I learned that song.

Posted in Blogs | Comments Off on This is Beautiful

Sticker Shock

Posted on August 11, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

Via Saffo: journal:

The TSA screeners at SFO (San Francisco International Airport) are handing out these stickers to deserving young travelers.

Got to start them young

Personally, I’m reminded of this poster:

1984

(See also DC Metro poster post and Students for an Orwellian society.)

Posted in Civil Liberties | 3 Comments

Broward Cops Laugh About Shooting Rubber Bullets at Innocent Protestors

Posted on August 11, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

I’ve written before about the ugly “Miami Model” of suppressing protesters, free speech and civil rights in general all in the name of making the city safe for the FTAA negotiators. (See Notes From FTAA Fontlines (Nov. 20, 2003); Miami’s FTAA Aftermath: Happy Officials, Allegations of “Police State” Tactics (Dec. 04, 2003); More on Miami FTAA Protests (Dec. 23, 2003).)

Well, it seems it was even uglier than we suspected. The post-FTAA investigation of the police’s tactics didn’t just whitewash police who fired on innocent civilians, but actually praised them. In a training video. While laughing. Cut to yesterday’s Herald, Attorney incensed after viewing FTAA police video:

As a middle-aged Coral Gables attorney, dressed sharply in a red suit jacket, skirt and black slingback heels, Elizabeth Ritter stood out among the throng of protesters on Nov. 20, 2003.

Frustrated that she couldn’t do business because the Miami-Dade County Courthouse was shut down that week during the Free Trade Area of the Americas summit, she hastily made a sign that read ”Fear Totalitarianism” and decided to stand with the protesters.

The sign, however, became her shield against a barrage of rubber bullets fired at her by a legion of Broward Sheriff’s deputies in riot gear. And, in an image captured by a videographer, she is shot in the head as she cowers in the street.

And now another video, recently released, raises questions about the degree to which police, specifically, Broward Sheriff’s deputies, were encouraged, — and even praised — for using force against Ritter and other protesters.

…

The tape, recorded for training purposes, shows Major John Brooks — then a captain — addressing dozens of deputies in an outdoor BSO tent.

”How about yesterday, huh?” Brooks says, complimenting the officers for their work during the protests. “I would go to war with everyone here.”

Brooks continues, “I went home, I couldn’t sleep, I was just so pumped up about how good you guys were . . . Nobody broke ranks. You’re the best I’ve ever been with.”

Sgt. Michael Kallman, a BSO counterterrorism unit officer, addresses the group next. A voice off-camera says, “What about the lady behind the sign? We have intel on her?”

The officers laugh.

Kallman smiles and says, “The good news about being able to watch you guys live on TV is that the lady with the red dress, I don’t know who got her, but it went right through the sign and hit her smack dab in the middle of the head!”

He raises his forefinger and zooms it toward his forehead.

The cops all laugh.

Another officer asks, off-camera, “Did I get a piece of her red dress?”

BSO’S RESPONSE

No disciplinary action has been taken against any officers in the video, said BSO spokesman Elliott Cohen.

Having been rumbled in public, the chief cop caught red-handed…or red-mouthed…is of course suddenly contrite. But that’s a bit late — having put the verbal equivalent of a smoking gun on video, they’re going to be sued.

Continue reading →

Posted in Civil Liberties, Miami | 7 Comments

Quarterman on Fighting Terrorism

Posted on August 10, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

John S. Quarterman has a typically intelligent essay, Perilocity: What can We Do about Terrorism?,

Well, for one thing, [we] can continue to discourage use of methods that have little promise of working, such as blanket scans of all telephone numbers or electronic mail, which just increase the haystack without making finding the needle more likely, or national ID cards such as the British government has been pushing lately.

…

As to what could [we] encourage, how about more Arabic and Farsi-speaking intelligence people, more intelligence and law enforcement agents who understand the cultures that are producing the terrorists and what their grievances are; maybe even agents who can infiltrate them.

And there’s more…

[Bonus update: TSA Insanity by George RR Martin (via Making Light)]

Posted in 9/11 & Aftermath | 1 Comment

US Court Finds We Have an Official Secrets Act

Posted on August 10, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

Secrecy News has the scoop at Recipients of “Leaks” May Be Prosecuted, Court Rules.

Basically — for the first time and I’d argue contrary to the First Amendment and legislative intent — the a US court has held in US v. Rosen (the AIPAC case), that private citizens who have no contractual obligations to keep government secrets, and no security clearances, can nonetheless be prosecuted under the Espionage Act for sharing classified information they receive.

Judge T.S. Ellis, III (ED Va – where else?) argues in his opinion that this ruling is but a narrow one since it requires that the private citizen know the information is classified and that release would be potentially detrimental to national security, intend to share it, and do so knowing that this is illegal.

Seems to me that Nixon would have used this argument to prosecute newspapers for publishing the Pentagon papers; perhaps, given what we know now, they might have won on the merits, but surely the fear of jail (for Espionage) would have acted as a substantial deterrent to that and other important publications.

Indeed, it’s not hard to see this ruling as pushing us well down the slippery slope to a world in which in practice only Official Leaks, those giving the pro-administration side of a story will be published.

Don’t look for the 4th Circuit, the most statist in the nation, to overturn this. But I’ll bet even Scalia will vote to overturn it, as will the Supreme Court with at least six judges in the majority.

Posted in Law: Free Speech | 2 Comments

Why a Voter Lottery Could Save US Democracy

Posted on August 10, 2006 by Michael Froomkin

There’s been much gnashing of teeth about the proposal to give every voter in Arizona a lottery ticket in a $1 million lottery. (See Arizona Ballot Could Become Lottery Ticket for details of the proposal.)

Some opponents of the idea have expressed their shock and horror at the idea the purity of the voting booth would be sullied with money. After all, paying people to vote is currently a crime.

Others are appalled that low-quality voters will be drawn into voting by the draw of lucre when they don’t care enough to vote otherwise, and — say the critics — are thus going to be uniformed or random voters motivated only by the chance of a free chance at the post-election drawing. For example,

Editorial writers, bloggers and others have panned the idea as bribery and say it may draw people simply trying to cash in without studying candidates or issues.

“Bribing people to vote is a superficial approach that will have no beneficial outcome to the process, except to make some people feel good that the turnout numbers are higher,” said an editorial in The Yuma Sun. “But higher numbers do not necessarily mean a better outcome.”

I disagree with that idea on principle — I think more voters is a better outcome even if they’re not what critics think are the right sort of people. Indeed, I’ve always been a bit of a fan of the Australian system of compulsory voting. But that’s a lengthy debate for another day.

Today I want to make a simpler suggestion: that there would be significant side-benefits if tomorrow’s voting machines were also lottery machines. One of the very strange things about today’s voting machine technology is that while the some of same people who make voting machines also make slot machines, we subject slot machines to much stiffer auditing than voting machines.

It’s hard to believe that our society could so casually determine that casino money merits greater protection against fraud than elections — especially after we have seen so clearly the great cost of a stolen election. Indeed, this apparent social insanity regarding relative risks gives rise to the conspiracy theory version of electoral history: the machines are insecure because it serves someone’s interests that they be easy to hack.

But take it instead as a public choice failure: casinos have a direct private interest in protecting their pocketbooks; the people who buy voting machines have limited budgets and many competing pressures; lousy machines may sometimes help their bottom line if they come with campaign contributions, cost few tax dollars, or whatever.

So suppose instead of the current scenario, our voting machines were transformed into something closer to the slots — lottery ticket machines. And suppose we designed them in a way that there might be more than one winner. All of a sudden, there’s a need for serious auditing capabilities….

Just a thought.

Posted in Law: Elections | 4 Comments