February 28, 2003
Of Bongs and Silencers and Fish and Bicycles
The percipient reader will note that posting has picked up here in the last few days. Perversely, that's because I've just opened a new law office, and so I'm at the keyboard more than I have been and in the mind for the brief diversion blog posting can provide.
One fun thing about this is that my law partner has negotiated a pretty good deal with Westlaw, so I have (for the first time since law school) flat rate access to a bunch of Westlaw databases. I was reminded of this happy fact when I saw this widely reported quote from the recent story about the new government crusade against sellers of anything that can be used to smoke pot:
"People selling drug paraphernalia are in essence no different than drug dealers," said John Brown, acting DEA chief. "They are as much a part of drug trafficking as silencers are a part of criminal homicide."
Interesting. Analogies are a big part of any lawyer's stock in trade. So: Just how much a part of criminal homicide do silencers play a part of? The answer appears to be effectively NONE.
I don't practice in the criminal law, but I'm a fairly decent researcher. I logged into Westlaw and spent approximately twenty minutes conducting searches (in databases encompassing all state and federal cases and all recent news stories from major news outlets) such as:
silencer /s convicted /s (murder or homicide)
silencer /s (murder or homicide)
and similar. Skimming through all the results (from the last couple of years in news stories, for the last ten or so years in the case law) I found a lot of discussion of silencer possession cases, and a few reported cases where silencer use in commission of non-fatal shootings was alleged or proven. But I didn't turn up a single case where a defendant was convicted of using a silencer during the course of any sort of fatal shooting.
Now, my search methods were admittedly cursory, but the result suggests that silencers are not a big part of criminal homicide. Which proves, if we are to hoist Acting DEA Chief John Brown by the logic of his own petard, what every sensible person already knew: That bongs and pipes don't, in fact, have anything to do with drug trafficking.
Can anyone out there with more knowledge or better Westlaw skills find me so much as a single case in the last decade where someone was convicted of killing someone with a silencer-equipped firearm?
The Government Gang
My dad's new blog is starting to pick up steam, so go check it out!
He claims not to be the anarchist I am, but then again, his blog subtitle is "strategies for restless slaves" -- and, of course, the singular reason I'm an anarchist is my reluctance to accept the slavery inherent in being subject to a government that claims the right to deprive me, at gunpoint, of any part of my liberty or my goods.
In his latest post, he likens the Republicans and the Democrats to a pair of rival street gangs. I can get behind that idea, considering that in my view, government is a sort of extortion racket demanding money for "protection" against itself. And most big extortion rackets eventually come to internal strive as rival factions become unhappy with the distribution of the loot.
Or, in the words of good old Lysander Spooner:
...[T]hrough all historic times, wherever any people have advanced beyond the savage state, and have learned to increase their means of sub-sistence by the cultivation of soil, a greater or less number of them have associated and organized themselves as robbers, to plunder and enslave all others, who had either accumulated any property that could be seized, or had shown, by their labor, that they could be made to contribute to the support or pleasure of those who should enslave them.
February 27, 2003
Secret means Unreviewable
Secret warrants, the apologists for our burgeoning police state tend to argue, are nothing to fear, because surely our police won't misuse them, and surely the courts will reign them in if they do.
Alas not so. The warrants, it turns out, are both secret and unreviewable. The police don't even have to attempt to justify them, according to the Washington Post and the federal courts:
The FBI does not have to explain why it applied for search warrants to bug homes and tap phones of defendants in a terrorism case, a federal judge ruled Wednesday in an early test of the government's new and expanded spying powers.
The five defendants were charged in October with conspiring to support al-Qaida and the Taliban.
U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones denied a defense request asking the government to reveal its justification for the secret warrants, issued under the USA Patriot Act, the anti-terror legislation passed by Congress after Sept. 11.
The warrants allowed agents to bug the home of at least one defendant and tap the phone of another.
The ultra-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, or "spy court," in Washington issued the warrants last year.
The agents used 36 secret warrants in the case to intercept more than 271 conversations.
February 26, 2003
And Speaking of Government Employees
I don't know whether this funny story about 200 cheap monkeys was intended as a parable, but it could so serve.It's Brother Ivan's Turn to Throw The Bomb
You, too, will soon be a terrorist.
There has been much breathless hand-wringing on the net of late about "Patriot II", the legislation drafted in secret by the Bush administration which was leaked to the public a few weeks ago.
Normally I don't get my knickers in a twist about laws that haven't even been introduced in Congress, much less passed or signed by the President. But there's something a little bit unsettling about this one, especially since the last Patriot Act was passed in a time of "crisis" with no critical debate.
And now there's a fairly level-headed and dispassionate analysis of Patriot II available. There are all kinds of things in here to outrage a formerly free people, but the most startling provision is the new definition of "domestic terrorism."
And who will be a domestic terrorist? Anyone, it turns out, who commits "any action that endangers human life that is a violation of any Federal or State law."
Have you gone thirty miles an hour in a 25mph school zone lately? You terrorist. What? You didn't get a ticket? No matter. We have you on videotape, citizen; and mere suspicion is enough for us to require you to submit a DNA sample to our database. And mere suspicion of domestic terrorism lets you be stripped of your citizenship and deported.
Have you ever ignored the "Do not dispense gasoline into unapproved containers" sticker at your gas station? You're a terrorist now, buddy.
Have you ever "used this product in a manner inconsistent with its labeling?" Terrorist!
Thrown a handfull of dead flashlight batteries, or an empty spray can, into a trash bin? Terrorist!
Rewired your garage without getting a building permit and required safety inspection? Terrorist!
You get the idea. We will all be terrorists now.
Which leads to an interesting thought. If you can be stripped of your rights, surveiled without due process, arrested in secret, held without trial, imprisioned, "de-naturalized", and deported -- based on suspicion of violating virtually any state or federal law -- what's to deter you from concluding "As well hung for a sheep as for a lamb?"
What are you going to do once you are already a terrorist? A terrorist, no less, in a formerly-free nation with a proud tradition of revolution against tyranny? And a recent tradition of of crushing bastards who think secret arrests are a legitimate tool of governance?
February 25, 2003
I have this problem a lot with government employees
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
February 24, 2003
You're Not Imagining Things, Jon
-- Jon Stewart, just now on "The Daily Show"
February 22, 2003
Cars for Cops
Apparently cruising in your car is now a crime in LA. This news report says:
Los Angeles officials announced Thursday that the LAPD will begin enforcing a new ordinance that allows them to seize the cars of people trolling for prostitutes. City Attorney Rock Delgadillo says that even if a person is not charged or convicted of soliciting a prostitute, the police can still take the car and sell it.
Without an act of solicitation, what exactly is the criminal act being punished here? Driving with intent to find sex? And just how is that criminal mens rea going to be ascertained? Is there going to be a roadside tumescence test, or what?
"I'm sorry sir, but you have been seen driving around this block looking at women and transvestites. Please step out of the car and remove your clothing so we can attach this device to your genitals....."
Cops on the Porch
As anybody who has watched Cops knows, the police these days feel free to lie, intimidate suspects into bogus "consent" to entries and searches, and generally disregard civil rights when suspects and standers-by fail to assert them vigorously.
Accordingly, this story of of man with cops on his porch (and how he made them stay there despite their repeated attempts to barge into his house) is offered up as a good example of how to deal with intrusive cops.
Thanks to Unruled for the link.
February 20, 2003
If deadly radiation knocks on your door....
...do not answer.
Image repurposed by this hilarious parody of the Homeland Security preparedness web page.
February 19, 2003
Your Kids? We Decided to Keep 'Em
Public educators in Washington DC have decided that in the event of a terrorist attack, parents will not be allowed to collect their children. According to the Washington Post, "most school districts told parents that they would be prevented, or strongly discouraged, from picking up their children in the event of a biological or chemical attack."
What kind of astounding arrogance does it take for a bunch of public employees to decide they are better equipped than you are to protect your kids? And what have they been smoking, if they imagine they have the right to make this decision for you?
Thanks to The Mouth for the link, and for observing "if anyone tried to come between me and my kids they had better be prepared to kiss their ass good-bye." That about covers it.
February 12, 2003
Freebooters Ahoy!
Duncan Frissell explains today How to Invade Iraq Without Violating the Non-Aggression Principle (In case you felt the need to).
February 07, 2003
Get with the program
Wow. You mean, like actual smart people are still subjecting themselves to the passenger annoyance program that used to be a mass transportation system?
How long can that last?
February 05, 2003
Blinding Grasp of the Obvious
Orin Kerr of The Volokh Conspiracy links to this editorial about how librarians are responding to recent federal laws requiring them to become complicit in surveillance of their patrons. (The editorial fails to mention that librarians can be jailed for discussing federal surveillance activities in their libraries.) The librarians have responded to this by drastically reducing the amount of information that is collected and retained.
Orin Kerr comments on these librarians (emphasis added):
And I don't question the legality of what they're doing. But I do find the attitude it reflects pretty disturbing, especially given that (as I understand it) at least one of the Sept. 11 hijackers used a public library computer to make his flight reservations for 9/11/01. The thinking seems to be that national security investigations to stop terrorism are a greater threat to America than terrorism itself, such that it's better to have the FBI come up with nothing than to allow the FBI to collect evidence successfully.
Yes, Orin, that is exactly the thinking. Secret police activity (and if you can go to jail for talking about it, it's too secret) is a greater threat to America than terrorism. Because if we tolerate the formation of a secret police state, there's nothing left worth saving from the terrorists.
February 04, 2003
All the Way To The Top, Please
Duncan Frissell writes of the space elevator idea:
Great idea! until you get to the punchline of the joke. "The bad news is that you get to write the Environmental Impact Statement."
Punchline my ass. I would take that assignment in a heartbeat. Put together a team of top-flight people and punch that thing from scoping to FEIS (Final Environmental Impact Statement) in eighteen to twenty-four months.
Litigation would presumably take longer.
Big job, yes. But I can't imagine an EIS project that would be more fun to do, except possibly writing one for Orion launches.
Fatal Environmental Hysteria
This story reprints a NASA press release from 1999 which states:
The experiment was part of an effort to determine why small particles of spray-on foam insulation flaked off of the inter-tank section of the external fuel tank on Space Shuttle mission STS-87 as the Shuttle ascended. The new lightweight insulation material was developed to comply with an EPA mandate to reduce ozone-depleting chemicals released into the atmosphere. Although such flaking or erosion of the insulation off the external tank posed no safety hazard to the Shuttle or its crew, engineers wanted to determine its cause to prevent future maintenance and operational problems.
If one follows the train of unproven inferences, one can see where this is going. Did NASA change the formula for its tank insulation (to fatal effect) in order to protect the ozone layer?
Don't hold your breath waiting for an answer to that question.
February 03, 2003
What he said:
Government's power to steal what it wants at gunpoint must be abolished. We must strive to make that the "slavery" issue of the 21st century.
-- L. Neil Smith
February 01, 2003
Remember Them Thus:
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of--wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never Lark, or even Eagle flew -
And while with silent lifting mind, I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
Mourning the Astronauts
Woke up this morning and got the terrible news that shuttle Columbia burned on reentry. The funereal meteor trails are running non-stop on the TV.
I've been a space nut for far longer than I've been political. I may not consider astronauts heros exactly, but I envy them their jobs and am honored to be a member of the same human race as them. And my grief for this batch, like my grief for Challenger astronauts, is colored by the warm conviction that none of them would have preferred to die doing anything else.
But I'm angry beyond words that these fine people had to be government employees to pursue their grand profession. And got rewarded for it by being sent into space in a twenty-two-year-old spacecraft, the technological equivalent of a 1981 Dodge Diplomat. Which, when the final analysis is done, will almost surely prove to be what got them.
Requiescant in pace.