Psychopolitik 2.0

Another no-knock.  Another innocent man given the Tony Montana treatment.  This time he didn’t even have a gun that WORKED, it was just for looks to scare off intruders.  The cops mistook jewelry making supplies for drug paraphernalia, and saw fit to knock down the door & damn near murder this guy, and then had the NERVE to charge him with assault when he didn’t fire a single shot, meanwhile the cops left an irretrievable bullet near his heart.  Radley has the whole story, try not to throw your monitor in a fit of rage while reading it.

Radical times forge radical people.  This goes on long enough, there won’t be enough handcuffs for them to lock up everyone that ends up Cory Maye instead of Kathryn Johnson.  This is clearly thanks to the War on Drugs, and would cease with its peaceful end.  Sadly, it looks like that conclusion will not be realized until after more bodies needlessly pile up.  If this is what it takes, then so much for civil society, interesting times for all…

For some reason, inbetween basketball games today, at one point I watched 60 minutes. Maybe I got whiff of second hand crack smoke or something, who knows. Anyway, they were interviewing Scalia about various topics — “originalism” (for the most part a crock of shit, since no two originalists seem to agree on much), the Bush v Gore decision (the ironic NYT analysis showing that if the votes were counted the way either of them wanted the other one would win should’ve deaded this as an issue. Kinda late to care now anyway), etcetera. The subject of torture came up, and he nonchalantly let fly not just a whopper, but a triple whopper with cheese. Bear witness to the Stupid, in its full glory:

“I don’t like torture,” Scalia says. “Although defining it is going to be a nice trick. But who’s in favor of it? Nobody. And we have a law against torture. But if the - everything that is hateful and odious is not covered by some provision of the Constitution,” he says.

“If someone’s in custody, as in Abu Ghraib, and they are brutalized by a law enforcement person, if you listen to the expression ‘cruel and unusual punishment,’ doesn’t that apply?” Stahl asks.

“No, No,” Scalia replies.

“Cruel and unusual punishment?” Stahl asks.

“To the contrary,” Scalia says. “Has anybody ever referred to torture as punishment? I don’t think so.”

“Well, I think if you are in custody, and you have a policeman who’s taken you into custody…,” Stahl says.

“And you say he’s punishing you?” Scalia asks.

“Sure,” Stahl replies.

“What’s he punishing you for? You punish somebody…,” Scalia says.

“Well because he assumes you, one, either committed a crime…or that you know something that he wants to know,” Stahl says.

“It’s the latter. And when he’s hurting you in order to get information from you…you don’t say he’s punishing you. What’s he punishing you for? He’s trying to extract…,” Scalia says.

“Because he thinks you are a terrorist and he’s going to beat the you-know-what out of you…,” Stahl replies.

“Anyway, that’s my view,” Scalia says. “And it happens to be correct.” (emphasis mine)

The unspoken acknowledgment here is that punishment is something you do to people who have been proven guilty. Sure, if there was some crime where the penalty was to have fire ants placed on your genitals, then you could have a case based on whether its cruel and unusual punishment. The way torture is actually talked about though is in applying it to extract information from a suspect, who by definition has not been proven guilty*. If anything, it is WORSE than cruel and unusual punishment; as an attempt to get self-incrimination by force, torture is pre-emptive punishment.

Seeing the paradox here in deliberately hurting people who haven’t been found guilty of anything, and thus rejecting it, is what separates us from authoritarian regimes. Why do I realize this and not Scalia?

(* - As someone who staunchly opposes the entire process by which we reached this point in history, I’d be the wrong person to bark at with “what would you do?” comments, or spewings of “KSM was tortured, didn’t that help?” For one, my 1st answer would be “I’d not occupy and manipulate the middle east for 60 years and expect the people there to smile and take it”, and my second would be “By that logic you should be promoting that tactic for domestic enforcement, give me a reason you don’t other than a] thinking you can’t get away with it yet or b] “but OMG scary mooslims!”". If you sincerely want a view on the LEGAL question, context free, then fine, here goes: technically, once they ADMIT that they are not recognized combatants, then you can yank their fingernails and then shoot them in the head, and based on my admittedly slight understanding of Geneva you wouldn’t be that far off the line. But this is not a context-free world, we are not knights in shining armor, they are not inhuman Terminators with turbans, and philosophically the Geneva Convention, the UN, the army field manual & the ICC are about as relevant to me as who led the MLB in home runs in 1979. The only questions that matter involve whether there’s anything left worth defending if it takes committing atrocities to do so, and how far things have to go before principled, open anti-imperialism goes mainstream.)

Just today, nine of them declared evidence discovered during searches that state law says are illegal is admissible in court.  What’s that?  There’s only nine justices?  Ouch…:

The Supreme Court affirmed Wednesday that police have the power to conduct searches and seize evidence, even when done during an arrest that turns out to have violated state law.  The unanimous decision comes in a case from Portsmouth, Va., where city detectives seized crack cocaine from a motorist after arresting him for a traffic ticket offense.

David Lee Moore was pulled over for driving on a suspended license. The violation is a minor crime in Virginia and calls for police to issue a court summons and let the driver go.  Instead, city detectives arrested Moore and prosecutors say that drugs taken from him in a subsequent search can be used against him as evidence.

Cue Scalia promoting the Eric Cartman view of law enforcement in 3…2…1.

“We reaffirm against a novel challenge what we have signaled for half a century,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote.

Scalia said that when officers have probable cause to believe a person has committed a crime in their presence, the Fourth Amendment permits them to make an arrest and to search the suspect in order to safeguard evidence and ensure their own safety.

Virginia law said that for what they pulled this person over for, they were supposed to issue a summons, nothing more.  A failure on the part of the state of Virginia to assume that anyone driving on a suspended license is a suspect of other crimes, to Scalia, smacks of endorsement of the streets running red from random murder & children smoking crack in the open.  Isn’t that what he reads into everything?

Look who the latest person is to realize capital punishment is pointless:

The nation’s longest-serving Supreme Court justice, John Paul Stevens, on Wednesday declared his formal opposition to capital punishment.

Stevens, 87, was part of the court majority that reinstated the death penalty in America in 1976. But in a concurring opinion to Wednesday’s ruling that Kentucky’s use of lethal injection is constitutional, Stevens wrote that the death penalty no longer served a legitimate social function. He is the first justice to openly oppose capital punishment since Harry Blackmun in 1994.

His words came as some comfort to death penalty opponents on a day when they suffered a setback at the hands of the justices. Within hours of the 7-2 ruling, Virginia and Florida announced their intention to lift a moratorium on executions, and several other states were expected to follow suit. In California, executions could begin again by the end of the year.

But Elisabeth Semel, a law professor and director of the Death Penalty Clinic at UC Berkeley who helped bring the challenge to Kentucky’s lethal-injection procedures, said the court’s opinion made it clear that states can be forced to institute alternative lethal-injection procedures if they can be proven to alleviate a substantial risk of severe pain to the inmate.

That may have been one reason that Stevens, in a sense, threw up his hands and said “enough” even as he concurred with the majority in the Kentucky case. Stevens wrote that when the court agreed to hear the Kentucky challenge, he “assumed that our decision would bring the debate about lethal injection as a method of execution to a close. It now seems clear that it will not.”

Then he went further, saying the death penalty was no longer meeting any of the societal aims the court laid out when it reinstated the sanction in 1976 after a four-year pause. “State-sanctioned killing,” he said, is becoming “more and more anachronistic.”

I personally thought the “does it cause pain?” question was a deflection — well damn, you’re killing them anyway! Safe to say you no longer care about that persons wellbeing!  — but at least he comes around. There’s no self-defense argument in executions, as the person has already been caught & removed from the population; it just amounts to a lame attempt at a violent salve to the collective psyche.

So, you’re probably thinking right now “ok…where’s the bad part?”. Well, consider Stevens’ position and the power he holds, especially the fact that matters of life, death and liberty itself come down to him & 8 other people and what political “tribe” they happen to align with, and ask yourself the following: how often do these kinds of decisions lean pro-liberty & pro-reason rather than against?

In the context of the true operation of the Supreme Court, Stevens figuring this out is lightning striking the same spot twice. Depending on the judgment of a few in the long run never works.

Not surprised: Someone is being sued under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act for helping people print excess coupons from online discount sites.

Surprised: “…people still use paper coupons?”

Blahblahtypical”ooh, scary guns!“storyblah:

The cake had been served and the children were jumping up and down in a big, inflatable castle when the birthday party turned to bedlam.

Clarence McGraw’s jaw dropped as he saw the visitors coming, guns drawn. The screaming began.

Children ran everywhere in the courtyard of the low-income apartment complex; adults fell to the ground. Bullets flew. The killers wounded three youngsters, but for reasons police can’t explain, it was 19-year-old McGraw they were after.

As McGraw lay in the center of the green square, the gunmen stood over him and fired again. He was shot 15 to 20 times in all.

The Sept. 15 killing was remarkable in that it took place in the most innocent of settings — the fifth birthday of twin boys. But it was unremarkable in that one of the guns brandished was an AK-47-type rifle — a powerful, rapid-fire weapon that has long been used in Third World conflicts but is increasingly being used in American street fights.

Figures from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, obtained by The Associated Press through public records requests, show a marked increase in the number of AK-type weapons traced and entered into the agency’s computer database because they had been seized or connected to a crime.

[anti-2nd-Amendment alarmist]”See!  You let Brady expire and now these thugs are running the streets with assault weapons!!  We must have more gun control, NOW!  Think about the children!”[/anti-2nd-Amendment alarmist]

^^^^whoever this is might want to read the next line…

The number of such tracings rose even while the federal assault weapons ban was in effect and has continued to climb since its expiration.

Since 1993, the year before the ban took affect, ATF has recorded a more than sevenfold increase in 7.62×39mm guns — which includes the original Russian-made AK-47 and a variety of copycats from around the world. The number of AK-type guns rose from 1,140 in 1993 to 8,547 last year. (emphasis mine)

Uh, yeah, kinda hard to argue that banning them worked when more showed up regardless of the law.
The article goes on to mention a couple of other cases, one being a cop killed at a traffic stop by someone with an AK, and quote a couple of cops saying they’re in an “arms race”.  Please.  These are the kind of rare cases that are always thrown into the spotlight to justify further blurring what little line is left between the police and military forces.  Common sense says this isn’t the status quo because AKs are kinda hard to conceal, and when you’re doing something highly illegal, you don’t want to draw attention to yourself, y’know?  Violent Criminal is already a difficult enough profession without wondering how the hell you’re going to walk with an AK-47 down your pants.

Sure enough, some out there will realize the logic of my previous statement and think that means handguns are “the real problem”.  No, because as already demonstrated, the type of people who you want to keep weapons away from inherently don’t give a fuck about what is legal and what isn’t.  The true issue is that we have a rather uniquely violent culture here, in which we will kill each other over some of the smallest, dumbest things possible — how long ago was it kids were being murdered for their shoes? — yet we insist on quibbling over the means instead of the why.

While looking at various news stuff online, found the following bit concerning the remote possibility of charges for Spitzer:

Among the possible charges that could be brought against Spitzer: soliciting and paying for sex; violating the Mann Act, the 1910 federal law that makes it a crime to induce someone to cross state lines for immoral purposes; and illegally arranging cash transactions to conceal their purpose. (emphasis mine)

The Mann Act?  That sounds familiar, where have I heard that before?

Oh…Goddamn, that law still exists?  Why?  The original point of it was bigoted hysteria that white women were being turned into sex slaves in droves, and it is & always has been ridiculously broad in scope, even if you accept the stated aim of it.  There is already a law against transporting people against their will for any reason — the charge is called “kidnapping” — so on top of being built on an outdated and downright ridiculous foundation it’s redundant.

Seriously, we’re still referring to “immoral purposes” as reason to lock people up?  WTF is this, Iran?

I think it’s safe to say that Monday is already written off when this is the first thing I see:

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee hinted Sunday that a battle over an expired eavesdropping law might be moving toward a conclusion that gave phone companies the retroactive legal protections long sought by President Bush.

The chairman, Representative Silvestre Reyes, Democrat of Texas, said in an interview on CNN that the committee had been talking to the companies “because if we’re going to give them blanket immunity, we want to know and understand what it is we’re giving immunity for.”

Mr. Reyes did not specify what provisions a House bill might contain. But his use of the words “blanket immunity” suggested that he might be moving toward a Senate bill, backed by Mr. Bush, that would protect phone companies that assisted in a federal program of wiretapping without warrants after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. “I have an open mind about that,” Mr. Reyes said. (emphasis mine)

“Well, I’d like to know whether or not lube will be involved, if we’re going to receive involuntary buttsex. I have an open mind about lube, you can give us involuntary buttsex with it or without it, I’d just like to know that detail. While we’re at it, will it be going in our mouths before or after?”

Somebody tell me this fucker has a primary challenge coming up, please…

Edit: concerning the immunity itself, Kevin Drum & a Washington Monthly commenter “Bmaz” have some background even I wasn’t thinking about: Odds are rather good that the telecoms themselves really don’t care, because we could end up paying any damages anyway.  According to this, the real protection is for the Administration, as the telecoms already got theirs.

Yesterday we were greeted with the news that, thanks to the all-encompassing Daddy-Statism this country has fallen for, 1 out of every 100 US adults is in prison. We actually lock up a higher percentage of our population than China, and they’re an authoritarian regime! Us beating them at locking up people is like if Lebron James lost a dunk contest to Will Ferrell.

Despite the obvious implications behind this, what do I get greeted with on the front page of the Washington Post’s website (screen-capture below, click the thumbnail)?

I figured that had to be a sarcastic remark, intentionally provocative so that people click on it. They’ve had writers do that before, gotta admit it works. Sadly…no:

More Americans than ever are in prison. We incarcerate a higher percentage of the population than any other country. It’s too bad we have such a high rate of criminality–but given that we do, I’m glad we have been putting more people behind bars over the last generation.

It isn’t an ideal solution. It may be that we need to find other ways to deal with nonviolent offenders. We should surely address the appalling problem of prison rape. Hiring more police officers and putting them on the street might help, too.

But increased rates of imprisonment have helped to bring about falling rates of crime. Given the alternative of the way we treated crime in the 1960s and 1970s, when I see a headline about a record incarceration rate, I’m glad. Aren’t you? (emphasis mine)

That’s none other than Ramesh Ponnuru, kicking off a thread in WaPos message board section by praising this development. Closest he comes to criticism is faux concern for “criminality” among his fellow Americans, and a toss at prison rape (as if that’s the only problem with this).

Common sense would tell someone that if you make rules that are so contradictory and/or nit-picky of personal habits that directly harm no one that much of the population is a suspect, then the problem is the rules, not the people. Ramesh is wrong on this issue in more ways than one can even count…

Here comes Mr. Broken Record…:

President Bush today urged Congress to pass legislation that would give telecom companies immunity from class-action lawsuits for cooperating with U.S. intelligence services in monitoring terrorist communications.

“Allowing these lawsuits to proceed would be unfair,” Bush said at a White House news conference. “If any of these companies helped us, they did so after being told by our country their assistance was legal.”

Wrong. “The country” told these people jack shit, the administration basically lied to them, using the formulation “when the government does it, it’s not illegal”. What they were doing was not as cut and dried as “monitoring terrorist communications” either, otherwise they could’ve easily gotten warrants like they were supposed to. Also, notice the convenient omission of the word suspected from that phrase?

Noting that the litigation process could lead to disclosure of surveillance techniques and make other countries less likely to cooperate with U.S. intelligence services, Bush said, “You cannot expect phone companies to participate if they feel like they’re going to be sued. It’s patently unfair.” Without impugning the motives of those seeking to sue, Bush said he suspected “they see a gravy train” and urged House leaders to act so calls to the United States from overseas can be monitored. (emphasis mine)

Curious turn of phrase by the writer of this article, wouldn’t you say? Put the word “impugn” into a dictionary search and you get the following: To attack as false or questionable; challenge in argument. Johanna Neuman, the LA Times staff writer involved, says that Bush isn’t attacking as false or questionable the motives behind the lawsuits, and then quotes Bush himself saying “they see a gravy train”. Me and Bush do come from drastically different cultures and generations, so there’s a chance of things being lost in translation, but last I recall “gravy train” was slang for easy money. In effect, he is claiming that the only reason anyone would have to sue is to get rich, with no regard whatsoever for the law. How is that not calling their motives questionable?

BTW: international calls involving the US already can be monitored, and have been able to be monitored for a long time. The sole catch is that you have to have a legitimate reason to do so, which is what the purpose of a warrant is. The court that dealt with such warrants had no problem whatsoever issuing them until the reign of Bush the 2nd. Josh Marshall observed that the amount of requests that had to be modified (meaning in their original form the warrants were rejected) before moving forward shot up drastically around 2003; in the year prior, the Justice Department apparently pissed off the FISA judges so badly that they made one of their rulings against them public — remember, this is supposed to be a “secret” court. To me, this suggests that the Bush Administration started to openly go overboard with the warrant requests, and initiated this whole blatantly criminal mess as a hissy fit against being told to take a hike.

“There are enough votes in the House to pass this bill,” Bush said. “House leaders need to put the bill on the floor and give professionals the tools they need.” Noting that phone companies are less likely to cooperate without protections, Bush said, “They’re facing billions of dollars of lawsuits. They have a responsibility to their shareholders.” (emphasis mine)

It’s already been established that they don’t need warrantless wiretaps to do their jobs, so this is a lie, plain and simple. As for the phone companies, that any of them cooperated shows what they expected from this administration. They knew there’d be an attempt to shield them, they just didn’t anticipate it not being rubber-stamped.

Eh, serves ‘em right for being so gullible, far as I’m concerned.