Emancipate Guantanamo

The government owns us and we own it. So long as we own it, we are not slaves.

But how about people our government owns who do not own it? Are they slaves?

There are many kinds of ownership. Someone can own the mineral rights to your land, or the air rights overhead. Rental gives a person temporary ownership, the right of usage.

It seems like we have temporary ownership of the people held in Guantanamo. But since Bush rejects any attempt to put a time limit on our war, it looks like we may own them forever.

Isn't that slavery?


Others think so.

A commenter on the above writes:

"The thing about Guantanamo which I always found disturbing was the necessity for those incarcerated there, and for that matter those held at Diego Garcia, to kept completely incommunicado. I can see the purpose initially after they were captured perhaps, but in perpetuity?

What is the knowledge they have that requires them to be held in this fashion? I know, I know ... the War on Terror. But what purpose does it serve to so jealously guard these inmates? After all this time, what knowledge could they still have that is actionable? What knowledge do they have that makes them so dangerous? And, for that matter, dangerous to whom?"


Are they not slaves?

Aloof Gonzales Stiffs Congress

But he's just the nicest man.

In a confusing performance before the Senate last week, Attorney General Alfredo Gonzales told his inquisitors "I don't remember" a total of 71 times. 71 times.

For this he gained the praise of the White House.

To the world, he looked like either a liar or a fool. The most revealing analysis suggests that to his boss, Gonzales' success lies in that he showed Congress a padded stone wall. This is an appropriate posture for a member of a Unitary Executive for which Congress is merely an advisor and the Courts a prover of concept. An iron fist in a velvet glove, as it were. In this sense, Gonzales succeeded in fulfilling Bush's concept of his Presidency.

Of course, a concept of the Executive branch that requires its Secretaries to lie or to look stupid before Congress may have a kink or two still to be worked out.

Congress has since asked Gonzales to respond in writing to those 71 questions. Surely, there will be follow-up questions to come. In an apparent attempt at diversion, Gonzales has since taunted Congress by producing a list of subpoenaed documents that he says he will not give them.

Gonzales can be impeached. He serves at the pleasure of Congress as well as of the President.


The Senate has just immunized from prosecution Monica Goodling, the liason from Gonzales' office to the White House. When invited to explain under oath to Congress just what planning was involved in the mysterious firings of the eight US Attorneys, Ms. Goodling invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, hoping to skip the whole process. This right has been until now invoked only in response to a specific question. Apparently she felt that any question they could ask her would be self-incriminating. Now she can talk.

White House chief advisor Karl Rove appears to have committed massive violation of the Hatch act by using government resources and personnel to support Republican candidates for election. This drama is just beginning to unfold. He also apparently tried to recruit the U.S. Attorneys General into attacking Democrats for voter fraud just before elections to make them look corrupt. Eastern Wisconsin USAG Steven Biskupic just had such a case thrown out by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a judge calling his evidence "beyond thin" and "preposterous". Biskupic had been slated for removal, but apparently filing this case just before the election made him worthy enough to keep on the job.

The firing of the eight USA's now seems to be part of a larger plan to intimidate the lot of them into attacking Democrats and going easy on Republicans. This has come undone. Indictments of corrupt Republicans that have been on hold are moving forward. Other Republicans are washing their hands after covering their tails. Among Democrats, the larger plan seems to have filtered out the venal and produced a generation of incorruptibles.


General Petraeus, who is now running the ground war in Iraq, tells us that the clocks in Washington are ticking at one speed and the clocks in Bagdhad tick more slowly. Yes, sometimes they even seem to stop and move backwards. He didn't address the issue of Iraqi soldiers having goals that are not our own, nor that after four years the Iraqi government would still fall without our presence.

Petraus says that the military is essential, yet not enough. A political solution is needed. The trap he is in is that no political help is given.

Mr. Bush believes that the only place for American involvement with other countries is when they have come around to our way of thinking. He thinks that negotiation involves compromises, compromise involves loss, and loss is unacceptable. He ignores the fact that negotiation also discovers common ground and common goals and leads to mutual support. He is not a common ground type of person.

So we are trapped in Iraq, aloofly unwilling to get involved with its neighbors who have a stake in its future. Our president, frankly, doesn't talk too clearly. He also avoids situations in which mental dexterity may be required, preferring catch-phrases. He gives German chancellor-ladies surprise neck-rubs and jeers at blind reporters. People who have Asperger Syndrome are like that.

If you're aloof, you can think you are imperial. Any kid will tell you.

Boston Bans Boing Boing

Too precious. Boing Boing has been banned in Boston.

The Boston free municipal wi-fi network has banned Boing Boing, the world's best "Directory Of Wonderful Things".

Apparently a link in a Boing Boing story used Google to find additional Boing Boing articles by the author. This link contained a command that turned off the Google "SafeSearch" feature, a filter that limits what we can see on Google, and is normally set to "moderate". This then automatically triggered the ban.

What does SafeSearch do? Says Wikipedia:

"Users can... use "SafeSearch" filtering technology (which is on 'moderate' setting by default)... Google has been criticized for placing long-term cookies on users' machines to store these preferences, a tactic which also enables them to track a user's search terms over time."

Yahoo, Netscape, and AT&T WorldNet also use SafeSearch. Turning it off in the search engine's "preferences" setting may let sites with mature images be seen. It also lets you see the 15,000 sites mistakenly blocked:

"For example, it is unlikely that there is sexually-explicit content on thomas.loc.gov (the Library of Congress's index of federal legislation), pmo.gov.il (the Israeli Prime Minister's Office), nmsa.org (the National Middle School Association), or neu.edu (the main index page of Northeastern University), but all four are excluded from Google searches using SafeSearch (screenshots: thomas.loc.gov, pmo.gov.il, nmsa.org, neu.edu)."

But worse than mechanical over-enthusiasm in blocking sites is the possibility that a public resource should be pre-limiting itself to users who have cookies on their machine that keep track of their searches, and who want to see only links that are "moderate".

The right of free speech must include the right to listen freely.

Any Bostonians wanting to revolt and to see Boing Boing can, of course, easily bypass this ban - and any others - simply by using an Open Proxy server. And here are other ways to defeat censorware - courtesy of Boing Boing, of course.

Notice, if you haven't already, the mayor's seal on the ban notice. Thomas Menino, Mayor of Boston. Signs his work, he does. Collecting votes, he thinks he is.

You would think that a free public service would be free of political filters.

Signs his work, he does...

Armed Madness

Although the news is swamped with the Blacksburg berserker story, when the smoke clears we will learn that Congress suddenly finds itself well-armed for big bear.

Attorney General Gonzales' assistant Kyle Sampson has perjured himself before Congress in testimony contradicted by emails that have been released. Surely he's singing up a storm. Gonzales has lied to Congress and has some major finessing to do, as he views it. He's violated the Hatch Act as Congress views it. He has used the Department of Justice to affect elections.

The Albuquerque Journal two days ago published an article on how Senator Domenici had to go all the way to Karl Rove to get U.S. Attorney Iglesias fired because he wouldn't kowtow to election-year Republican demands. Had to go to the top, he did. Karl Rove.

A side-story yet untold is that a number of Senate Republicans in that one-vote minority are, like Domenici, at risk of early retirement. Who requested the other firings? Were they also complicit in using the Justice Department to affect elections?

On Thursday, Mr. Gonzales is going to go before Congress and attempt to prove that a person can both know his own innocence and forget his own acts. He has testified that he was not directly involved in the firing of the U.S. Attorneys. Now he must explain how he could possibly have forgotten the many meetings he attended on the subject. The many, many meetings.

Meanwhile, the White House is busy trying to figure out how they could possibly have deleted 5 million e-mails without someone hitting the "Delete" key. That would have been illegal.

Those who are so busy trying to forget the past - what kind of future can they have?

Yesterday Congress declared that the Department Of Justice is failing to respond to a subpoena for documents. That's pretty serious stonewalling.

A Transparency Corollary For Moore's Law

Moore's Law holds that the power of computing doubles every eighteen months to two years. This is not guaranteed to last forever, but it's been true for almost 40 years.

This means that for a given amount of money, you can buy twice the computer two years from now that you can buy today. Today in April, 2007, you can buy a dual processor cpu computer for $600 or so. Two years from now, a quad processor will almost certainly be available at the same price or lower.

Information flow seems to double every two years.

Does transparency double every two years?

Politicians who lie are being presented with the truth almost immediately these days. Distortions are under attack - "spinning" a story is no longer quite so honorable as it once was. Departures from the truth are becoming increasingly apparent, increasingly obvious.

If transparency is doubling every two years, then some politicians are in for a rough ride.

So Much, So Soon

There's more happening these days than a person can keep up with.

In the smoke department, a big time source of interest is the firing of Don Imus from his morning MSNBC show and now possibly also his radio show for calling the Rutgers University female basketball team "nappy hoes". This is filling the news channels.

Hiding under the smoke is a remarkable story about how the Republican National Committee provided White House personnel with laptops that had RNC email accounts on them that could be used to bypass the official White House e-mail system. Archives of the RNC emails have now supposedly disappeared.

It appears that somebody decided that the fallout would be less if they scrubbed the archives than if the contents were known. The very existence of the RNC system at the White House appears to have violated a law about the preservation of records, so the Republican National Committee may have committed a federal crime.

But no files are ever totally scrubbed. Those who are living in the illusion that they have been scrubbed will live forever with the fear that suddenly someday, they may appear. Also, the scrubbing of the files will be examined as a destruction of official records. Who ordered that the records act be violated?


The Republicans running for President have begun all to develop little problems that may make them not the best contender for the candidacy. Candidates McCain and Romney earlier showed off their moral acumen by flip-flopping from their older, more liberal positions to embrace the ultra-conservative litmus tests of anti-abortionism and homophobia, throwing away the vote of everyone who has a gay family member or is pro-choice..

And then Senator McCain, having claimed that Baghdad had been rendered so safe by our presence that an unprotected westerner could walk safely down the streets, decided to prove his point, So he walked down a Baghdad street wearing body armor, surrounded by a hundred troops, and with 5 helicoptors overhead. Although the armor would make him out to be a liar, he has persisted in saying that Baghdad is safe. By burning up his integrity, he has managed to drive his popularity far below the others.

Giuliani, who has refused to kow-tow to the ultra-conservatives, is now twice as popular as MKcCain, even though video of him in drag seems to be everywhere.

Democratic candidates are raising far more than the Republicans. The top two contenders, Obama and Clinton, were they to join their candidacies, would be assured of winning the elections.

So the Republican contenders are running for the candidacy, not the presidency. As their party goes to jail for trying to take over the country.


Attorney General Gonzales has left all day-to-day business to an assistant so he can concentrate on getting his testimony ready for Congress. He has to explain how he lied to them. Time magazine reports that he's hunkered down with his trainers. U.S. News And World Report reports that the trainers are getting sick of how Mr. Gonzales loses track of the story line.

Meanwhile, Monica Goodling, the liason between the White House and the Justice Department, the person who coordinated with the White House (RNC!) over requests for attorney firings, has quit her job. Kyle Sampson, Gonzales chief assistant, who implicated his boss in planning the attorney firings, will be returning to Congress tomorrow for a refresher interview. And subpoenas are flying. Congress wants to see everything.

The possibility of our invading Iran seems to be fading in the face of news about how our ground troops are depleted. The carriers we moved into the Gulf to threaten Iran now look more like emergency exit equipment for the worsening situation in Iraq.

Two suicide vests were found in the Green Zone a couple of days ago. Last night, one was exploded, killing two members of the Iraqi parliament. The security of the Green Zone has been breached.


Senators Feingold and Reid have introduced a bill to formally end the war in case Bush vetoes the troop funding bill that contained a withdrawal plan.