The Jack Bower theory

Its been a while since I have posted. Not much has changed in my personal live, I'm still dealing with all of the same shit, but c'est la vie. Earlier this month, I went to New Orleans to volunteer fixing houses in the lower ninth ward. I will blog on this when I get a chance, but Will was there with me, and he has posted some pictures and thoughts on his blog Two other blogs, belonging to the group I volunteered with (lowernine.org) and another group we worked with can be found at http://www.onsiterelief.com/blog/ and http://lowernine.blogspot.com/ . Like I said, I will post something about my thoughts on the trip soon, but there was something else on my mind I wanted to mention.

I was listening to the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with Attorney General Mukasey today, and they were asking him about the legality of waterboarding as an interrogation technique. While he said that it was currently prohibited, he seemed careful to avoid ruling it out as ever being allowed, speculate on it's applicability in hypothetical scenarios, or offer any indication as to whether it has ever been used, legally or not, by the US government.

My opinion on the matter is this. Waterboarding, as well as any other technique that is widely considered to be torture, or which we would be horrified to see committed on the members of our military, or an American citizen being held in a foreign country, should be expressly prohibited. There should be no loopholes, or ambiguity on the issue. we need to be willing to set an example to the rest of the world as to how civilized people should treat each other, and how we expect them to treat us, even if we know that some people will not follow the rules, and we will likely continue to see videos of prisoners being beheaded. We need to take the high road, and recognize that one of the many variables in the complex function that breeds terrorists, is the way we are portrayed as treating people of other cultures.

I offer one caveat to what I just said. Passing a law against torture is a bit like passing a law against murder. We all know that murder is wrong and is a crime, and no one goes around killing people without the expectation that if caught they will be punished. However, if an armed intruder were in your house, and you had a gun, you would likely shoot him. If you were on a highjacked plane and had the chance to kill the highjacker, you probably would. Most people, if given the choice between the life of one innocent person, and 1000 other lives would choose to kill the one person, to save the 1000, or choose to kill one innocent person to save another person close to them. In all of these situations, whether you would act the same way or not, you can probably agree that the legality of your actions would not be the determining factor of how you act. The important considerations would be the morality of the actions given the dire situation, and the consequences of the various courses of action in the short run. I am a very non-violent, pacifistic person, but even I would have few qualms with killing a highjacker for instance, if it would save a planefull of people, and I certainly would not be thinking about the possibility of spending my life in jail when making that decision.

The point I am trying to get to is that while torturing should be illegal, like any other illegal activity, there are those times where the fact that it is illegal is overridden by the exigent circumstances. If there was a terrorist in custody, who you had very good reason to believe knew the location of a nuclear device that was about to go off in a highly populated loaction (lets call it the '24 scenario'), would you care if torture was illegal? or would you just torture the guy anyway? I think even I would break the law and waterboard his ass, as much as I am generally very much against torture. A law against torture would prevent it in all but the most dire of situations, situations where you simply dont care if you spend the rest of you life in jail for being wrong. after the fact, the courts would have to sort out whether you acted appropriately. If you truly did save thousands of lives, then I would imagine you would not be severely punished. even if you were wrong, and the person did not give any information, I would imagine that your good intentions would be taken into consideration. But if you routinely torture people, in which case you are probably getting false information anyway just to get you to stop, then there should be no special consideration, and you should be punished. Every law has its exceptions, but that does not keep us from having laws.

I really enjoy the show 24, even though I am very against the things that the government does in pursuit of the war on terror (gitmo, extraordinary rendition, etc.), but I think that this is one of the things that appeals to me on that show. Jack Bower breaks all sorts of laws, and does all sorts of inconscionable things, but he does them because he feels he has no choice, he does them knowing full well that there will be consequences, and ready to face them. But he does not mistreat people without it being absolutely necessary. Perhaps I am over simplifying the matter, but the way it is being addressed by our government is over complicated, and leaves too much ambiguity, which I truly believe is harmful to us in the long run.

Immigration

Just a brief post. First off, thanks to the people who said nice things to me after my last post. It was meant mostly as a way to vent, but I'm glad that people read it and I appreciate their concern.

I read a really interesting piece today on the Immigration issue. It is a pseudo fictional essay by Orson Scott Card, who I believe does Science Fiction or graphic novels or something. Anyway, while I find some things I disagree with in it, mostly it is spot on and if nothing else a very interesting and well written piece. I'll leave it at that and let you read it for yourself instead of analyzing it:
Article Here

a lot of change

I suppose that my life right now is best described by the fact that when I went to the shrink a few months ago to get prescribed for anti depressants I had to fill out a form about my medical history and whatnot, and under the part that asked me to check off major life changes in the past six months, I put a check for "Got Married" and also for "Divorce/Separation".

I still have trouble coming to terms with it, but yes, Elizabeth and I are separated. I still don't exactly know why. In the end it comes down to the fact that a relationship needs both people to be happy, and for whatever reason, whether by my fault or not, she was not happy. There are a lot of things I wish I did differently, but that really is neither here nor there. I don't even blame her for what she has done, even though it hurts me in a way I can't begin to explain, I know it hurts her too, and I know that she is doing what she believes is best for her, and that is what I want for her in the end.

I have gone through a lot of phases, as far as being angry, depressed, blaming myself, blaming her. I still don't know how I feel. I still haven't come to terms with the fact that this might be over. I'm afraid of that eventuality. I don't know how I'll deal with that, and so I pretend, I deny, I do what I can to be optimistic, and I guess in a way that makes it harder.

The difficult thing is this. Yes, I miss her. Yes I have a certain amount of dependency on her and that is part of why I wish I was back with her. I am a needy person. But besides all of that, I still love her. I look at pictures of her and am still incredibly attracted to her. Perhaps more so than when we were together and I took her presence for granted. After she moved out, she got her nose pierced, and got a tattoo. Both of which I really like on her. Now she is moving to an apartment in Baltimore. The sad thing is, that without me, she is becoming more of what I would like her to be. It is like fate is rubbing it in my face that I can't have what I really want. I want to live in the city, I want to spend time with this beautiful girl, even if she can be hard to deal with at times, and even if she is treating me like shit right now. I know that I can be difficult too. I know that I have a lot to work out as far as what I expect in a relationship. And I don't doubt that she still cares for me, but she is probably as confused and depressed as I am. We are both treating each other poorly for lack of knowing how to deal with this constructively.

I have started to realize that I may never be able to be friends with her if we do stay broken up. I have always been able to be friends with my exes. In fact, I am meeting with my girlfriend from freshman year this weekend for lunch... 7 years later, I'm still talking to her. I can see her and talk to her and it doesn't even cross my mind that I once loved her, and had an intimate relationship with her. But I don't think I can ever look at Elizabeth in a platonic way without feeling sad. Without hating myself and her for what happened. And I guess that bothers me more than anything, that I may never be able to have her in my life in one way or another no matter what happens.

Anyway, I have no idea if anyone will even see this... and probably anyone who will already knows all of this, but writing all of this down helps me to sort things out and get things off my mind. perhaps I'll start doing this more. Thanks for listening internet land.

Yippie for camera phones

So I have been seeing stories everywhere about this guy in the library at UCLA who was tazed by police when he didn't show them his student ID, and then was on his way out of the library. It sounded pretty screwed up, and like perhaps the cops acted out of line. Today I finally got around to watching the video (Thank god for camera phones I guess). The video is much worse than I had imagined. There is no way that repeatedly tazing him could have been justified (they tazed him for not obeying their commands to get up after he had just been shocked and most likely couldn't move). They then threatened to taze the bystanders who asked for their badge numbers (which I'm pretty sure they are required to give). I know sometimes people get all upset when police overact, but its just as much the victims fault as theirs. But this is different. The dude wasn't even under arrest and under no obligation to listen to them in the first place (and was on his way out the door no less), and then was tazed again after he was handcuffed... In front of a large crowd of camera-phone wielding college kids. At least the guys who roughed up Rodney King had the decency to do it in front of only a Police Car dash cam. At least you can try and cover that up. Anyway, hopefully this gets a lot of press, and the cops get in some trouble. Anyway here is the link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3CdNgoC0cE

Another story involving camera phones getting someone in a lot of trouble is Michael Richards (AKA Kramer)'s racist tirade at a comedy club last weekend. Some hecklers pissed him off and he went off on them using the dreaded N-word many a time. Some people in the audience got it on their camera phones and it became a big news story. Anyway, He apologized last night on Letterman, and it seems like he was sincerely sorry (at least more so than Mel Gibson was). Here is the link to the apology, which is pretty hard to watch (as is the footage of the tirade) for any fan of Kramer. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9107547518165183938

Italy act I

I am finally getting around to trying to document our adventures in Italy for everyone to read even though no one probably cares. Anyway, here is the first part of our trip to Italy. This is the crap ass situation we got in at teh Paris airport. I'm tired of relating this story over and over, so IU am pasting in teh email i sent teh travel agent to let her know about what happened. So it is abnormally boring, and devoid of obscentities for a post on this blog. It is also spell checked so you wont see any teh's or -ign's. enjoy

Our plane was a little late getting to Charles De Gaulle, and it landed on the tarmac (because terminal E which is where all the transatlantic flights go is under construction), so we had to take a 30 minute shuttle ride to the terminal. Then we had to go through customs (which luckily had no line), walk to terminal F, and then go through security again. At security, I notified the guard that there was diabetes medicine in my backpack as you are supposed to do according to the TSA website (at least in the US). I then went through the metal detector. Then Elizabeth went through and they asked her to take the thing off of her belt. She told them it was an insulin pump and she couldn't take it off. The Guard asked for a letter explaining it. We gave him the letter she had from her doctor, but they apparently wanted a letter from Air France. They told us to go to the Air France desk and talk to them. We did that, and they told us we had missed our flight (even though only a minute or two had passed since we left security). They told us we had to go to the transfers desk, which we had trouble finding. When we found it, the lady there gave us a new boarding pass, and we asked her to help us get through security. She came with us, and this time I didn't mention anything about the medicine in my backpack and they didn't say anything about Elizabeth's insulin pump (the guy who gave us a hard time before was gone). So we got through with no trouble and I tried to call the transfer people and let them know we would be late. First I tired a calling card my parents gave me, but I forgot that it wouldn't work since it was a 1-888 number and therefore wouldn't work from France. Then I tried my credit card, and when I put it in it said something about some price in euros, but when it didn't work and I hung up, it said "0,00 euros" or something to that effect, so I thought I wasn't being charged. I think it actually was going through some of the times I tried, but the European ring sounds like an American busy tone, and I was flustered and it confused me. It turns out that each of the like 10 times I called I was charged like 19 bucks. eventually at like 9, I bought a French calling card from the store at the airport, and since it was a card especially for those phones, it was a lot simpler to figure out and I got through. They said that the pickup was already at the airport and there was nothing they could do. Another thing that helped me get through at this point was that before 9 I was calling the 24 hr number, which didn't have a country code with it, so I didn't know what country it was in or what code to use. After 9 I could call the business hours number which had a country code with it. At some point before I eventually got through we had tried to board our flight, which left at 8-something, and they told us that the boarding pass we had was for the next day (right time and flight, just wrong date). So we went to the transfers desk in the terminal and they said that it was too late to get on the same flight (even though we could see it was still boarding), and that the next flight was full, so they put us on the flight that left at like 11-something. They also couldn't get us seats next to each other. Since we now had lots of time, I talked to a manager, and he said there was nothing he could do to help us out, but to file a complaint, and also that they should not have given us any trouble at security. Anyway, I think we got to Rome at 2-something, and my bag was in the unclaimed baggage room ( as it had come on the original flight at 9:20), one of Elizabeth's bags came around on the conveyor belt (it had come on the plane with us), and her other bag was no where to be found. We reported it missing, and it came 2 days later. It was still in Paris and we think it was probably put with the bags for the first rescheduled flight we were on which left the next day. We took a taxi from the airport, where we got our first experience with Italian drivers. The taxi cost 60 Euros with tip.

I don't really know who's to blame for all of this, Air France, Charles De Gaulle Airport, our own naivete. And really in the end, the trip was so much fun that we forgot how pissed we were for the first day. It would be nice if we could get reimbersed by the transfer company for either the missed transfer or the taxi ride. That seems fair. I am going to send an angry letter to Air France, and also talk to my credit card company about the phone calls (I know I need to get on that quickly). I know there is nothing you could have done to prevent our problems, but I would only suggest that when scheduling transfers at Charles De Gaulle, keep in mind that there is a significant amount of time required to get to the terminal from the tarmac if the plane is arriving or leaving at terminal E. So an hour between flights is probabaly not enough.

Absolutely nothing interesting has happened in the last month

So yeah, there is a lot of stuff I should probably post about. Like getting married, going to Italy, etc. Well, I'm not going to do that now, but when I get around to it , I will. So basically, this post is pointless. Kinda like the rest of what is on this blog.

habeas schmabeas

So, the Senate and Congress are voting on (or maybe have already passed, either way, its gonna pass if not already) a bill on military tribunals that will remove the right to habeas corpus for essentially all Aliens, legal or Illegal. Here is the fun part of the bill:

`(e)(1) No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who--

`(A) is currently in United States custody; and

`(B) has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.

`(2) Except as provided in paragraphs (2) and (3) of section 1005(e) of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 (10 U.S.C. 801 note), no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any other action against the United States or its agents relating to any aspect of the detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of confinement of an alien detained by the United States who--

`(A) is currently in United States custody; and

`(B) has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.'.

(b) Effective Date- The amendments made by subsection (a) shall take effect on the date of the enactment of this Act, and shall apply to all cases, without exception, pending on or after the date of the enactment of this Act which relate to any aspect of the detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of detention of an alien detained by the United States since September 11, 2001.

SEC. 7. TREATY OBLIGATIONS NOT ESTABLISHING GROUNDS FOR CERTAIN CLAIMS.

(a) In General- No person may invoke the Geneva Conventions, or any protocols thereto, in any habeas or civil action or proceeding to which the United States, or a current or former officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent of the United States, is a party, as a source of rights in any court of the United States or its States or territories.

Thats right, I actually looked up the text of a Senate bill... kinda dry and legalese, but its got these nice juicy parts in it. Ok, now for my notorious ignorant and naive legal analasis:

First, Wikipedia defines habeas corpus as:

a legal instrument or writ by means of which detainees can seek release from unlawful imprisonment. A writ of habeas corpus is a court order addressed to a prison official (or other custodian) ordering that a detainee be brought to the court so it can be determined whether or not that person is imprisoned lawfully and whether or not he or she should be released from custody. The writ of habeas corpus in common law countries is an important instrument for the safeguarding of individual freedom against arbitrary state action.

I take this to mean that habeas corpus is a means by which a person can challenge their imprisonment and at the very least, be told why they are being imprisoned. This seems pretty damn close to our 6th ammendment...

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Anyway, the bill basically says that if you are not a US citizen, and are detained on the slightest suspicion of being an "enemy combatant" (a term which I believe is redefined in this same bill that can be interpreted to include peace activists, lawyers for terror suspects, and anyone who may have unintentionally contributed money to terrorist groups), you cannot file a writ of habeas corpus. In other words, you cant ask for proof that you are being held for any particular reason or that they have any proof against you. All they have to do is say that they are "Awaiting determination" as to whether or not you are an enemy combatant. So basically, lets say this was like 10 years ago when my mom was still a Canadian citizen. Lets say she wrote a $10 check to some charity that called her up and said "Good morning M'am, I am calling on behalf of People For The Better Treatment of Women, Children, Puppies, and Kittens in Afghanistan. Would you be able to help end the plight of cute things in our lovely country?", and that call happened to be coming from a suspected terrorist in another country, so it was tapped by NSA (Another bill in the house/senate that has a snowballs chance in hell of being blocked), they could arrest her, put her in Git'mo, and then when she was like "Hey, Im not sure whether I am being lawfully held. Can you tell me what I am charged with, and let me see whether you have any evidence against me?" They could just say "Not until we decide if you are an enemy combatant." And that process could take years, decades, or a lifetime.

OK, look this is all thrown together, and poorly sourced... But here is what it comes down to. Here is the way to solve the issue of how to treat "enemy combatants", terrorists, and foreign puppy drowners or any other undesirbales... ready for it? TREAT THEM EXACTLY THE SAME FUCKING WAY YOU WOULD TREAT TERRORISTS, PUPPY DROWNERS, CHILD FUCKERS, MASS MURDERERS, RAPISTS, OR ANY OTHER PEOPLE WHO COMMIT AGREGEOUS CRIMES THAT HAPPEN TO BE AMERICANS. When Timothy McViegh blew up a few hundred people in Oklahoma City, there was no serious debate over whether he shoul dbe held without trial or waterboarded or denied the rights afforded by the constitution. The guy was a douche bag, who deserved what came to him (even if I dont support the death penalty). He killed hundreds of innocent people including a bunch of children, and he very well might have had friends who were planning similar attacks, but we didnt use unconventional methods to get information out of him or deny him habeas corpus. Our constitutional rights should apply to all people regardless of citizenship. If we find some dude in Fallujah who just shot up a group of cute little kids, we should detain him and then treat him exactly the same way we whould treat a person who shot up a school or abortion clinic or shopping mall in this country. Maybe it doesn't make us safer, but it keeps us from being horrible hyocrites when we talk about spreading democracy, or condemning human rights violations. We should view our constitution as a universal document which applies to all human beings. If we do that, then we dont even have to worry about the geneva conventions, which by the way this bill says cant be used as a source of rights in any US court. No body wants to help the terrorists... we all want them brought to justice, but the more we bastardize what our sountry is supposed to stand for, the more we let them win. They want to hurt us and the best way to do that is to make us A) scared shittless, regardless of whether there is a real threat or not and B) For us to revoke our own rights and make ourselves closer to their opressive and opaque forms of government. Our government is doing a fine job on both accounts.

I'll leave you with a great quote from senator Patrick Leahy and some links:

What has changed in the past five years that justifies not merely suspending, but abolishing the writ of habeas corpus for a broad category of people who have not been found guilty or even charged with any crime? What has changed in the last five years that our Government is so inept and our people so terrified that we must do what no bomb or attack could ever do by taking away the very freedoms that define America? Why would we allow the terrorists to win by doing to ourselves what they could never do and abandon the principles for which so many Americans today and through our history have fought and sacrificed? What has happened that the Senate is willing to turn America from a bastion of freedom into a caldron of suspicion ruled by a Government of unchecked power?

anyway, here are some interesting, if not scary links for your enjoyment:
Senator Leahy's Comments on the Bill
Full Text of Bill
Senator Obama's Comments.
Story about a guy held at git'mo for no real reason.
Bill Of Rights.