Category: The World

A Veritable Toika of Security Theatre straight from the warped minds of the TSA.

Security Theatre Act XV: Return of the Registered Traveller System

The nice folks over at Wired have nicely summarized it: “Fake Security.” For $100 you submit your fingerprints (Do they submit it to the FBI database? Compare against unsolved crimes? Who knows!); they do a background check; and you are issued a bit of plastic that gives you access to a special short line. When you get the the airport you present your card, get your fingerprints scanned against the bit of plastic, and — assuming you aren’t in the 2% failure rate for fingerprint scanning — get into a short line where you still have to take off your shoes and present your plastic baggie of personal hygiene products. But people who have been “selected” for additional screening should still allow extra time and KY Jelly for screening.

The people who have planned this have the gall to say this will speed up checkin for everyone. This is mathematically impossible. If you have one “short line”, sure things will be faster for those in the short line. Nevertheless, the people manning the short line have to make sure Joe Average belongs there. And the people running the “short line” could have been helping make sure everybody gets through faster.

I am disturbed by the number of people who think this is a good idea. It is not a “get out of the security line free” card, it won’t help you get out of baggage inspection, it won’t do a thing for the David Nelsons of the world. It only changes the line you stand in waiting for your shoes to be returned to you. It is a sham, and a waste of $100.

Security Theatre Act XVI: Tall people are all terrorists

Way back when, credit scores were secret information. Now you have a right to know what the big credit agencies say about you, and you even have a right to correct information in the report. Not so with the terror risk assessments authorized by the Department of Homeland Security. In fact, they’ve been doing this for 4 years now, and only now are details coming to light. Oh, and they plan to keep this information for 40 years. Because goodness knows nothing changes over that period of time. Apparently, some of the “important” details include seat and meal preferences. Ok, sure, someone with an aisle seat might be planning to make trouble; but maybe they are just tall and like the slightly extra room of an aisle seat. I suppose heaven help you if you request a special meal.

Security Theatre Act XVII, Huhuhuhuhmmhuhuhuh.

It’s baaaack! Coming to airports this month are x-rays that can see through your clothes. The ACLU calls this a “virtual strip search.” If you believe these machines are not going to be abused by some minority of screeners looking for a cheap thrill, I have some lovely swampland to sell you. How long until there is an entire porn category of such images? Before Christmas, if I had to guess.

Why are we so afraid of something unlikely — nutcases doing Bad Things to an airplane — that we are willing to give up basic privacy for it? I mean think about it. A terrorist could do a whole lot more damage in a mall, movie theatre, or even a high school football game. Airplanes are passe.

In closing: the press war against working moms; Judge says “Bush doesn’t like ’em” is not a definition of “terror group”; a classical music database; a special item for World AIDS Day, Bill Clinton working to see that kids around the world have access to affordable medication; the MPAA has effectively killed a bill in California that would have made it illegal to pretend to be you and get your phone records because it might prevent them from cracking down on people who think a whole record album isn’t worth $17.98 when it only has 2 good tracks; one in 32 Americans was in jail or on parole at the end of 2005, it’s just something to remember next time you look through your high school yearbook; we’re supposed to “support our troops” but we aren’t allowed to remember the ones who have died?; and finally new Congressman in hot water for swearing on Holy Text he actually believes in! I love the comment about swearing on the Bible because it is “the Bible of this country.” Someone smack him upside the head with the First Amendment for me.

It is my morning habit to watch CNBC as I get ready to face the world. CNBC is a financial news network, focused largely on the markets — and the economy as it impacts the markets. Needless to say everybody there has been pretty happy, with the Dow being over 12,000. Now, they do also cover politics and world events, but again mostly as it impacts the markets.

As almost all of you are aware, there is a major American election coming up. And the Republican party (which controls both the White House and both houses of Congress) is widely expected to lose some of the Congressional seats it holds.

Now, I didn’t pay it much mind last week when Maria Bartiromo had an exclusive interview with the President of the United States, George W. Bush. He is, after all, the President. This was not a 5 minute interview, but rather a lengthy sit-down in the White House. They played clips of this thing all day to drum up ratings for the whole thing being played in the evening. Mr. Bush has appeared previously on CNBC, most notably on the Larry Kudlow show. For the record, I liked Kudlow a lot better before his current bout of Kool-Aid poisoning.

Today, however, it was announced that there would be an exclusive interview with the Vice President, Dick Cheney. Again, not the first time he’s been on.

But doesn’t anybody else think it’s a little bit slanted to have the two most visible members of the dominant party on CNBC within a few weeks of a major election without having equally significant members of the other party on as well? Where is the interview with Howard Dean? Nancy Pelosi? Harry Reid? Couldn’t they even get Eliot Spitzer or Barack Obama?

When elected officials from only one political party has an unusual level of access to the media, no good can possibly come of it. And yes, I would say this if the slant were the other direction. In order to make informed decisions about issues, it is necessary to consider all positions, even if we immediately choose to dismiss one or more of them. The only possible explanation is that these interviews are politically motivated, and they must be watched with that in mind. In the meantime, maybe Maria can talk to some people on the other side of the aisle.
Sheesh.

In closing, only 1 out of 4 Americans beleives their vote will be counted right; most Americans like their activist judges, thank you; not time to be afraid yet, but be cautious; hundred million year old bee; global warming gasses on the rise again, and Al Gore is on the case, but most Americans don’t remember the environment in the polling booth; a sad milestone; okay, one more election related item; and the temporary homeless.

A Tragic-Comic Opera in Three Parts

Act One, Washington DC

By now I sincerely hope you have heard about the little scandal swirling around Florida Congressman Mark Foley. In short, he sent explicit text messages to at least one underage Congressional page. Worse yet, House leadership knew about it, and did nothing. They didn’t even remove him as the chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus. The latest developments include an FBI investigation to see whether he may have broken a law he helped write, a statement from Tony Snow triviaizing the incident as “simply naughty e-mails” and Mr. Foley checking himself into rehab. Oh of course, let’s blame all his problems on alcohol, rather than his inability to keep his dirty thoughts to himself (or at the very least find an adult with whom one can exchange “naughty e-mails.”)

The fact that the page is male is a red herring; the meat of the issue is that Mr. Foley abused his position of authority with someone who is not an adult (and therefore cannot be counted on to have the judgement of an adult). He tried to set up a meeting with this boy, presumably not for study-hall. And despite the fact that Congressional pages are typically boys and girls of wealth, privilege, and the future ability to be political donors, House Leadership Did Nothing. Nothing. Hastert and the whole party deserve their fair share of the blame for this incident, and the nobody-knows-how-many other incidents that have not yet come to light.

Values my butt! How dare they stand up and say they stand for things like “character” and “family values” and “marriage is between one man and one woman” when they failed to denounce this man months ago.

Update: It turns out this guy was known about a decade ago. I guess family values are only for other people’s families.

Act Two, Livingrooms Everywhere

This morning, I saw a video clip of Mike Wallace interviewing Bob Woodward. Mr. Wallace actually had to quote a General as having recommended we get the “F” out of Iraq. Now, I think we both know what the General really said, don’t we? Isn’t it a wee bit disingenuous to think we are doing anybody a favor by censoring his actual words? The whole point of TV ratings and V chips and such is to give parents the tools to control what their kids watch on TV without government interference. That being the case, let’s bring one relic of the good old days back — news announcers who would tell you that “the next segment contains graphic images/adult language/whatever” — and let viewers judge things for themselves.

Oh, and the nice folks over at Penny Arcade point out that Congress wants to regulate the guys who rate video games. Don’t get me wrong, ESRB ratings are seriously broken. For example, a game where cartoon characters fly around throwing energy blasts at one another is rated T for Teen but a game where junior can race and crash a photo-realistic on-screen replica of dad’s sports car is rated E for Everyone. However, the answer is not in Congressional mandate, but rather in parents demanding greater accuracy in ratings.

Act Three, A High School Near You

The days are getting shorter, that whole change the clocks an hour for no apparent reason thing is coming up soon. And America’s high schools are by and large doing something that endangers all their students.

They are making students show up at class as early as 7:15 or 7:30 AM.

For many kids, this means walking to school in the dark, an activity which puts them at greater risk for being hit by a car or being assaulted on the way to school. Furthermore, they arrive at class sleep deprived and not ready to learn, thus directly impacting their grades. And as if that were not enough, they are dismissed sometimes as early as 1:30 PM, at least 3 hours and maybe even 5 hours before their parents can possibly get home. This puts them at risk for getting into all kinds of trouble, including juvenile delinquency, gang participation, drug/alcohol use, pregnancy, or being sent explicit text messages by a member of Congress.

In closing: married adult kids living at home, Federal regulators tell mortgage companies to let people know the obvious and follow common sense guidelines, but the Christian Science Monitor says it’s too late for that since half a million homeowners face possible foreclosure when their mortgage payment goes up under such loans, a bill limiting the ability of lawyers to get paid when they take First Amendment cases, follow-up on what the Military Commissions Act of 2006 could mean to you, a conservative ex-Senator, ex-preacher explains how “The Christian Right has championed a set of divisive issues that test the fealty of politicians. Often called wedge issues, their purpose is to split the country apart.” And finally, it’s about freaking time our high schools did something to make sure the many non-college bound students have skills to feed their future families.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am dangerously close to declaring that the terrorists have won.

New flight restrictions, updated just this morning, prohibit pretty much anything liquid or gel. Such restrictions promise to be enforced for the forseeable future with only minor tweaks. People are reporting that the TSA is taking away books, asthma inhalers, not letting people with certain kinds of shoe insoles fly, and generally making life difficult. Thankfully the restrictions are not as bad as in London, where electronics are also prohibited. Can you imagine taking a Trans-Atlantic flight with no reading matter and no electronics? For that matter, it makes business travel impossible. There are many people who cannot allow their computers to be checked as baggage. Period.

Nor can you bring a beverage on the plane purchased at the post-security-checkpoint convenience store. This means — to me anyway — that the authorities do not believe they have secured the post-checkpoint area. I’ll repeat that: authorities to not believe they have secured the post-checkpoint area. If that area were secure, we could assume everything and everyone in it was secure. What about cleaning supplies, you say? Those should be either in a locked storage area or in the control of the background-checked cleaning crew.

If we must assume that someone behind the security checkpoint could be a Bad Guy capable of getting banned items to other Bad Guys to take on airplanes, we must ask ourselves why these Bad Guys wouldn’t just put a bomb directly on the plane. Follow up: “Several handguns have been stolen from bags checked by police officers, military personnel and others on United Airlines flights departing O’Hare International Airport, sparking concern that the weapons are loose in what is supposed to be a secure part of the airport.”

Even with the increased scrutiny, “suspicious items” are still turning up on airplanes. And the nice folks over at BoingBoing ask whether these security measures apply to high level officials.

For that matter, am I the only person who has noticed that the last time we heard from Bin Laden and Zawahiri, Zawahiri was standing in what looked very much like a standard newscast set? For that matter, if Bin Laden is sending his tapes from a remote cave by yak courier, shouldn’t there be a great deal of reverb on those tapes? Now, since I don’t really want to go out on a limb saying such crazy talk as “those tapes aren’t real, just a government plot to keep you scared,” I am forced to assume that we haven’t really got them on the run as much as we’d like.

Bruce Schneier reminds us that “The goal of a terrorist is to cause terror…. And if you want to know what you can do to help? Don’t be terrorized.” That’s hard to do when CNN is running Terror Target Monday. Maybe it will help to put it in cartoon form.

In closing: a second helping of Chertoff. Some Star Trek Motivational Posters! A plan to reduce the costs of drug testing that would warm Dr. Mengele’s heart. Speaking of World War II atrocities, 39% of recently polled Americans think Muslims should have to carry a “special” ID. How about sewing a red crescent to their jackets? Please forgive my bigotry; I hate bigots. And when research keeps saying teens brains aren’t up at 7:30, why do school administrators still insist on having classes then? Are they trying to fail?

Some time back, I had the opportunity to discuss the First Amendment to the Constitution. Inasmuch as I support Constitutional Rights, I hope to discuss all of them outlined in the Bill of Rights in due time. That being the case, please forgive the delay as I am quite alarmingly overdue to discuss the Second Amendment. You’ll find it here, but the relevant text is:

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

This poor sentence has been subjected to so much scrutiny and twisting, so much debate and rhetoric. Some people say it means we all have the right to have any kind of gun we like. Others say it only means the military has a right to guns, an idea which seems redundant. Still others say the whole thing is outdated and needs to be reigned in with regulations, a tricky arrangement unless the whole thing is repealed.

When interpreting the sentence in question, it is useful to remember its context. So I direct you to the top of the page, where the Preamble to the Bill of Rights begins:

The Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

So let’s keep in mind as we read that the purpose of this sentence and the entire Bill of Rights is “to prevent misconstruction or abuse of [the Government’s] powers.” Indeed, “During the debates on the adoption of the Constitution, its opponents repeatedly charged that the Constitution as drafted would open the way to tyranny by the central government. Fresh in their minds was the memory of the British violation of civil rights before and during the Revolution. They demanded a “bill of rights” that would spell out the immunities of individual citizens.”

I have often condensed this line of reasoning as “Remember that the Bill of Rights was written by people who overthrew the legal British Colonial Government.”

So let’s begin with the concept of the well regulated militia. Militia is easily understood. Well regulated is another story, because in my opinion it means multiple things. Remember the story of Paul Revere? He rode through the countryside, raising the alarm that the British were planning an attack. This warning allowed Colonial citizens to band together as a militia and repel the attack. Of course his deeds are exaggerated in the famous poem, but Wikipedia informs us that “He used his numerous contacts in eastern Massachusetts to devise a system for the rapid call up of the militias to oppose the British. Although several messengers rode longer and alerted more soldiers than Revere that night, they were part of the organization that Revere created and implemented in eastern New England. Some claim that Paul Revere became famous while Dawes and Prescott did not because Revere was better known and trusted by those who knew him.”

Nevertheless, Mr. Revere illustrates multiple ways that we can have a “well regulated militia.” The militia in question was a group of more-or-less average fellows who stood up to the trained British regiment. However, they weren’t exactly beating Redcoats over the head with copper-bottomed pots! They had guns, and they knew how to use them. Granted, the modern Army no longer makes soldiers bring their own guns; it provides arms to soldiers, and trains them too. But imagine how much faster a country can mobilize against invasion if there are already people who know how to use basic firearms! General Washington must have been very glad he and so many other lads learned to hunt as a boy.

It is easy to see how the right to bear arms might result in the rapid recruitment and deployment of a militia. But don’t forget the other half of the story. The Minutemen were able to inflict “many casualties” on the well trained, well armed British troops. A “well regulated militia” can also mean that if the need arises, citizens can defend themselves against the troops of their own governement.

Both interpretations are absolutely necessary to the security of a free state, the next phrase of the sentence. To have a a continuing “free state,” we must have security from threats. These threats can be external — like an invading army. Or they can be internal — like an occupying army or Old West Outlaws or a military coup.

That’s a lot of philosophical baggage, and we haven’t even gotten to the main clause of the sentence, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. It is worth noting that the right is granted to people. Not men, not adults over the age of 21, not people who are not slaves, not citizens, not even people of sound mind. People. People like you and me and that guy you don’t like over there. Not only do ordinary people have the right “keep arms,” they have the right to “bear” them.

Make no mistake, I think there is plenty of middle ground for common sense regulation that does not “infringe” on the rights in question. I think we can all agree that we don’t want the mentally ill or known criminals carrying guns (with the caveat that we cannot count on known criminals to follow the law). And I don’t really think anybody wants people taking their guns with them to the bank or to school. Furthermore, I do not support “concealed carry” laws; if somebody wants to carry a gun in public, it belongs out in the open so everybody can see it and act accordingly.

I support the right of Joe and Jane Average to have guns; I hope I never feel like I need to have one.

In closing, Lou Dobbs on “The Bush White House and its lackeys in the Senate have reached a new low in their quest to bestow amnesty on 11 million to 20 million illegal immigrants, while doing as little as possible to secure our nation’s borders and ports.” I bet you didn’t even know there was such a thing as Japan’s National Unified Otaku Certification Test. Are the Top Ten College Majors also the next decade’s top ten most glutted professions? Ok, so the problem is that “biases and distortions in the current system had created financial incentives for hospitals to treat certain patients, on whom they could make money, and to avoid others, who were less profitable.” So the solution is to “cut payments by 20 percent to 30 percent for many complex treatments and new technologies.” For reference, “record hospital profit margins” are 5.2%, and that in a year that 25% of hospitals lost money. Here’s two experts on opposite sides of the “Net Neutrality” debate. And finally, Robert Rubin treads lightly as he points out the fact that the growing inequalities in the American economy have possible consequences in the long term, perhaps.

Security Theatre XIII: I Know Who I Am, But Who Are You?

I have said before that ID cards may tell you who someone is, but they do not tell you whether or not he is a Bad Guy. In short, nobody has an ID card stamped with “Terrorist” or “Tax Cheat.” You are lucky if it is marked “organ donor.” That’s only one problem with using ID cards as a crime and terror fighting tool.

Notice, that the ID card only may tell you who someone is. It might also be fake. And as much as the Federal government wants to make sure people aren’t using fake identification, they seem to be having a hard time identifying fake IDs.* Since the people who make fake IDs will always come up with ways to continue counterfeiting them, fake IDs constitute a second problem with using ID cards as a crime and terror fighting tool.

The flipside of this issue is that it is possible to falsely use the identity of a real person: identity theft. It’s a huge problem that is growing bigger all the time, sometimes aided by the very offices we trust to keep our personal information private. Identity theft is yet a third reason why ID cards should not be used as a tool to fight crime and terror.

If you have not yet read Bruce Schneier’s essay on the fact that ID cards can’t make us safer, you really should.

Cartoon Short Reel: The Zany Adventures of Economy and Education!

Oh that wacky Economy! He seems to be slowing down, and he doesn’t know why! Inflation is continuing to rise, and as much as he says it’s just energy costs, the core is up too, and worse yet worker’s wages aren’t keeping up! It looks like the mean old FOMC is gonna have to raise interest rates again! I wonder how Economy is gonna hide from the FOMC this time. And as if that isn’t enough bad news for poor old Economy, he’s managed to lose $2 Million Million dollars of investors’ money. It’s enough to give poor Economy a heart attack, but hilarity continues at the hospital, since “the nation’s emergency-care system is overcrowded and overwhelmed, ‘at its breaking point,’ concludes a major investigation….”

Meanwhile, silly Education has managed to get herself wedged between a policy that won’t meet its goals and a system that refuses to measure how far from the goal they are in the first place! Oh Education, how do you get yourself into these messes?

Oh, and a follow up on the President’s upcoming visit to the Seattle area.

*Not to muddy the issue, but the ID in question was of the type issued by the Mexican Consulate to Mexican citizens for identification purposes. To the best of my knowledge CNN is wrong that they are only issued to “illegal” aliens; that may be the de facto use as legal aliens would have other forms of ID available to them. Furthermore it was a fake consular ID! But the article mentions that “The cards are not valid for entry into federal government buildings.” A lot of people think we need to provide a valid way for illegal aliens to find legal jobs, but if they can’t enter a Federal government building, how can they possibly apply for any kind of normalized status?

Maybe you’ve heard about the 5 Generals who have publicly called for Rumsfeld to resign. And if you haven’t, here’s 7 quotes from Generals and the helpful backstory on why exactly they didn’t speak earlier. Oh, if you count Colin Powell, an 8th General who says mistakes were made. Generals don’t say bad things about superiors in public; they don’t contradict the boss. It just isn’t done. And since General Shinseki was, um, replaced, they are very cautious about saying things in private too. In fact, BuzzFlash goes so far as to call this a mutiny.

How far are they willing to go? And are current commanders thinking the same things their retired counterparts are saying? Are these public comments intended to be heard by the citizens, or are they a message to the current commanders?

On the economic front I bring you comments from the Secretary of the Treasury (who to me rather looks like a cartoon buzzard, but there you are). If you try to find the word “fiscal” you will jump to this mind-boggling quote:

Well, if you do the math, growing the public sector–that is, making government bigger–and achieving fiscal discipline, can only lead to one thing: higher taxes. And higher taxes always mean a larger role for government and a smaller role for the private sector. Is that the way we want to go? I don’t think so.

Yes, that’s right, the official government stance is that fiscal discipline is bad. Therefore increased deficit spending must be good. I wonder if he ran CSX this way… no, if he said this at a shareholder meeting or on CNBC the board of directors would have voted him out on the spot. True Conservatives, wake up! This administration does not stand for your values any more than they stand for those of the Progressives.

Today’s act comes to us from Cory Doctorow’s commentary on this commentary from security expert Bruce Schneier. As usual, Mr. Schneier thwaps us with reality, and it stings. There’s a lot of good material, but if I had to distill it to one quote, it would be this:

The terrorists’ goals have nothing to do with airplanes; their goals are to cause terror.

Airplane passenger screening as done in the United States is a failure; test after test proves it. It fails because of human boredom. It fails because we are using humans to do the job of a computer. It fails because it assumes that what has gone before is what will come again. It fails because the system is easily gamed. It fails because the system is aimed too broadly in the wrong direction.

What he does not say is that the system appears to be deliberately mind-numbing for passengers as well as screeners, that passengers are being desensitized to taking off their jackets and shoes and lining up to present their papers, that actually thinking about the system and its effectiveness is discouraged, that all the plans for a supposed get-out-of-the-security-line-free card involve paying a private company to investigate us. At the risk of sounding a little alarmist, the companies doing these checks are not constrained by the 4th and 5th Amendments to the Constitution — even if they were, you signed up for them to find out everything they can about you — and all the information they find will be turned over to the TSA, an agency of the United States Government.

Mr. Doctorow points out that you almost need nine hands to juggle everything in the security line. Maybe Shiva could make do.

In closing: corporate homewreckers; ” Bad developers, who constitute the majority of all developers worldwide, can write bad code in any language you throw at them”; “We don’t need no steenkin warrant”; and bookends on health care.

Want to read something scary?

Only one in four Americans can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment (freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition for redress of grievances.) But more than half can name at least two members of the cartoon family [“The Simpsons”], according to a survey.

No wonder we don’t mind watching our Constitutional rights slip away; too many of us don’t even know what our rights are. It gets worse: “About one in five people thought the right to own a pet was protected, and 38 percent said they believed the right against self-incrimination contained in the Fifth Amendment was a First Amendment right, the survey found.” Well, at least people know they have the right not to incriminate themselves, even if they are a little hazy on where that right comes from. You can read the whole Bill of Rights over at Cornell’s site, but if you don’t mind, I’d like to explore the First Amendment a little more:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Wikipedia tells us that “Originally, the Bill of Rights applied only to the federal government and not to the several state governments…. However, in 1925 with Gitlow v. New York, the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment (which had been adopted in 1868) made certain applications of the Bill of Rights applicable to the states. The Supreme Court then cited the Gitlow case as precedent for a series of decisions that made most of the provisions of the Bill of Rights applicable to the states.” So if you’d like to mentally say “The Government” where the original text says “Congress,” you would not be inaccurate. Let’s quickly look at our First Amendment rights:

Freedom of Religion means both freedom to believe whatever you want — and remember the Pilgrims were just the first of many people who came to this land looking for religious freedom — and freedom from Government dictated religion. Don’t try to argue that the Founding Fathers meant freedom to practice any kind of Christianity you like, because guys like Jefferson were well educated and knew about things like Mohammedans and the Salem Witch Trials. The same First Amendment that protects your right to practice any sect of Christianity protects your right to practice Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Satanism, Wicca, Shinto, Hinduism, Pastafarianism, or anything else you can think of. It furthermore protects all of us from the establishment of any sort of Holy Law, whether it is Sharia or Leviticus. The places where the practice of religion have been successfully superseded by the law are few, and dictated by an overriding good: in Texas it is not legal to withhold medical treatment from minors, regardless of whether the parents are Christian Science adherents; notwithstanding that some religions consider a young person to be an “adult” at 13 or so, it is still not legal to marry them off at this age. It is not a coincidence that both of these examples involve children; adults are free to do a lot of things, but they are not free to harm kids, even in the name of God.

Freedom of Speech or of the Press are kind of lumped together in the original text, so I will deal with them together. The right to say things and the right to publish what you say are closely related in any event. The Government cannot stop us from saying pretty much whatever we like, nor can they stop a newspaper from printing whatever they like. Period. The end. I fail to see how any kind of Government imposed “gag rule” can possibly be Constitutional unless issues of national security are involved. Nevertheless there are certain limits on this freedom that I think most of us can agree are a good thing: we can’t go around threatening people; we can’t incite violence or riots (the classic “Yelling fire in a crowded theatre” example); if we publish something that is demonstrably untrue, we should expect to be held accountable. However, when I say “held accountable” I mean correction statements or paying damages; we don’t normally put people in jail for publishing lies.

The right to peaceably assemble is in there too. We have the right to get together with our friends pretty much anyplace that we are allowed to be, as long as we play nice. So all those anti-loitering statutes stand on the shaky ground of assuming certain assembly to be not peaceable. And those “free speech zones” are a complete travesty. Freedom to gather together in protest is implicitly protected, again with the caveat that it must stay peaceful.

The right to petition the Government for redress of grievances is in my opinion one of the most underrated protections we have. This is the right to go to court, the right to say somebody did something wrong. And make no mistake about it, the First Amendment says the Congress and therefore the Government cannot take away your right to go to court. And here is why I think this right is underrated: Congress has passed several laws in recent years which either limit court review, or specifically say the law and/or actions of the Government cannot be challenged in court! The devil you say! Why aren’t the Jack McCoy’s of this nation standing up and challenging this affront to our liberties?

We must never forget that the First Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights was written by people who overthrew the legal Government.

What kinds of things could you do if you had $100,000?

Well, you could pay off most of the student loans of a newly graduated doctor.

You could hire 5 people at $20,000 for an entire year to do whatever the heck you want. Like, oh, i don’t know, help rebuild New Orleans.

Speaking of which, you could rebuild a house in New Orleans.

You could buy over 16,000 six-packs of decent beer.

You could buy a quarter of a million winter coats for homeless people.

You could buy 7 Chevy Aveos and have a different colored one for each day of the week.

You could take a few hundred of your closest friends to dinner and a movie. Actually, you might be able to do that twice.

You could give it to President Bush and become one of his “Pioneer” level campaign contributors.

You could give it to your local school district and help them buy things like books and computers.

Ok, that’s just a short list. Consider for a moment the idea of having that kind of money to spend or waste every minute of the day.

Well, that’s what the war in Iraq is costing us. Furthermore, we are spending more on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (bet you forgot about Afghanistan, huh?) this year than we have since the whole mess started in 2001.

I’m just sayin.

In closing, The Man who said No to Wal-Mart, the Truth about Universal Health Care, and the Squeeze on American Pocketbooks.