Roundup of News

I don’t have much time today, so here are some other stories:

•  The government in Myanmar has cracked down on the protests led by monks.  So far there have not been too many deaths, compared to the crackdown in 1988.  Is this a hopeful sign?  Another possibly hopeful sign is that China is criticizing Myanmar.  But both could easily change–the government certainly seems willing to do whatever it takes and China would have to really act to make a difference.  Unfortunately, I’m not optimistic.
• The leader of the Mormon sect who forced a 14 year old to marry her cousin was convicted and the cousin has now been charged with rape.
• The Senate has added a provision to the defense authorisation bill to extend hate-crime protection to sexuality. I’m not sure if this is the complete argument against it:

Opponents of expanding the hate-crime protections say that the proposal would be bad public policy and would encroach on free speech, and that it is redundant anyhow because local laws already cover such crimes.

but if it is, it’s not very convincing.  The problem is that crimes against homosexuals are not always prosecuted, in other words crimes are not being prosecuted in some areas–this is bad public policy. The law only applies for acts, so the free speech argument doesn’t make sense either.

Another Reason We Need Net Neutrality

Verizon Wireless has said it will not allow NARAL to use a group text message program, because:

it does not accept programs from any group “that seeks to promote an agenda or distribute content that, in its discretion, may be seen as controversial or unsavory to any of our users.”

This type of thing has happened before:

Professor Wu pointed to a historical analogy. In the 19th century, he said, Western Union, the telegraph company, engaged in discrimination, based on the political views of people who sought to send telegrams. “One of the eventual reactions was the common carrier rule,” Professor Wu said, which required telegraph and then phone companies to accept communications from all speakers on all topics.

This is not true for text messages right now.  Some argue it’s not necessary:

“Instead of having the government get in the game of regulating who can carry what, I would get in the game of promoting as many options as possible,” said Christopher S. Yoo, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “You might find text-messaging companies competing on their openness policies.”

The problem is that there are only a few main wireless companies and that it’s difficult to everybody using the same carrier.  And it is obviously a problem because Verizon, one of the largest carriers, does censor.  As we move onto questions about Net neutrality, remember that companies have shown that they will censor in the past (I know the issue with Net neutrality is a bit different, but it still partially comes down to an issue of trust).

Update: I really should check before I post, it now appears that Verizon has changed it’s mind.  That’s good, but it doesn’t change the issue–do companies have the right to censor text messages (Verizon still claims they do).

Mercenaries in Iraq

TPM has an interesting article that looks at the reason there are so many private contractors and problems they might cause.  The main reason there are so many is because this administration believes in privatization, so they try to move some of the duties of the army to private sources (it also looks good politically since there are fewer government troops in Iraq). There are a few main problems:

1. There is more than one command structure–the private contractors are not under the Pentagon’s command and act independently. This can, and has, lead to mixed priorities.
2. There is tension between the two groups because the pay is unequal (the private contractors are paid quite a bit more–privatization is supposed to be able to do the job more cheaply, is that really true here?).  This has lead to resentment in the military and ‘recruiting’ of current soldiers by the private contractors (as the article notes, the Secretary of Defense is thinking about putting a no-compete clause in military contracts).
3. The contractors are seen, rightly, as contractors and Iraqis see them as out of control–the situation with Blackwater is seen as ‘worse than Abu Ghraib’.

Another example of the problems is looked at in this article which notes that number of shooting incidents for Blackwater is double that of the other two firms working for the State Department.  This could be due to differences in their assignments (if Blackwater is better at security they will be given the more difficult assignments), but it could also be because they are more aggressive. The reason it’s hard to tell is that there is no authority over both of them–these companies are not liable under Iraq or US laws and the Pentagon has only recently started to assert some authority.

A Bit of Good News From the Courts

This isn’t the end of it, of course it will work it’s way up to the Supreme Court, but a couple of decisions have said that some provisions of the Patriot act are unconstitutional.

Even better, the judge found that it was obvious:

Mayfield claimed that secret searches of his house and office under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act violated the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure. Aiken agreed with Mayfield, repeatedly criticizing the government.

“For over 200 years, this Nation has adhered to the rule of law _ with unparalleled success. A shift to a Nation based on extra-constitutional authority is prohibited, as well as ill-advised,” she wrote.

By asking her to dismiss Mayfield’s lawsuit, the judge said, the U.S. attorney general’s office was “asking this court to, in essence, amend the Bill of Rights, by giving it an interpretation that would deprive it of any real meaning. This court declines to do so.”

The article also mentions a case where an internet company went to court to protest the gag rule of a NSL:

The judge in that case ruled the FBI must justify to a court the need for secrecy for more than a brief and reasonable period of time.

There are a lot of other cases wending their way through the system, so maybe more of the most egregious parts of the Patriot act will be struck down.  Of course, if a Democrat is elected president there might be a more general change.

World Cup: Germany and Brazil

Wow, the US team hasn’t lost in a few years and they lost 4-0.  Brazil is obviously very good (although they had trouble against Australia).

The final is Sunday with Brazil against Germany (seems like a men’s final).  Both teams have been playing well, so it should be an interesting final.