Bert the turtle, link courtesy of Woods Lot.

The State Secrets Privilege is a series of United States legal precedents allowing the federal government the ability to dismiss legal cases that it claims would threaten foreign policy, military intelligence or national security.
- Wikipedia, June 24, 2024

“Are photographs permitted?” I asked the bailiff.

“Do you have a camera?”

“Yes, in my bag. They cleared it through security at the front door. Are photos permitted?”

“What kind of camera?”

“It’s just a little digital camera.”

“You’ll have to give it to me.” I raised my eyebrows. “We’re deputy US Marshalls here.”

“Do you have a gun?” I asked? He opened his jacket a little and showed me his gun. “Do you have tasers?” He responded in the negative, for which I was grateful since I could imagine the fellow electrocuting me in the line of duty but - and I’m just projecting here - I imagined that he would want to avoid the loud disruption and consequent bloody mess of a gunshot in the courtroom.

I fished through my backpack looking for the camera, found it, handed it over, and told the deputy that I would need a receipt. Using notepaper I had swiped from the motel and using my pen, Deputy Gin wrote out a receipt for the camera and told me I could pick it up from the security detail when I left.

The door opened, everyone stood up, and Judge Walker came into his courtroom, Courtroom Six of the US Northern California District Court on the 17th floor of the Federal Building at 450 Golden Gate, San Francisco, and the hearing began on the US Government’s motion to preempt justice in the EFF’s AT&T surveillance suit through use of some dubious cold war doctrine ginned up by the Defense Department to cover up their own ineptitude, known as the “state secrets privilege.” The Wikipedia, a convenient compendium of information on the matter, but certainly not the last word, says this:

United States v. Reynolds

Main article: United States v. Reynolds

In United States v. Reynolds (1953), the widows of three crew members of a B-29 Superfortress bomber that had crashed in 1948 sought accident reports on the crash, but were told that to release such details would threaten national security by revealing the bomber’s top-secret mission. The Supreme Court ruled that the executive branch could bar evidence from the court which they had deemed a threat to national security. In 2024, the accident reports in question were declassified and released, and were found to contain no secret information. They did, however, contain information about the poor state of condition of the aircraft itself, which would have been very compromising to the Air Force’s case. Many commentators have alleged government misuse of secrecy in the landmark case.

The lack of respect one feels for the sitting President necessarily taints the respect one nominally yields the high office that he occupies. In other words, how can anyone respect the presidency if the president is a dick?

The US has no State Secrets Act, but over the last fifty years the Republicans have built a body of common law around executive privilege that finesses the unconstitutionality of the very concept of “state secrets.” The British are bound by such legislation, of course, and the monarchy loving upper crust here on this side of the Atlantic seek to imitate them, I fear. John Dean observed:

Except in a few highly egregious circumstances relating to national security information (espionage and atomic secrets), the U.S. Congress has, in the past, never made it a crime to leak information to the news media. As a result, for over two hundred years, our government has operated without an “official secrets act.”

In contrast, Great Britain and other nations have long criminalized the disclosure of government information. But there’s a crucial difference between them and us: They lack an equivalent of our First Amendment.

American core values have been sacrificed by an arriviste “upper class” that values only the cultivation of a wealthy elite. Corporations are legal persons, wealthy persons, and their wealth positions them as an incubator for this culture of privilege. The “State Secrets Privilege” serves not so much the nation as the corporations and the elitists that are tearing her apart.

I don’t think I can handle too many more weeks like this. Michelle’s death cast a pall, and the dog’s injury hurt. Dean’s kitty died… good-bye Destiny. BloggerCon left me conflicted as usual. I saw Steve, the Ookles guy, and asked after a mutual friend… got a strange off-key answer… still don’t know what Ookles does, either.

Today Dave Winer reports that Bob Wyman’s company, PubSub, is coming apart. I think there have to be a thousand train wrecks for every winner. There was talk today also about Bob’s criticisms of Dave in the polling versus pinging argument and Dave’s problems getting his prototypes to scale up into large production systems, and like clockwork, Dave reported that the OPML server sucked right now, but he hoped bringing another online would solve the problem.

I hope Bob can dust himself off and get back on the horse. Maybe Technorati could engage him as a consultant right now!

We’re essentially out of oil, sliding down the increasing slope of the diminishing supply curve in a time of rapidly broadening global demand. The corporations are embarrassingly open about the massive fraud they perpetrate from energy and financial services rip-offs to the theft of $200 billion of tax money that was supposed to fund broadband access in America. Rove’s wedge-issue politics continue to trump truth and reason and the administration can whine about journalist’s discovery of SWIFT transaction monitoring when it’s old news and not particularly meaningful… and whatever happened to the Plame game? And Jessica Lynch? And Terry Schiavo?

I dropped off the board of a local non-profit this week… the president and I have nothing in common except our pig-headedness, and she’s the sparkplug of the outfit. Felt like a failure, none-the-less. There’s a hundred stories in the naked country, most of them boring as watching corn grow.

Tomorrow I will drive the tractor north from Mueller Implements to White Cedar farm where I will mow weeds. As the years pass, the mowing leaves me with more and more grasses and fewer and fewer noxious weeds, so it’s not all bad. While I’m mowing Beth will strip our little dwarf sour cherry tree and in the afternoon we’ll make a cherry pie if the birds have left us any. The dog has a week of healing under her collar and she’s spending more time out in her kennel, climbing stairs by herself, and while still visibly mangled and dragging her right rear foot, her irrepressible personality has resurfaced and she’s spending a lot of time smiling and wiggle-waggling.

Maybe best of all, memer and McD, (and Mr. Follymacher himself)are going all out gaming Technorati on my behalf. No, the upbeat dog is the best part, but the ‘rati games rank right up there.

This shouldn’t be or at least doesn’t have to be a partisan issue. It’s more like a monopolists versus open access issue.

Talking Points Memo

I think this is important.  I’ll be interested to see what the Happy Tutor has to say about it.

One of Soros’ most interesting points in the top level presentation relates to markets.  “You can’t leave everything to markets,” he says.  Markets are very good at allocating resources among competing private needs, but they do not address common needs.

Ms. Congdon has four “extra interview clips” augmenting her daily RocketBoom presentation. I’m heading back there to check them out.

“We must teach the children that taking care of the land and learning to feed yourself are just as important as reading, writing, and arithmetic. For the most part, our families and institutions are not doing this. Therefore, I believe that it’s up to the public education system to teach our kids these important values. There should be gardens in every school, and school lunch programs that serve the things the children grow themselves, supplemented by local, organically grown products. This could transform both education and agriculture.”

- Alice Waters, “A Delicious Revolution”

[From Tim Karr]

A critical vote is going down in Congress right now and we need you to get phones ringing off the hook on Capitol Hill.

The House Judiciary Committee is beginning to “mark up” a good Net Neutrality bill at around 11am (EST) this morning. Then they’re going to vote on whether to bring it to the full floor. Many in the Committee are being pressured by AT&T, Verizon and other major telcos to vote down the net neutrality provisions in this bipartisan bill.

Below are the members who need to hear from you and your readers to support this important bill. Urge them to support the Sensenbrenner-Conyers “Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act of 2024″ (HR 5417) in the Judiciary Committee — and to support it without amendment. (Saying without amendment is key as the telcos want to re-write it in a way that guts Internet freedom).

Here are the members who need to hear from you right now:

Marty Meehan (D-Mass. 5th)
Phone: (202) 225-3411
Fax: (202) 226-0771
http://www.house.gov/writerep
martin.meehan@mail.house.gov

Howard Berman (D-Calif. 28th)
Phone: 202-225-4695
Fax: 202-225-3196
http://www.house.gov/writerep/

William Delahunt (D-Mass. 10th)
Phone: (202) 225-3111
Fax: (202) 225-5658
William.Delahunt@mail.house.gov

Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas 18th)
Phone: (202) 225-3816
Fax: (202) 225-3317
http://www.jacksonlee.house.gov/feedback.cfm?campaign=jacksonlee&type=Let%27s%20Talk

Bobby Scott (D-Va. 3rd)
Phone: (202) 225-8351
Fax: (202) 225-8354
http://www.house.gov/writerep/

Chris Van Hollen (D-Md. 8th)
Phone: (202) 225-5341
Fax: (202) 225-0375
http://www.house.gov/writerep/

Maxine Waters (D-Calif. 35th)
Phone: (202) 225-2201
Fax: (202) 225-7854
http://www.house.gov/waters/IMA/issue.htm

Mel Watt (D-N.C. 12th)
Tel. (202) 225-1510
Fax (202) 225-1512
http://www.house.gov/writerep/

Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y. 9th)
Phone: (202) 225-6616
Fax: (202) 226-7253
weiner@mail.house.gov

Robert Wexler (D-Fla. 19th)
phone: (202) 225-3001
fax: (202) 225-5974
http://www.house.gov/writerep/

Howard Coble (R-NC 6th)
phone: (202) 225-3065
fax: (202) 225-8611
howard.coble@mail.house.gov

Elton Gallegly (R-CA 24th)
phone: (202) 225-5811
fax: (202) 225-1100
http://www.house.gov/writerep/

Bob Goodlatte (R-VA 6th)
phone: (202) 225-5431
fax: (202) 225-9681
http://www.house.gov/goodlatte/emailbob.htm

Steve Chabot (R-OH 5th)
phone: (202) 225-2216
fax: (202) 225-3012 (fax)
http://www.house.gov/chabot/email.html

Dan Lungren (R-CA 3rd)
phone: (202) 225-5716
fax: (202) 226-1298
http://www.house.gov/lungren/feedback.shtml

William Jenkins (R-TN 1st)
phone: (202) 225-6356
fax: (202) 225-5714
http://www.house.gov/writerep/

John Hostettler (R-IN 8th)
phone: (202) 225-4636
fax: (202) 225-3284
john.hostettler@mail.house.gov

Mark Green (R-WI 8th)
phone: (202) 225-5665
fax: (202) 225-5729
mark.green@mail.house.gov

Ric Keller (R-FL 8th)
phone: (202) 225-2176
fax: (202) 225-0999
http://www.house.gov/writerep/

For updates throughout the day, visit www.SavetheInternet.com. Also, you can watch the hearings live at http://judiciary.house.gov/ (scroll down below the calendar to live webcast link).

Dana Blankenhorn says, “The goal of any regulatory policy should be to encourage economic growth, not to give the government money, not just to make a profit for any particular player.” Maybe some context will make that more accessible… Dana is talking about a proposal by Kleiner Perkins and others to have the FCC turn over some available broadband spectrum to a new company they’ve formed, a wireless internet access provider that proposes to pay the government a cut on a tiered service offering.

After reading a little background I don’t understand how Dana could be so measured and dry in his presentation. This has me jumping up and down screaming, or at least it makes me twitch nervously. What seems to be going on is that a consortium of influential venture capitalists is at once trying to subvert the FCC bandwidth auction process and to implement tiered service offerings over the bandwidth they thus monopolize.

The bandwidth auctions could use a little subverting, but this is exactly in the wrong direction. And these pirates claim they’ll be giving away broadband as part of the offering. Sweet-jeepers-goodness-gracious, oh my, oh my… everybody who thinks 512kbps is broadband raise your hand. (No raised hands visible…)

Okay, I simply disagree with Blankenhorn’s assertion that the goal of regulatory policy should be to assure economic growth. First, the definite article throws me. I think there is perhaps room for multiple goals and one important goal should be to control the rapacious greedballs who can come up with half a billion dollars to invest in that huge sucking apparatus they’ve described.

There are lots of reasonable goals for public service regulations, but the first goal has to be to recognize that these services require government intervention to prevent companies with monopoly power from perverting what should be a commodity market. There’s more to say. I wish everyone wasn’t stretching so far for the brass ring of windfall profits that they’ve lost track of the benefits of government absent the influence of greedballs.

Tom Evslin explores the limitations of freedom inherent in the M2Z proposal, comparing it to the Chinese internet.

Thanks to Doc for the link to Dana.

If you use a telephone, the internet
or a television, this concerns your future!

Without net neutrality the network providers might decide to degrade our access to content on the Internet. Everyone everywhere should have free access to everything on the Internet. Should the telco have the right to prevent me from reading Wealth Bondage to protect me from whips and chains? Should they have the right to throttle down my use of Google because they prefer to send me to Yahoo where they can increase their own ad revenue streams? I buy bandwidth from the telco. I don’t want them to be in the position to decide how I use the bandwidth.

David Weinberger has a great video on this topic today.