The long weekend following a week out of town at a conference is over. It’s time to get back to work for the first time in almost two weeks (I took a couple days off before the conference to get ready to leave town), and I’m trying to struggle back into the groove that’s required to get work done. It helps a big that the Saints are mostly in town on weekends this month, so I won’t have too many distractions during the week, but I’ve got (once again) a backlog of stuff to deal with this morning. Guess there’s nothing for it but to dive in.
- Dudley Hiibel tells his story again in He fought the law, and the law won. It’s a nice, clear, well-written explanation of what his court-case was about, and why his loss is a loss for all of us. [endwar]
- Why do I think that being asked to identify yourself to the police is so bad? Well, because of the Wireless Devices Help Police Fight Crime by looking up far too much information based on just your name. [claire]
- The story of Purna Raj Bajracharya, In F.B.I., Innocent Detainee Found Unlikely Ally, is pretty sad. It’s nice that the FBI agent who initially hauled him in helped him out, but I don’t think that’s enough. He shouldn’t have been imprisoned in the first place, and it should never have been made secret. We don’t have Secret Police in the America I want to live in. [endwar]
- Bruce Schneier covers the same topic in Unchecked police and military power is a security threat, because
Surely none of us wants to live under a government with the right to arrest anyone at any time for any reason, and to hold them without trial indefinitely.
Sometimes I wonder. There are far too many people who seem willing to give the government whatever power it asks for if it promises to make them feel safe. - Bruce also explains how new laws are CLEARly muddying the fight against terror, turning local police into La Migra. The problem is that doing so will make illegals less likely to call the police about other problems, and probably won’t help much against terrorism.
- Charles Green: I write badly, therefore I am a would-be terrorist. He wrote something about a bomb (talking about the quality of his book) while on an airplane. It’s worse than he thinks, though. They’re doing similar security checks on Greyhound now, too. [usual suspects]
- The Fully Informed Jury Association offers Doing Your Best as a Trial Juror: Surviving Voir Dire explaining how to get onto a jury if you are summoned, rather than being tossed for understanding what jury nullification means. [endwar]
- The Muse of Malaise reviews The Real Jimmy Carter: How Our Worst Ex-President Undermines American Foreign Policy, Coddles Dictators, and Created the Party of Clinton and Kerry ISBN:0895260905. I wish I’d had this review on hand when we were discussing who the worst president of our lifetimes was over beers a few weeks back. Heck, just mentioning
stagflation
might have swayed the discussion. That alone could easily make himworst since Hoover.
[kim]