•Keith John Sampson, a student and janitor at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis was seen reading a book called “Notre Dame vs. the Klan” — about Notre Dame University’s clash with the antiCatholic KKK — by a black coworker who complained to the school authorities that reading a book about the KKK was a form of racial harassment. Unfortunately, the university sided with the complainant, telling Sampson not to read the book at work again, though officials generously decided not to initiate any punishment.
I could understand the coworker jumping to conclusions and complaining about Sampson, but for the university to agree with the complaint? Unless some hidden dimension comes up to the story, that’s amazingly idiotic.
•Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern on homosexuality: “Studies show, no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted for more than, you know, a few decades. . .
I honestly think it’s the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam.”
What can one say except no, it isn’t? But bonus stupid points to Kern for identifying Islam, not just terrorism, as a threat to America.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on the show 24 and Jack Bauer’s use of torture: “Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. … He saved hundreds of thousands of lives …Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?” Scalia subsequently goes on to say how pleased he was with one sequence where Bauer convinces a terrorist that unless he talks, his family will be executed.

This wouldn’t be worthy of discussion if Scalia hadn’t told the BBC last month that he not only thinks torture acceptable when lives are in imminent danger–the “ticking bomb” scenario–but once you accept that, you have to consider it valid to use torture on people for general information (I’ll be discussing this further in Saturday’s column).

Actually, no we don’t. As someone once put it, it’s possible to come up with a situation in which you have to kill a child to save hundreds of lives—let’s say because a terrorist with a nuclear bomb is using the kid as a shield while he presses the detonator. It does not therefore follow that this makes shooting children in other situations (or like Jack Bauer, threatening to shoot them) an alternative that should be considered.

And then we have Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff saying “I thought that there was one element of the shows that at least I found very thought-provoking, and I suspect, from talking to people, others do as well… I think when people watch the show, it provokes a lot of thinking about what would you do if you were faced with this set of unpalatable alternatives, and what do you do when you make a choice and it turns out to be a mistake … It’s very easy in hindsight to go back after a decision and inspect it and examine why the decision should have been taken in the other direction. But when you are in the middle of the event, as the characters in ‘24′ are, with very imperfect information and with very little time to make a decision, and with the consequences very high on a wrong decision, you have to be willing to make a decision recognizing that there is a risk of mistake.”

In other words, we can’t wait to prove all those enemy combatants are innocent because if they’re guilty and if there’s a bomb out there and if we don’t torture them to find out what they know then something bad might happen so anyone who objects to Bush authorizing the torture of innocent people obviously hates America and loves bin Laden. So there.

I watch 24, I like 24. But I don’t watch it because it makes me think about the ethics and legality of the use of torture in real life, any more than people who watch The Punisher are intrigued by the ethics of when to resort to vigilante justice. I watch it because it’s entertaining and well-made enough and fictional, none of which is the case with real torture. And for all the pretense it confronts us with serious issues about torture, it’s pointedly avoided many of them: Nobody has ever given a false confession to stop the pain or made up information, for instance.

As for the “Would you prosecute Jack Bauer?” question, I think if a CIA agent actually did save LA from a nuclear bomb by the use of torture, no jury in the country would convict him. But Chertoff to the contrary, we’re not dealing with ticking-bomb cases under the current administration, we’re dealing with the Maybe there’s a bomb, Maybe they know something, Maybe the consequences of not torturing will be bad.

That’s not good enough. Not for America.

CIA Director Michael Hayden on the use of waterboarding and other torture techniques: “The agency applied its methods of questioning when other techniques did not work and when a captured terrorist had more information that could save innocent lives.”

Even assuming Hayden sincerely thinks this is true, let’s remember this administration has assured us that the enemy combatants in Gitmo were “the worst of the worst,” even though some of them were there by mistake.

We sent an innocent man, Maher Arar to Syria to be tortured for a year.

The CIA held a man in Germany for three months until they realized they had the wrong man.

We’ve picked up “enemy combatants” on the say-so of people who had personal grudges against them.

So I’m extremely skeptical of our government’s ability to know, for a fact, that everyone they capture and torture has vital information—and “could save” is pretty much an admission we’re not necessarily talking about a ticking-bomb scenario here.

Three cheers to Congress for banning the CIA’s use of torture. And if Bush veto’s the bill, as he’s said he would, it will be one more item to add to his list of shameful decisionss.

The blog Global Guerillas discusses the chief guerilla leader/insurgent in Nigera who has allegedly been arrested recently (that is, someone’s been arrested, allegedly it’s him).

The man appears to have come up with startling innovations, such as recruiting mercenaries—Nigeria is rife with them—as needed by calling their cellphones. No organization to break up, no meetings to infiltrate, no network to destroy, just an ad hoc group of killers, something much harder to break up, take down or destroy.

Our government has deservedly taken a lot of flak for focusing on “terrorist states” rather than non-governmental groups or lone operators like Eric Rudolph (Dick Cheney was quoted as saying it makes sense to go after nations because it’s easier to find targets—he’s wrong, it doesn’t). What if, by the time we adapt to fighting terrorist networks, networks are a thing of the past?

I hope someone in our security establishment is thinking of possibilities like this.

The Earth Liberation Front apparently just burned down four homes in an expensive Seattle neighborhood. While the homes were supposed to be eco-friendly, there have also been complaints they’ll harm a nearby salmon habitat.

While not as destructive or murderous–at least to date–as Islamic and far-right terrorists, the ELF are bad enough. And a reminder, once again, that no amount of fighting in the Middle East will keep terrorism from destroying stuff over here.

A letter we received today told me that instead of being so critical of Bush, I should give him credit for keeping us safe the past eight years.
Eight years? Hmm, can the writer remember one very unsafe incident that happened oh, 6.5 years ago? Around September of 2001, say? Then followed by anthrax attacks that killed five people, with the perpetrator never identified or captured?
I’m sure if she thinks about it, the memories will kick in.

Colorado Republican U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard:”And the House has just simply said, we’re not going to accept this, because we want to have, you know, terrorists be able to sue phone companies if they’re listening to our conversations. It’s insane.”

Not that Republicans play politics with terrorism and domestic security, of course.

(both this and the previous post made liberal use of Glenn Greenwald’s blog which is an excellent source on the Bush administration’s disregard of the law.

In a letter to to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and Attorney General Michael Mukasey, make the usual fearmongering complaints that if the House doesn’t pass the new warrantless eavesdropping bill Bush wants, America Is Defenseless.

When Reyes pointed out that the administration can still carry out warrantless surveillance for 72 hours in emergencies, McConnell and Mukasey wrote: “You imply that the emergency authorization process under FISA is an adequate substitute for the legislative authorities that have elapsed. This assertion reflects a basic misunderstanding about FISA’s emergency authorization provisions. Specifically, you assert that the National Security Agency (NSA) or Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) ‘may begin surveillance immediately’ in an emergency situation. FISA requires far more, and it would be illegal to proceed as you suggest.”

Right. An administration which was conducting warrantless surveillance from 2001 - 2006 in defiance of the law and has repeatedly illegally used “national security letters” to obtain information is now claiming that its respect for the law is tying its hands in fighting the terrorists?

Of course, if this represented a change of heart from the White House, rather than another rationalization for increasing Bush’s powers (because if the government refuses to break the law, Islamofascists could yes, break in and kill us in our sleep!), that would be a welcome thing. But I find myself oddly skeptical. Go figure.

The latest on the wireless eavesdropping bill that expired last weekend — the one without which, according to Bush, we’re blind and deaf to terrorist attacks — is that Republicans refused to let their staffers meet with Democratic staffers on a compromise bill this week.

The reason? Bush says he won’t accept any compromise on giving telecommunications companies immunity from lawsuits over allegedly breaking the law by giving the government Americans’ phone records: “I would just tell you there’s no compromise on whether these phone companies get liability protection.”

But I thought our survival depended on passing this bill? The Heritage Foundation even put up a clock on its Web site showing how long it’s been since this vital legislation expired. And yet Bush would sooner let this life-saving tool of surveillance die, sooner let us be murdered in our beds by terrorists, than let AT&T get sued?

A number of Republicans grumbled when the bill expired that the “Islamofascists” must be cheering. I guess now they’re cheering Bush, huh?

Bush, Saturday, on the House’s refusal to pass a surveillance bill he wanted: “At midnight, the attorney general and the director of National Intelligence will be stripped of their power to authorize new surveillance against terrorist threats abroad … We may lose a vital lead that could prevent an attack on America.”
Wow, am I terrified. It’s amazing the Islamofascists haven’t blown us all up in our beds already since we can no longer eavesdrop … oh, wait, silly me, I’m acting like the president is telling the truth.
The facts are, the FISA already in place allow America to eavesdrop on terrorists as much as we wish; we can even apply for a warrant 72 hours after surveillance starts.
The bill in Congress is about liberalizing the rules to allow more spying with no warrants or oversight at all. And that’s always a bad thing, because our government’s fondness for spying on its own people—easy to do if there’s no oversight—goes back long before the current regime.
In the second place, as I noted in an earlier post, if this bill isn’t passed, it’s the White House’ fault. The House wanted an extension; Bush refused to grant it. The House has some reservations about giving telecommunications company amnesty for illegally turning over phone records at the White House’ orders, and Bush refused and rejected several compromise proposals.
I’ve no doubt all the rightwingers who blog, write columns and deluge the Daily News with letters about how the Islamofascists are coming to kill us are now throbbing with outrage about our president’s failure to negotiate a compromise on such a vital, important issue—oh, who am I kidding?