Morgan Wilson: politics

gated information and the role of libraries

Wed, 23 Jul 2003 14:22:53 GMT

Recently I got access to digital cable – it’s not something that I pay for, but is a nice perk provided by my generous landlady. It made me realize that I am on the über-privileged side of the digital divide: hundreds of TV channels, broadband internet connection. I also have access to non-public material sites such as on Salon and AOL Then through my work I have Westlaw and Lexis passwords, and free interlibrary loans – within reason.

My point isn’t to brag, but I can say that I have access to a lot of stuff which is out of reach of less privileged people. Before I had access, I had no idea of the type of things that I was missing. I’m disturbed to see how effective technology has been in separating information from the haves and have-nots. Ten years ago in Australia, there was no pay-TV and barely a world-wide web (and what there was limited to educational and scientific purposes). The main sources of information were printed publications and the free broadcast media of radio and TV. I know printed magazines and journals have never been exactly cheap, but many of these were freely usable in public and academic libraries.

Is there any way of categorizing information as essential or non-essential information? I wonder if there are some types of information – particularly legal and governmental - which all people have a right to access and use in a free society. Especially when society says that ignorance is no excuse for not obeying the law and everyone has equal rights & duties in the political process, irrespective of their income. So does mean that everything else would be non-essential information – entertainment for which it is entirely fair that people pay for. I’m not sure if there’s a clear dividing line between what’s essential and what’s entertaining. For example, national (and especially local) news provide information without which it would be very difficult to participate in the political process, but they also contain entertainment sections. And if news is essential, then what about magazines or lifestyle programmes aimed at particular groups – women, men, different ethnic groups – these may contain more entertainment than news, but what news they cover might be the only way that their particular constituents access any news.

Another quandry is with the arts, sciences and other academic disciplines. If it’s in society’s interests that all people are able to make advances in the arts, sciences and other fields of learning, how is this possible if only elites have access to this material? Are we saying that only the elites – those with the means to pay for this material – have anything to contribute in these areas and that the poor deserve to shut out? Or do we think that great art can happen in a vacuum and that it is not necessary to know of what’s been tried before?

The point of all these unanswerable questions is that libraries are the buffer zones – or safety net, if you want a different metaphor – of the digital information divide. Fund public libraries adequately, and you won’t need to answer these questions about who is worthy enough to receive which information. Most importantly, libraries are no longer about books. They are just not about books, microfiche, videos, audio tapes, CDs, DVDs or online databases – important as all these things are. Libraries are repositories of information, in whatever form. In an ideal world (and I am allowed to be idealistic and naive sometimes), libraries would collect all useful information which has been broadcast (via TV, radio or the web) and is not otherwise available in fixed formats, such as tapes or discs produced by the broadcaster. </idealism>: Of course, this is not going to happen because of two big reasons. Firstly, libraries are currently too understaffed and underfunded to imagine adding this to their workload. Secondly, this would be against existing copyright laws.

wondering about big media biases (with a postscript about left & right tactics)

Wed, 23 Jul 2003 14:18:41 GMT

I wrote earlier about the unlikely story of how I first experimented with AOL. I’m surprised to say that I still use it from time to time – on a plan which gives me a very small number of dialup access hours. The reason is that now my iBook doesn’t seem to work well with any other dialup ISP. I would be tempted to think that this is something that AOL did to my computer, except that I remember that this problem predated the first time that I used AOL. It’s probably a hardware problem – but because most of the time I use a broadband connection without any problems on my iBook – I’m reluctant to send it in if it’s not really urgent.

My first use of AOL coincided with the beginning of the Iraq war. At the time I noticed a real pro-war bias in the way the war news was reported. It’s interesting to see how this has changed lately.

Last week, they reprinted Salon’s article about John Mellencamp and patriotism.

Am I paranoid to wonder if AOL Time Warner decided to pander to the government’s dogs of war in the lead up to the execrable FCC decision about media ownership, to show the Republicans in power that big media could be supportive of their interests? And that now the FCC rules have been released, AOL Time Warner can be a little more centrist (definitely not left-wing).

Postscript: Along with the Salon article, AOL had one of their ubiquitous polls. The question was along the lines of “Who is more patriotic? – a) the Left, b) the Right, c) Neither – each side is patriotic but they have different opinions.” My recollection of the result was that almost 50% answered “C” for neither, 40% answered “B” for the Right and a measly 10% chose “A” for the Left.

I chose the Neither answer – because I do think that many of the Right-wingers genuinely care for their country, even if their methods or goals are misguided. My reading of this poll – and be assured that I don’t put too much stock in its results – is that people on the left are more reasonable and are mature enough to admit that the other side might sometimes have a point, or at least a legitimate concern. Whereas people on the right (I choose not to call them Conservatives because they a radical agenda of tearing up long-standing social supports and threatening civil liberties) are more fanatical – and refuse to see any good in their opponents or flaws in themselves. I know, it’s kind of petty to be fighting over the high moral ground but it’s still legitimate point. What do you do against an opponent who refuses to play fairly? Do you to stick to your principles and lose (praying that someday the wrongs will be righted) – or adopt their rough-handed tactics in the hope of beating them at their own game?

patriotism corrupted

Wed, 16 Jul 2003 05:28:05 GMT

I did take one little vacation to Iowa, south eastern Iowa to be exact. I attended my first ever Fourth of July parade in the small town of Morningsun. I enjoyed the experience, although it made me feel very much like the foreigner (or resident alien, as the INS prefers to call me). I was struck by the sense of community that I saw. I have never seen so many John Deere tractors in a single day, or beautifully restored old cars, beauty queens of all ages or American flags. Almost every single car or person in the parade bore an American flag, usually with a slogan such as “Support Our Troops!” Sometimes there was a variation, such as “Support our troops, they support you!” Other slogans mentioned the words Freedom and Liberty in connection with the supporting the troops. At this moment, I felt very bad for my American friends who went to the parade with me. They had no Real Freedom or Liberty to say anything like, “Support Our Troops, Bring Them Home!” without being shunned and excoriated by their community. Of course, they could think such thoughts, but that would be setting themselves against the clear message that their community was saying in this parade. The message was that patriotism means wholeheartedly supporting President George W. Bush’s decision to liberate (i.e., invade and occupy) Iraq. It must be hard to love one’s country when patriotism has been hijacked and defined to be jingoistic warmongering. So when did being a true American become reduced to loyally supporting the nation’s secretive and deceitful leaders? I may be an idealistic foreigner, but wouldn’t the true spirit of the Fourth of July involve demonstrating independence of thought from one’s leaders, as did the signatories of the declaration of independence? This travesty made me feel glad that I’m Australian, where there is a long-celebrated tradition of taking the piss out of our leaders, whether in good times or bad. (“taking the piss” might be described as irreverently putting people back in their place)

Music: Liz Phair, Liz Phair, Insanity

my thoughts on government-mandated web filtering in public libraries

Wed, 25 Jun 2003 02:05:34 GMT

It almost goes without saying that I think that this decision is wrong. Another example of the US Supreme Court being split down the middle with Justice O’Connor being the swing vote that gave the conservatives another thin majority. I hope that history judges the Rehnquist Supreme Court as harshly as it judges Dredd Scott.

That said, I do think that this is a difficult issue. I don’t want weird people viewing porn and wanking over the keyboards where I work! It horrifies me how the most innocuous search term in a search engine -- or mistyped URL can lead to some very nasty results. This may sound like heresy to some librarians, but I don’t think the status quo was working well. Something needed to be done, but I think CIPA went way too far. It’s wrong to make everybody (meaning the less privileged teens & adults on the other side of the digital divide who can’t afford their own internet access) view the internet through the filter of what’s appropriate for a child. Even the Supreme Court admits this, but says that it’s sufficient that an adult can request to have the filters temporarily turned off. A commentator on today’s FutureTense (I must give a link to this Minnesota production) was correct when he mentioned how people will be very reluctant to ask library staff to have the “porn filters” turned off.

So I call on all adult library patrons to thwart this paternalistic Supreme Court decision to demand that filters be turned off when they visit their public library. Not so you can look at porn, but just so that you can use the internet that hasn’t been filtered or dumbed-down or bowdlerized (now that’s a word that’s due for a revival!). Any librarian worth her or his salt would be happy to turn off the filters for this reason. Don’t expect such a positive reaction if you actually are planning on looking at porn in a public library.

Whenever I get a minute, I should reread some jurisprudence. The law is only one means (the very official and blunt tool) for governing people’s behaviour. There are also personal ethics and social mores. I would hazard to guess that although most librarians would fight for your legal right to read anything you want, they would not be thrilled about somebody viewing porn in a their library or any other public place. Generally, social restraints are more pervasive but less enforceable than legal rules. That is why there is a danger when conservatives want all their social mores embodied in the law. There is a place for socially disapproved but legal behaviour. It is a murky area which is both a nasty cesspool and a helpful compost heap – which is fertile for humour, self-analysis and new ideas. Furthermore, there is something about the smell of this cesspool/compost heap which keeps the Borg of Conformity & Tyranny at bay. Because as soon as you want the law to mirror social mores – the first issue is who’s mores get chosen. Because that’s the thing, although a lot of social mores are held in common, they are not uniform. And although in a democracy, the majority has the right to do what it wants according to its constitutional powers, it would be very dangerous for a majority to use the its power to impose all of its social mores on everyone else – whether that majority happens to been in Parliament / Congress or the Supreme court.

Lost opportunities for Australian progressives

Thu, 12 Jun 2003 02:57:48 GMT

Why aren't Australians more outraged about non-existent Iraqi WMDs? As this Sydney Morning Herald article points out, compared to what's going on in Washington and London, there's been basically no fall-out in Canberra over this issue.

This is surprising considered how strong the opposition to this war was in Australia. Before the war, opinion polls showed a large majority of Australians opposed the miltary action in Iraq. The many public demonstrations against the war indicated the level of opposition - and that this was a very broad-based mainstream opposition.

There was a strong view that John Howard, Australia's sycophantic Prime Minister was vulnerable on this issue - for dragging the country into this crusade, and misleading the country about this commitment. I was in Australia in January and heard him say that he hadn't yet decided on Australia's commitment, even as Australian troops were being sent to the Persian Gulf.

One explanation is that the Australian Labor Party (ALP) has been just as timid and ineffectual an opposition party as the Democrats in the US. In fact, during the past month, they have been even worse than their American counterparts, because they have been preoccupied with the Simon Crean / Kim Beazley struggle over the party leadership.

It is really sad that at a time when they could really be punishing the John Howard over dragging the country into war under false pretences, as well as the whole Governor-General debacle, they are in the midst of this pointless leadership spill. It would be different if I knew that real policy differences were at stake in this contest. But the internal debate is primarily about form ("that Kim Beazley has a better rapport with the Australian people than Simon Crean") rather than substance. I know that Kim Beazley is at the very Right of the ALP (think Joe Lieberman, except that Beazley has already lost 2 elections to John Howard) and so generally I would prefer Simon Crean, but if Crean is gutless, it doesn't really matter what he thinks, does it?

Oh well, at least Australia has a viable and growing green party, and an electoral system which minimizes the "wasted vote" syndrome.

contact your Representatives and Senators about the Public Domain Enhancement Act

Wed, 04 Jun 2003 12:54:29 GMT

reclaiming the public domain. We have launched a petition to build support for the Public Domain Enhancement Act. That act would require American copyright holders to pay $1 fifty years after a work was published. If they pay the $1, the copyright continues. If they don't, the work passes into the public domain. Historical estimates would suggest 98% of works would pass into the pubilc domain after 50 years. The Act would do a great deal to reclaim a public domain. This proposal has received a great deal of support. It is now facing some important lobbyists' opposition. We need a public way to begin to demonstrate who the lobbyists don't speak for. This is the first step. If you are an ally in at least this cause, please sign the petition. Please blog it, please email it, please spam it, please buy billboards about it -- please do whatever you can. And most importantly, please help us explain its importance. There is a chance to do something significant here. But it will take a clearer, simpler voice than mine. [Lessig Blog]

dissecting arguments for investigating library patron information under the Patriot act

Wed, 21 May 2003 06:56:16 GMT

ALA Aiding And Abetting Terrorists. Gerry writes "David Horowitz's FrontPageMag, dedicated to rooting out the fifth columns, left-liberals and hate-American conspirators among us, turns its withering gaze to LIBRARIANS.....
Please have some fun baiting true believers in the comments forum. "

At least they admit ALA librarians are not the quiet, unassuming stereotypes you see on TV and in the movies, but they go on to say while the ALA ostensibly wants to protect the First Amendment rights of all people to read what they want, they themselves seem to have not read the USA PATRIOT Act and its guarantees to protect First Amendment Rights. [LISNews.com]

Maybe it's my legal background, but I'm always interested in dissecting a controversy into the exact areas of disagreement. Although I heartily disagree with almost everything written in this article (authored by Paul Walfield), I find that it illuminates very clearly the differences in the two viewpoints.

"The idea is simple; terrorists use things like airliners against us. Now, we make it harder for them to do that by federalizing airline checkers, and putting marshals on planes and beefing up airline security in general. The Feds want to do the same for terrorists that use our libraries." Let's develop this argument a little further. The terrorists didn't just use airlines and libraries (allegedly) against the US - they exploited weaknesses inherent in an open, democratic society - freedom of association and movement, freedom of thought, and freedom to read. Let's cut to the chase - 9/11 wouldn't have happened in a police state without those freedoms. Does this mean that these fundamental human rights are to blame for the tragedy and must be curtailed? Of course, even John Ashcroft is not going to admit to that, but we live in an age of doublespeak. So instead of abrogating these freedoms, they attack the tangible institutions and professionals which protect these abstract ideas - in the name of patriotism and preserving the American way of life. The danger is that human rights expressed in the constitution become meaningless because there are no ways of protecting infringements of those rights by the executive branch of government.

"The librarians say they will not break the "sacred" trust between a patron and a librarian. The American Library Association seems to view this bond as literally sacred." This has to be the most offensive part of Walfield's article, the way that he scoffs at the idea of librarian's ethics in general, and librarian-patron confidentiality in particular. Without this confidentiality, we librarians could report all patron borrowing, reading and web surfing habits to the government - or sell this information to marketers. Everything you read will be on the record somewhere (but not accessible to you), and people will make inferences about your beliefs and security risks from this - without any input from you or any ways of fixing errors or erroneous assumptions.

"She didn't explain that when you take a book out of the library, you are giving up any right to privacy. The employees at Santa Cruz know what their people check out but will not allow our government to know the same ..." Does Walfield really think that because library employees might know what a patron is reading or borrowing, that patrons have given up all their rights to privacy? And that the government might as well know everything too? That's like saying that there's no such thing as medical privacy because doctors and nurses might know your medical information. Well, I'm glad that I can clarify that this is another reason why we emphasize librarian-patron confidentiality in our professional ethics. We know that this information is potentially very sensitive - not unlike medical records - and we take pains to be very careful with it. Library-patron confidentiality is not something which we invented after 9/11 so we could be a thorn in the side of the Bush administration and advance our left-wing agenda. My mother was an academic librarian in the 1970s and this was as central to librarianship then as it is now.

"[The Patriot Act] prohibits the government from doing anything that would infringe on an individual's First Amendment right." Yes, that's how the law is written on its face. But in effect, this protection is meaningless. It's up to the FBI to decide if they may be infringing on your first amendment rights. The only restraint on the over-zealous investigator is at a secret summary hearing where you will not be represented. Even if the secret judges do care whether an investigatee's first amendment rights are protected, it is very difficult for them to do so, because they are only told the would-be prosecutor's side of the story.

"Unlike our Founding Fathers, the ALA gives First Amendment Rights to "all individuals," presumably including non-citizen terrorists." LISNews.com commentor Daniel Cornwall pointed out that in fact Jefferson believed that the first amendment should apply to all indviduals "against every government on earth" and that he thought that the constitution was flawed for not stating this more clearly. 12 The Papers of Thomas Jefferson 438, 440 (J. Boyd ed. 1958). Also, while I don't like the idea that terrorists have human rights and may use these rights to cause destruction, it is dangerous to say that terrorists can never have any legal rights. What if you are mistakenly found to be a terrorist, and thereby lose all your legal rights? Including the right to appeal the mistaken terrorist designation? Mistakes happen all the time in any legal system, which is why there need to be procedures - natural justice at the trial level, procedures for appeals and accountability against abuses.

After discussing the ALA's resistance to the Patriot Act, Walfield gives a brief chronicle of the ALA's "left-wing agenda." Included in the ALA's list of sins is campaigning for more openess in government records. Towards the end, there is a mention of the ALA being upset at the destruction and looting of the National Library and Archives of Iraq. Of course this was interpreted that the ALA did not care about the safety of American troops. Forget the fact that the Ministry of Oil had been protected, or that the US Government had been warned of the dangers to Iraqi cultural institutions and chose to ignore them - and their international legal obligations as an occupying force.

I can't ignore Walfield's mention that the ALA's left-wing activism happens despite the organization's tax-exempt 501(c) 3 status. This struck me as a veiled threat which is so typical of these times. Yes, you still have freedom of speech, but if you express unpatriot/lefty views, we will try to punish you until you shut up!

truth and lies in public discourse: Fox, Nike and Kamiya

Sun, 27 Apr 2003 21:38:42 GMT

This week I’ve musing about truth and lies in public discourse.

They are quite different issues but it is ironic that as Salon’s Gary Kamiya is being castigated for his extremely honest and courageous essay about the fall of Baghdad, we see companies such as Fox News and Nike go to court to preserve their right to mislead the public.

1. Distorting the News

The courts have officially ruled that it is okay for television news to lie and distort the truth. Accepting a defense rejected by three other Florida state judges, a Florida appeals court has reversed the $425,000 jury verdict in favor of journalist Jane Akre.

Here's the full scoop: Jane Akre and Steve Wilson had produced an expose for WTVT/Fox News of Tampa about how Florida supermarkets were reneging on a promise not to sell hormone-laden milk from rBGH-injected cows. In their investigations, they also found many troubling things about the artificial hormone and its maker, Monsanto Company. Fox News had already advertised the expose, but the day before it was to air, the station received a threatening letter from Monsanto's lawyers. Fox ordered Akre to retract her story and do a slanted piece in favor of Monsanto, but Akre refused, on the grounds that it would be dishonest journalism. As a result, she was fired. Akre sued, but a Florida appeals court has now ruled that it is technically not against any law, rule or regulation to deliberately lie or distort the news on a television broadcast. [Reader Weekly, Duluth Minnesota]

First, for the lawyer types, the case is New World Communications of Tampa v. Akre, 2003 WL 327505, 28 Fla. L. Weekly D460. The issue before the court was not whether broadcasters are allowed to mislead the public. Rather, it involved interpreting 448.102, Fla. Stat. (Supp. 1998), Florida’s private-sector whistler-blower law.

In my view, the Court made its decision in the following two quotations:

Even if we agreed with Akre that the FCC's news distortion policy was a "rule" as defined by section 120.52(15), her argument overlooks the fact that the whistle-blower's statute specifically limits the definition of "rule" to an "adopted" rule. § 448.101(4). "This limitation to 'adopted' material only appears deliberate, and well serves the public by hinging civil liability upon matters of which due notice, actual or imputed, has been conveyed." Forrester v. John B. Phipps, Inc., 643 So.2d 1109 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994). We find the legislature's use of the word "adopted" in the statute to be a limitation on the scope of conduct that will subject an employer to liability under the statute.
…
First, federal law recognizes a dichotomy between rulemaking and adjudication; it does not equate the two. See Bowen v. Georgetown Univ. Hosp., 488 U.S. 204, 109 S.Ct. 468, 102 L.Ed.2d 493 (1988) (Scalia, J., concurring). Second, while federal agencies may have discretion to formulate policy through the adjudicative process, the same is not true under Florida law. The Florida Legislature has limited state agencies' discretion to formulate policy through the adjudicative process by requiring agencies to formally adopt each agency statement that fits the definition of a "rule" under section 120.52. See § 120.54. As noted above, the legislature's use of the word "adopted" in the whistle-blower's statute was deliberate and was intended to limit the scope of conduct that will subject an employer to liability. This limitation is consistent with the legislature's requirement that agency statements that fit the definition of a "rule" be formally adopted.

You might say that the Appellants (the Fox affiliate) won on a technicality. It doesn’t matter if they violated the FCC news distortion policy, because that policy had never been adopted according to the exact requirements of the Florida statute. Because of this, the District Court of Appeal did not need to decide whether the Appellants had in fact violated the FCC news distortion policy.

The Court did discuss the news distortion issue somewhat. It recognized In re CBS Program "Hunger in America", 20 F.C.C.2d 143, 150-51 (1969) as the leading authority on the issue. It also cited a journal article: Chad Raphael, The FCC's Broadcast News Distortion Rules: Regulation by Drooping Eyelid, 6 Comm. L. & Policy 485 (2001).

Much of the Hunger in America opinion concerns whether a broadcaster is liable if one of its rogue employees distorts the news – unknown and unbidden by management. The FCC wrote:

[U]nless our investigation reveals involvement of the licensee or its management there will be no hazard to the station's licensed status. Such improper actions by employees without the knowledge of th licensee may raise questions as to whether the licensee is adequately supervising its employees, but normally will not raise an issue as to the licensee's character qualifications.

If the facts in New World Communications of Tampa v. Akre are correct, it seems pretty clear that the Fox affiliate engaged in the “top down” management-mandated distortion which the FCC was concerned about here:

Rigging or slanting the news is a most heinous act against the public interest -- indeed, there is no act more harmful to the public's ability to handle its affairs

Violations of this news distortion policy are only relevant when the FCC is deciding whether to renew a broadcaster’s license. There are no other legal consequences for distorting the news and misleading the public. And can anyone imagine that the current FCC, headed by Michael Powell would give a Fox affiliate even a slap on the wrist for distorting the news?

The law is an ass – as indicated by the result of the New World Communications of Tampa v. Akre – but politics is worse.

2. Nike's Right to Mislead

The Christian Science Monitor has a good summary of the facts and issues involved (thanks to Howard Bashman for that cite ):

The case, to be heard Wednesday, centers on Nike's ability to participate in public debate over its foreign business operations - which critics call dangerous and immoral - without being held liable for any false or misleading statements. The question is whether Nike is engaging in commercial speech, which is subject to civil charges if found to be false, or political speech, which enjoys greater protection under the First Amendment.

The US Supreme Court is reviewing Kasky v. Nike, Inc., 93 Cal. Rptr. 2d 854 (2002), which reversed Kasky v. Nike, Inc., 27 Cal. 4th 939 (2002).

I will be pleasantly shocked if the Supreme Court does not rule in favour of Nike. It has been very interesting to skim through the amici briefs, most of which have been filed for Nike.

I do not want Nike to win this case. Maybe it’s because I’m not American, but I do not think that free speech trumps every other right – especially the idea that companies should have the same freedom of speech as people! Freedom of speech becomes meaningless when money=speech. This means that although the poor have de jure freedom of speech, they have no de facto freedom of speech. Sorry to slip into legalese, but a legal right on paper is meaningless if there is no social or economic ability to exercise that right.

So freedom of speech means the freedom to lie? Even in this country, it is not OK to use dishonesty to defame another person’s character.

Corporations already have way too many rights – especially when considering their wealth and clout in media and politics. It is time to start scaling back, not expanding the legal personhood of corporations.

I think that all corporate speech is advertising of some kind – whether to consumers or investors. In the company where I used to work, public relations was actually inside the marketing department. When the news about Nike’s sweatshop practices first came out, I decided to avoid Nike products. But if I heard convincing information from them that they had cleaned up their act, I’d be inclined to consider them again. In fact, I’d be more likely to trust information that did not obviously appear to be advertising.

The point is that these statements do have an effect in the marketplace, therefore they should be regulated according to the rules of the marketplace.

3. Honesty will be distorted and used against you

The treatment of Gary Kamiya’s article is different from the two court cases which I’ve mentioned, but it is also concerns distortion and the place of honesty or dishonesty in public discourse.

O'Reilly-a-rama
Here at Salon, we're used to having our arguments ripped out of context and turned into fodder for the right-wing media machine, but the feeding frenzy of distortion and lies surrounding the selective quotation from Gary Kamiya's "Liberation Day" op-ed over the past few days set a new standard for disingenuousness. You can read more about it in this Salon editorial. [Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment]

Kamiya’s main argument was that the fall of Saddam Hussein was something which everybody could feel glad about – whether they were for or against the war in Iraq. Because Saddam Hussein was a very nasty man – and whether or not the war was justified, or that it will open a Pandora’s Box of ethnic and religious hatreds in the Middle East – it is good to see him gone.

In reaching this position, Gary Kamiya addressed his opposition to the war in the first place. He very honestly wrote:

I have a confession: I have at times, as the war has unfolded, secretly wished for things to go wrong. Wished for the Iraqis to be more nationalistic, to resist longer. Wished for the Arab world to rise up in rage. Wished for all the things we feared would happen. I'm not alone: A number of serious, intelligent, morally sensitive people who oppose the war have told me they have had identical feelings.

Of course, Bill O’Reilly and other right-wing commentators immediately jumped on these sentences, ignoring the point of Kamiya’s article – that as the war progressed, his position had evolved from that secret wish for things to go wrong.

The moral of this incident is that as corporations extend their rights to lie and be misleading in public discourse, individuals will be punished for being too honest.

The equivalent honesty would be if Bill O’Reilly admitted to that for a moment he really wanted to tear Jeremy Glick into “f**king pieces” for daring dispute the Right’s ownership of the 9/11 tragedy.

here's hoping that Rick Santorum gets the Trent Lott treatment

Fri, 25 Apr 2003 04:18:25 GMT

More Republicans oppose Santorum's remarks. More Republicans have joined the call for Senator Rick Santorum to apologize for his recent remarks. The group, Republican Unity Coalition, includes former president Gerald Ford and Mary Cheney, the daughter of current Vice President Dick Cheney. They describe themselves... [different strings]

ranting about the language and symbols of war & peace

Tue, 15 Apr 2003 05:53:44 GMT

It's too bad that Radio doesn't offer a feature similar to LiveJournal's "LJ-cut". I'm improvising an equivalent by posting this potentially inflammatory posting as a story.

blogging as an act of defiance: "I'm tired of being resigned to accepting a country that is governed by warmongers, religious extremists, and corporate lapdogs."

Tue, 15 Apr 2003 04:11:53 GMT

'I don't know all of the answers but I refuse to be quiet anymore'.

I think Rebecca at Suddenly Routine has one of the best explainations yet for having started a blog - and I have a feeling that, at it's root, its not that different than the reasons many bloggers took the plunge.

[different strings]

the most inflammatory symbol in these times?

Wed, 02 Apr 2003 04:55:21 GMT

There's an Episcopal church across the road from where I used to live. I had mixed feeling about living in such close proximity to a church. It was a very nice sandstone building which had a warm glow in dusk. The Anglican church is also the major protestant denomination in Australia. Although I've never been particularly interested in it, living next to one seemed to help with my periodic homesickness. On the other hand, I did not like being woken up by the church's choir and organ on Sunday mornings. And it was often very difficult to find street parking during summer and autumn on the weekends because of all the weddings held at the church.

I mention all this because last weekend I walked by this church and noticed that its "pray for peace" signs had been defaced. These were were very tasteful lawn signs with a purple background, a white dove and the words, "pray for peace" along with the name of the church. Somebody had taken a black marker to these signs and blackened out the white dove.

To me, this seemed like an attack on the values of this church and afront to my entire neighbourhood. It reminded me of this Carol Lay cartoon.

catsitting and war

Thu, 27 Mar 2003 04:53:09 GMT

First I was away from my main computer catsitting for some friends. Then this inevitable war broke out - which was always going to happen, despite the opposition of so many "focus groups" in the US or the rest of the world. No, I haven't been spending all my time following this Glorious Showdown with Saddam. I just needed to take a little break and switch off from these depressing, disheartening times. But now I feel ready to get back into the fray...

tough choices for the Minneapolis Public Library

Fri, 14 Mar 2003 00:20:33 GMT

This morning by chance I listened to a discussion on Minnesota Public Radio's Midmorning show about the funding crisis in Minnesota public libraries. This finding crisis was precipitated by the State Auditor arbitrarily classifying libraries as "non-essential services" and recommending that the Governor cut the state funding for these services. It's possible to hear this discussion with the RealOne player (scroll down to March 13, hour one). It was a very interesting discussion and it was gratifying to see how strong support which libraries are getting in the community - it's a shame that this support is falling on deaf ears at the State Capitol.

These problems couldn't have come at a worse time for the Minneapolis Public Library, which is in process of building a new central library building. Its old premises have just been demolished and it is currently renting a temporary (& inadequate) space until its new building is ready.

Because of this funding crisis, there is the possibility that the size of the new building will be scaled back or its construction delayed. It is ironic that one of the reasons why the old library building was inadequate and did not age well was because of similar funding short-cuts which were taken when it was built - according to Kit Hadley, the new director of the Minneapolis Public Library, who was the guest speaker on today's Midmorning show.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune has provided good coverage of this issue. Here's a brief chronology -

*The Minneapolis Public Library faces a $25 million shortfall in its operating budget over the next 10 years
*Columnist Doug Grow: "No one, Minneapolis leaders say, could have predicted that Minnesota would elect a governor who would smile kindly, then slash such programs as Local Government Aid. LGA money has accounted for 43 percent of the library's operating budget, according to Laura Waterman Wittstock, chairwoman of the Library Board."
*Q & A with Kit Hadley: "Think about the library's role in democracy. Every country has a police infrastructure, but not everyone has free information."
*Editorial: "the downtown [library] project was once conceived as part of a four-block development, which then was reduced to two, then to a single block, then without a planetarium -- and now even the bare bones may not survive."
*The Minneapolis Public Library's finance committee rejected Kit Hadley's plan to close four branches. The library's funding shortfall will addressed by across-the-board cuts.

do presidents get the parodies which they deserve?

Thu, 13 Mar 2003 04:58:31 GMT

Reading Other People's Mail - Lynne Cheney v. WhiteHouse.Org.

Time on their hands. The Counsel to the Vice President (of the U.S.) wrote a demand letter to the operator of whitehouse.org asking that it remove this fictitious bio of the VP's wife, ... Mrs. Cheney. Some might view the fake bio to be political speech. The VP's lawyer believes that the disclaimer indicating that the website is a parody is insufficent. They're probably bummed about the clown-nose photo as well. Perhaps VP Cheney has coulrophobia.

Go to the site - you be the judge.

I appreciate that the government should incur expense for ensuring Mrs. Cheney's physical safety. However, while the letter does mention mis-use of the presidential seal, the thrust of the letter alleges violations of Mrs. Cheney's rights of privacy and publicity, torts suggesting economic harm. As such, it's interesting that the government pays for the lawyer (I'm not familiar with the law on this - if you are, please share).

Practitioner's Note: Further proof that protesting something is the best way to ensure its universal dissemination.

...

Further aside: Coulrophobia is the term for fear of clowns. I read that on the Volokh Conspiracy so it must be true.

[The Trademark Blog]

The Clinton administration gave us whitehouse.com which featured the Intern of the Month & other nasties (I don't know if it's still up - and I definitely wouldn't want to check while I'm at work!). Now the George W. Bush administration has inspired whitehouse.org, a very different kind of site.

This site made me laugh more than anything else in the entire week. It was almost rofl & lmao. I felt tempted buy one of their "Thought Criminal" t-shirts. I only wish that the parody was a little bit more subtle so that it would blur the distinction between truth & exaggeration some more. The most fascinating & scary section is the feedback area. If you look at the older comments (remembering that the comments are in reverse chronological order) there are some who appear to be genuinely confused if whitehouse.org is real or not (" i am in the US ARMY and am very upset by what i see on this site, i thought the White house would be more professional about what they show the public."). Of course, given whitehouse.org's recent publicity by Drudge and Salon, the more recent comments are very hateful indeed. Most of these comments are even more extreme than the language on the main whitehouse.org site - so maybe the parody isn't over the top. I think that these reader comments are more damning of their authors than the most brutal parody or insult which the left could hurl. The evidence comes out of their own mouths. If anyone had the stomach for it, I think it would be a great concept for a blog - to find and record these vignettes for posterity and for all to see. Some of these comments are so over the top and full of visceral hatred that they can't seem real - surely they're invented. But I've received such comments and I know that I didn't invent them. That's the reason why I turned off my comments feature. I realize that criticism is one of drawbacks of expressing an opinion, but at least on my own blog, which I pay for, I'll get the last word. Dialogue would be nice - but it's almost impossible over the internet when there are such diametrically opposed positions. It's easier to have constructive, respectful debate with somebody face to face - when people can't so easily ignore the other's humanity.

it's good to see "do more with less" being challenged, but this is a very risky game for a library

Tue, 11 Mar 2003 06:33:10 GMT

Hawai'i state librarian under fire from state Senators who cut her budget yet bristle at her cutting library hours. [ thanks brandon ]

[librarian.net]

Patriot 2: this isn't really happening, is it?

Wed, 05 Mar 2003 02:04:20 GMT

Patriot II.

In Deliver Us from Ashcroft (in The Washington Times), Nat Hentoff begins with "Attorney General John Ashcroft, with support from President Bush, has increasingly forgotten that the Constitution is ours [~] not just his." He continues

one of the most damaging abuses [in Patriot II] is found in Section 201. According to this section, a federal court decision can be overturned, mandating that the government reveal the identities of those persons it has detained in the investigation of the September 11 terrorist attacks. The new bill states that "the government need not disclose information about individuals detained in investigations of terrorism until ... the initiation of criminal charges," no matter how long that might take...If passed, this would become the first time in American history that secret arrests would be specifically permitted under the American rule of law.

I haven't written about Patriot II yet, not out of a lack of interest, but due to a sense of weariness with all of the things happening to Americans after September 11th. I heard a lot of negative commentary about President Bush last week in London, and I remember telling someone that Bush wasn't the real threat--the real threat is Ashcroft. At least, Ashcroft is doing more harm to Americans and "the American way," however that might be understood. I'm trying to fight my inertia, and so I'm posting this in the hopes that it motivates me.

As a side note, a draft version (dated January 9, 2003) of the Act in .pdf format is available from the Center for Public Integrity. Be forwarned, though--it is a 12 MB download. CPI also has a list of related documents.

[klyjen.blog]

what happens when the US government can seize any .com domain name?

Fri, 28 Feb 2003 02:47:29 GMT

In Web disputes, U.S. law rules the world, by Michael Geist, in the Toronto Star. ... [A blog doesn't need a clever name]

The [Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act] statute, which applies to dot-com, dot-net, and dot-org domains, reaches that conclusion by referring to the fact that the domain name system's root server, the database that houses all domain names and their corresponding numeric addresses, is located in Virginia. The use of the in rem jurisdictional provision is a classic example of legislating outside national borders. For example, the provision surfaced in 2000 in a dispute between two Canadian parties over the technodome.com domain name. Although the trademark holder could have launched a trademark infringement action in Canada, where the courts have addressed cybersquatting issues on several occasions, it chose instead to launch an ACPA action in Virginia where it successfully invoked the in rem jurisdiction clause by suing the domain name, rather than its owner.

So it looks that at least for disputes concerning most important domains, all roads lead to Virginia and US law will apply. This is still going to be a contentious area. I remember how outraged people were that the High Court of Australia dared to assume jurisdiction in the Dow Jones v. Gutnick case - and dared to reach a different outcome than an American court would have. But that tussle over jurisdiction is miniscule compared with what could happen. This week the news has come out that the US Government has seized domain names for non-cybersquatting purposes. The Department of Justice has seized the isonews.com domain because of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The site sold mod chips and was a forum for people wanting to play bootlegged console games. In related news the DEA took over sites that sold drug paraphenalia.

So what do you get when ultimate power of domain names rests in the US, and a US government that is willing & able to use this power to advance its political agenda? This could be very messy indeed. If the DEA could seize a domain in the name of the war on drugs, imagine what could be done in the name of the war on terrorism or the war on Iraq? If the PATRIOT Act and PATRIOT Act 2 are any examples, I don't think that the US Government is interested in being restrained with this power.

following up: arbitary & political distinctions between essential & non-essential services

Thu, 13 Feb 2003 03:32:37 GMT

By pure chance today, I stumbled over the website of the League of Minnesota Cities. I was interested to see that they had quite a scathing response to the State Auditor's report that recommended that state government aid to Minnesota cities be severely cut. Here are some gems from the LMC's response:

The state auditor is generally charged with auditing local government finances. This report goes far beyond the traditional role of the auditor and ventures into the policy arena. ... [my thoughts exactly!]
The report's distinction between essential and non-essential spending is arbitrary and ignores the fact that cities across the state are facing very different circumstances. [my emphasis]
The auditor's report is built on several false premises - ... Services such as airports and transit and libraries, because they are provided by counties or regional governments in some areas of the state, are not essential services anywhere.

Yes, the State of Minnesota is in deficit, like many other states. It's one thing to give libraries a "fair share" of the pain that must go around. It's quite another to give libraries an extra helping of the pain because political leaders are pursuing an extremist agenda to keep taxes low for the rich and punish all the others who actually like some of the things which government can do. Minnesota may become a cultural & educational & environmental wasteland - but hey, at least we'll have low taxes and nice roads to drive our gas guzzling SUVs on!

are libraries essential services or not? big assumptions in a footnote

Wed, 12 Feb 2003 05:42:24 GMT

Yesterday I awoke to hear the news that Minnesota's State Auditor, Pat Awada, is proposing to cut state aid to local government. Apparently, the level of state aid must be too high, because too many cities are using it to fund "non-essential services" like parks and libraries. I was intrigued to view the complete version of Awada's report, to read how they devised this essential/non-essential categorization. This turned out to be difficult to find - in half of a footnote on the first page of the executive summary:

The OSA grouped three current city services: general government, public safety and streets and highways together to form essential current services. All other current services are called non-essential current services for the purposes of this study. (emphasis not added)

That was it. I'm not suggesting that the essential services listed aren't really essential. It is interesting to see the leaps in logic here. First, that all government services are either essential or non-essential. Second, that it is not reasonable to fund non-essential services. In my view, to say that governments are only about roads and police is the same as saying that the only things people need in life are food and water (& grudgingly, shelter, because it gets kind of nippy in Minnesota winters). Of course, people do need food, water and shelter, or they will quickly perish. But that is only the beginning of people's needs - what about the human needs for companionship, purpose etc? Once the most basic needs have been satisfied, do the secondary & tertiary needs come to the fore. In the same way, roads and police are the basic services of government, and after them come the secondary services (like parks & libraries etc) which give meaning to society. I would have mentioned education earlier, except that this report by Awada only concerns funding to cities, not school boards (they'll have their turn, I'm sure).

By the way, there is no state library system in Minnesota. The local government public libraries are the only ones that we have. By lumping them into non-essential local government services, is Awada saying that there is no place for public libraries anywhere in Minnesota? The assumptions in this footnote raise some important questions.

I was curious to see if it was standard practice for governments to consider libraries as "non-essential services" in this supposed information age. I was not able to find very much. Probably because these are decided by what is not said rather than by what is said - for example, Pat Awada's report makes no mention of libraries, but this doesn't reduce its potential negative effects on libraries.

I found two interesting things: a newsletter from a Wisconsin library system encouraging people to let their leaders know in very concrete terms what reductions in library funding will mean. The other one is a pdf version of this paper: Proctor, Usherwood and Sobczyk, What happens when a public library service closes down?, Library Management 18, no. 1 (1997): 59

I just had to link to this one more time!

Tue, 11 Feb 2003 05:34:25 GMT

A professional at work.

Last week, Bill O'Reilly created quite a stir when we browbeat guest Jeremy Glick, the son of a Port Authority worker who had died in the 9/11 attacks, for having signed the "Not In Our Name" ad and opposting the attacks against Afghanistan. During the brief interview, O'Reilly insulted Glick several times, told him to "keep his mouth shut", claimed that Glick's father wouldn't have approved of his positions, and eventually ordered him to "shut up" and for his producers to "cut his mic". If you'd like to hear the actual exchange, an .mp3 of it has been posted by poisonskin.com.

[different strings]

hey, I thought the all-seeing eye belonged to Sauron, not TIA!

Tue, 11 Feb 2003 05:30:55 GMT

Total Information Awareness tchotchkes
The Total Information Awareness program may have removed its ominous logo from its Web site -- but you can still get your TIA-insignia T-shirts, teddy bears, mugs and thongs! Hurry, though, they're going fast (into detention)! [Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment]

outrage, political despair, hope

Tue, 11 Feb 2003 05:00:18 GMT

I'm currently taking a class for my Master of Arts in Liberal Studies called the Literature of Hope. At first I wondered if it might be über saccharine sweet, and not helping the way I'm seeing things right now. The instructor makes a big distinction between wishful or naive optimism and the real hope which is conscious of all the horrors in the world and somehow manages to survive.

Now how is this relevant to this blog? Because looking around at what's happening in the world, I struggle to find any hope in the 21st century. Tom Tomorrow's cartoon in today's Salon was about liberal "outrage" but it could have just as well have been about political despair.

*** HOPELESSNESS ALERT! DO NOT CONTINUE READING IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE DEPRESSED!***

Let's begin with the local and particular. Libraries all over are facing budget cuts and rising expenses. A major library vendor has recently collapsed and it is likely that libraries will suffer heavy losses because of this. Just today I read that the Arizona State Law Library has been shut down. In my adopted state of Minnesota, once a tolerant and progressive place, the Republican party won big in the 2002 elections. Now there are plans to balance the budget without raising a cent in taxes or cutting services drastically - all this is code for balancing the budget on the backs of government workers (for whom many people seem to have a visceral hatred, which puzzles me, particularly after 9/11). Last week, a Bill was introduced to the Minnesota legislature which would remove references to sexual orientation to the Minnesota Human Rights Act, and all other laws, including a resolution condemning Nazi persecution. It's unlikely to succeed other than to lower the bar for what is acceptable.

Looking on the federal level, I see civil liberties and library privacy being trashed in the name of "war on terrorism", yet the leaders' of this country are dead-set for a war in Iraq, which will increase our risk to terrorism by one hundred-fold. This country is totally split down the middle, between those who support and believe President Bush, and those who think that his election was illegitimate and that he is the worst, most incompetent and dangerous individual to ever sully the Oval Office. There is little dialogue between the two camps other than shouting matches on talks shows - most recently in the O'Reilly Factor. I despair of ever persuading these people that "you are either with us or against us" is plain wrong - and they despair of ever convincing me that it is right. Although the country is almost divided 50/50, the combination of extra corporate money supporting Republicans and the plague of cowardice, apathy and despair afflicting liberals makes it almost inevitable that the Republicans will win and the large liberal minority is ignored. I wonder if the American democracy is being gradually corrupted into an oligarchy, where the wealthiest companies and individuals hold the reins of both political and economic power. Through their campaign donations, they can own politicians and can dictate the text of anti-consumer statutes like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The Supreme Court is not immune to this influence, as demonstrated by Bush v. Gore and the Eldred decision.

I could go on and on. You get the idea. And so now I find this question of hope to be quite relevant. For my major paper, I intend to explore this question: How can an entrenched political minority maintain hope in times like these? When it seems like we will never prevail and cherished democratic ideals are being eroded one by one. Many people just switch off and I can understand why.

After Vaclav Havel was released from the last in a series of prison terms for his protests against the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, and well before the democratic revolution that would overthrow that regime and raise him to the presidency, he told an interviewer, " I think that the deepest and most important form of hope, the only one that can keep us above water and urge us to good works, and the only true source of the breathtaking dimension of the human spirit and its efforts, is something we get, as it were, from 'elsewhere.'" For years, Havel and his fellow dissidents had been circulating petitions, drafting manifestos, staging protest plays, smuggling news to the outside world, with very little show for it aside from their prison records. What kept them struggling? Not a belief that their cause would prevail, but a belief that their cause was right. "Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism," Havel explained. (Scott Russell Sanders, Hunting for Hope, 1998, p. 27 - my emphasis)

All anyone can do is continue to resist & struggle against these reactionary times. It is quite possibly that we will be defeated - but it is better to go down fighting than to give up. History goes in different cycles and one day the world may be very different - and the better for our resistance. That's why it's important not to give up.