ACLU Acts Against Patriot Act. The American Civil Liberties Union has had enough of some aspects of the Bush administration's Patriot Act, and it's launching a visible, nationwide campaign against it. By Julia Scheeres. [Wired News]

Much has been made of the perceived loss of freedom since the September 11th attacks, but this Wired article provides information on three specific cases, which stand to illustrate that the loss of freedom is more than just perceived. 

• In one, a woman was questioned in her home by the FBI who kept trying to get her to let them in so they could check to see if she had any Taliban information or maps of Afghanistan.  Someone had called the FBI about an anti-Bush poster she had in her living room.
  
• Another involves a group of activists who were scheduled to fly from their homes in Wisconsin to meet with congressmen in Washington DC.  The group was stopped as they prepared to board the plane, and were detained until the following morning, though no explaination as to why they were detained has yet been provided.
  
• The third concerns a man who was attempting to purchase stamps for an organizational mailing and requested any stamp except the ones with the flag on them.  He ended up being interviewed by both the police - who were called by the postal clerk helping the gentleman - and the postal inspector, who insisted on reading the newsletter before agreeing to sell the customer the stamps.

In response to incidents like the above, the ACLU has introduced a new campaign: Keep America Safe and Free .  Sadly, it appears that such a program is needed, given the general paranoia that America, as a whole, has been feeling, and our government's attempts at encouraging it. 

Safety and freedom do not have to be mutually exclusive.  What we need is to find an appropriate balance between the two.  Yes, this means we have to make some compromises, possibly allowing some restrictions to a few of our freedoms; but it also mean we have to be willing to take risks.  For us to be able to minimize the restrictions on freedom, there has to be some trust in the system, and some people will violate that trust.  But life has never been totally without risk, nor do I believe it is intended to be.  There are many ways in which to reduce risks without destroying freedom - but before we can get the government to work on developing and adopting those kind of measures, we, as a people, have to make it clear that we're NOT willing to trade away our most precious freedoms.

Texas on the Tigris

By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON — This has always been a place where people say the opposite of what they mean. But last week, the capital soared to ominous new Orwellian heights.  [...]

There are many things about the current direction of the country that have made reality feel like it's be thrown a bit topsy-turvey lately, and Dowd does a wonderful job of pointing out some of the obvious contradictions, conflits, ironies and paradoxes that currently plague the statements, thoughts and actions of the national leadership.

Its yet another thing that makes me so uncomfortable about this whole war on Iraq.  The reasons we are given frequently don't make sense, or are contradicted by information available elsewhere.  One of the best examples of this is that Bush has consistantly claimed that the war is justified because Saddam is a threat to launch an attack against the US at "anytime", yet a report memo from CIA director George Tenet says that Saddam is unlikely to launch an attack, unless he feels that we are going to attack him. If that's the case, then, the worst thing we could do would be to make Saddam think that we were any kind of a threat to attack him - which is exactly what Bush has spent most of the last few months doing.   After a while, it all begs the question, is there any length that he would consider to far? Or will he say or do whatever he thinks he has to in order to justify a war with Iraq? 

On MSNBC's Nachman show today, they were discussing responsiblity and the media, especially in regards to the sniper case.

They've been observing an interesting, and frightening, phenomenom with this killer - he makes it clear that he's watching the news being broadcast about him.  When the news media announced that they were looking into geographical profiing of the killings, the next murder happened quite a distance away.  When they mentioned that most of the killings had happened during the day, the next murder was at night.  Both times that they have mentioned that the police were possibly looking at or talking to a specific suspect, a killing happened that day - as if to say "you're looking in the wrong place guys".

Now that this pattern has been identified, the news media has before it a challenge - one they need to think about carefully.  If the killer is - as he appears to be - responding to the stories being broadcast, what kind of responsiblity do the news media have when it comes to releasing information he might react to?  The next time the police are focusing on a possible suspect, does the media give that information to the public and run the risk that the killer will decide to strike again to prove that the police are still on the wrong trail, or will they hold back and possibly spare someone's life in the process?  And if someone IS killed under those circumstances, how much - if any - responsiblity should the news media bear for releasing a statement they could reasonably foresee that he would react to the same way he has before?

These are not only difficult moral questions, but given the litigious nature of our society, they could also be important legal questions. It is my hope that the media will err on the side of caution.  I would much rather have less news about this case, if it means that he might go for another day without a killing.

Right now, the media is filling up much of its airtime and many of its column inches with news about the Sniper.  There are, however, other important stories that need as much, if not more, attention.  With the elections coming up, covering the state of the US economy and other domestic issues would be a valuable service to help voters with deciding who they want to vote for.  The upcoming war with Iraq, the possiblity of new terrorists acts (such as the ship that blew up in Yemen, or the bombing of the nightclub in Bali), the situation in Northern Ireland and other such stories are things that could be of interest to many people. 

I know that, for the 24-hour news channels, one concern they have is what to do about the fact that people tune in at different times during the hour and want the latest news as soon as possible.  I would suggest that they do an update with the latest on  the "hot story" every 15 minutes.  Usually it can be reported on in under 2 minutes, then move on to the other news of the day.  Cut out the talking heads and various specialists who's only purpose at this point is to speculate.  They aren't going to have access to any more information than the general public (at least not in most cases), so the speculations they make may not be taking some crucial, but unreleased, information  into account.

The media needs to realize that, yes, we want as much news as we can get - but that in addition to their responsibility to provide us with solid, complete and accurate coverage, they also DO have a responsibility to the community at large to avoid providing information that could endanger the investigation or the lives of innocent people.

DC Sniper May Halt Colin & Kiefer Flick

Upcoming Hollywood thriller Phone Booth is set to be delayed because of the plot's similarity with the current sniper attacks in and around Washington D.C. Eight people have been killed by a sniper this month, leading local citizens of the nation's capital and the neighboring Maryland and Virginia states living in fear while police try to track down the assailant. And now executives at 20Th Century Fox are deciding the fate of Phone Booth, which stars Minority Report star Colin Farrell as a man stuck in a phone booth at the mercy of crazed sniper, 24 actor Kiefer Sutherland. Director Joel Schumacher is keen to avoid a delay and he says comparisons between the flick and the real-life events are "different cases" and he hadn't even thought about negative parallels. Joel says, "I mean, there are many serial killers that haven't been caught. Should they not release Red Dragon?" Phone Booth has already taken a long time to finally be made. The movie has been in development for some time and at various points Jim Carrey and Will Smith were set to star, but dropped out.