Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 18:00:24 -0700
From: reasonexpress@reason.com ("Reason Express")
Subject: Reason Express - August 27, 2002
To: reason-express@sonic.sparklist.com ("Reason's e-mail newsletter")
Reply-To: reasonexpress@reason.com
Reason Express
Reason's Weekly Dispatch
By Jeff A. Taylor and the Reason staff
Back Issues: http://www.reason.com/re/re.html
Subscribe: http://www.reason.com/re/subscribe.html
Send Feedback: mailto:reasonexpress@reason.com
Visit http://www.reason.com/re/rextext.txt for the plain text version of
Reason Express.
Visit http://www.reason.com/re/current.shtml for the html version.Reason
Express
August 27, 2002
Vol. 5, No. 35
In this issue:
1. Watching the Watchmen
2. Target Practice
3. Thieves Like Us
4. Quick Hits
5. A Summit Misconceived - and other highlights from Reason Online
6. From Reason's print edition
7. News and Events
Reason Express is made possible by a grant from The DBT Group
( http://www.dbtgroup.com/ ), manufacturers of affordable, high-performance
mainframe systems and productivity software.
1. Watching the Watchmen
When a secret court known for rubber-stamping surveillance requests says
the Justice Department and the FBI are playing fast and lose with the
rules, something is amiss. But last week, the U.S. Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court said the FBI made more than 75 errors in applications
for espionage and terrorism warrants. The court went so far as to label
some of those mistakes "misrepresentations," a polite word for lying.
To recap, that's the secret police lying to a secret court about their
secret cases. So much for the transparency of democracy, consent of the
governed, and all that. Here also is a singular example of why the White
House's opposition to full whistleblower protections for employees of the
new Homeland Security Ministry is so wrongheaded.
Presumably, someone at the FBI knew these "misrepresentations" were wrong.
But the FBI's culture is so corrupt -- the latest evidence being Steve J.
Hatfill's public shaming via the well-timed leak to The New York Times --
that it is unclear where a person of conscience would turn. Organizations
that operate in secret, often out of habit and every so often out of
legitimate need, need strong internal controls on malfeasance and abuse.
A Homeland Security office, shielded as it would be from public disclosure
and investigation, would have to depend on the decency of individuals to
police a vast and powerful agency. Without the kind of protections even
the lowest Ag Department gnome possesses against retaliation and
recrimination, you are asking for near superhero quantities of bravery and
thirst for justice.
And even if the feds start issuing capes and spandex, superheroes are very
hard to come by.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,61112,00.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,61250,00.html
2. Target Practice
After some embarrassing gaffes involving pond water and breast milk, the
Transportation Security Administration appears to realize that liquids
are not the most pressing threat to safe air travel. In addition, the TSA
is mulling getting rid of those questions about your bags that have long
been the butt of jokes but add little to safety.
In so doing, airline security is moving away from the unspoken premise
that every passenger poses an equal threat to cause mayhem, and toward
something that at least attempts to assess threats and then act
accordingly.
"All passengers do not pose equal security threats," said Michael Wascom
of the airline trade group the Air Transport Association. "Why should we
continue to ask these simple questions of everyone? We should be focusing
on people who are higher security risks."
Presumably such higher risks would include the woman who was taken into
FBI custody after allegedly carrying a handgun on a US Airways flight
from Atlanta to Philadelphia. Airport security at Philadelphia
International Airport found a .357 Magnum handgun in her carry-on
suitcase.
http://www.tsa.dot.gov/briefing_room/PressReleases/tsa8402.shtm
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/bw-exec/2002/aug/22/082205382.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2002/08/25/national2238EDT0562.DTL
3. Thieves Like Us
Big media's attitude toward the Net has gone through several distinct
stages. First there was dismissal, then curiosity, then awe when briefly
coupled with the belief that dot-coms would somehow deliver billions more
to the bottom line, then disappointment when that didn't happen. Now the
latest, and perhaps final, stage appears: out and out hatred.
At no point has actual understanding of the new medium entered the
picture.
"The vast potential of broadband has so far benefited nobody as clearly as
it's benefited downloaders of pornography and pirates of digital
content," Peter Chernin, president of the media giant News Corp., said at
a Progress & Freedom Foundation conference. Chernin added that Net
culture was "amoral" and supported "outright theft."
If Chernin and his ilk are so sure of the decadence of the Net, they
should prove it once and for all by taking up songwriter Janis Ian's
challenge to the music industry. Ian wants record companies to offer up
their out-of-print back catalogs online. Each song would cost users
pocket change, which would still be gravy over and above what the
recordings currently earn the labels.
If the site does a bang up business the first day and then nada, then
Chernin and the rest may be right. But if, as Ian suspects, such a site
has staying power, then everyone online can't be looking for a freebie.
Reasonably priced downloads will have a market.
Such a site wouldn't be hard to put up, either. Get a couple of high
school kids to build the site and pay them in Red Bull and System of a
Down swag. The downloads would have to be the real cash-and-carry variety,
an "unlimited license" for users to do whatever they please with the
music in perpetuity, not some ephemeral streamed low-fi junk. Graft on a
secure credit card handler, and see who is right.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-954651.html
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/3914595.htm
4. Quick Hits
- - Quote of the Week - -
"You see men his age going to bars or on dope. But he's home day and
night. That gives me peace of mind. He's not doing anybody any harm, and
he's not doing himself any harm." -- May Whittington, 85-year-old mother
of Ralph Whittington, a former Library of Congress archivist who has
donated his extensive collection of pornography to the Museum of Sex.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A55204-2002Aug23?language=printer
- - Surf's Up - -
According to a Websense survey, work is a great place to get your shopping
done. Nearly 40 percent of workers reported going to shopping or auction
sites while at work, and one quarter of all respondents figured they burnt
over eight hours a week surfing on the boss' dime.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-955289.html
- - Ed Meese, Phone Home - -
The cyclical porn wars appear to be heating up. Four North Carolina men
were charged with "distributing" porn by watching a pornographic movie on
an SUV's flip-down video screen. And Marriott hotels in Michigan are
"white-collar porn peddlers," according to one conservative group, for
selling pay-per-view porn to guests.
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=\Nation\archive\200208\NAT20020815a.html
- - Sticking It to the Man - -
Fed up with watching the nation's copyright laws getting rewritten by a
corporate shill who doesn't know who to run a computer, Tara Sue Grubb
decides to take on Rep. Howard Coble (R-N.C.).
http://grubbforcongress.manilasites.com/
5. New at Reason Online
A Summit Misconceived
Their hearts are in the right place. Ronald Bailey
http://www.reason.com/rb/rb082602.shtml
Fan Empowerment Days
The fabulous air guitar stylings of Mr. Magnet. Tim Cavanaugh
http://reason.com/links/links082602.shtml
Barr Exam
Why I'll miss the "worst drug warrior in Congress." Jacob Sullum
http://www.reason.com/sullum/082302.shtml
And much more! http://www.reason.com
6. The Print Edition
Get your personal copy of the latest issue of Reason's print edition each
month -- before it hits the newsstands and before it's posted on the Web!
Subscribe Today! https://www.kable.com/pub/anxx/newsubs.asp
7. News and Events
Due to the Labor Day holiday, the next issue of Reason Express will appear
Tuesday, September 3.
****
Buy Reason T-shirts and coffee mugs! http://www.reason.com/stuff.shtml
****
Click here for the latest on media appearances by Reason writers.
http://reason.com/press.shtml
****
Want even more Reason? Sign up for Reason Alert to get regular news from
Reason Magazine and Reason Public Policy Instiute,
as well as advance notice about media appearances and events.
http://reason.org/join.html
****
We encourage you to forward Reason Express. If you received this issue
from a forward, please subscribe. It's Free!
http://www.reason.com/re/subscribe.html