Category: Civil Rights

Radical Imam Anwar al-Aulaqi has now been placed on the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) target list, which means that he can be killed if spotted. (See also here)

Based on the reports that I’ve seen in the media, it’s pretty clear that there is probable cause to apprehend him on suspicion of a number of crimes, but basically, the JSOC is a hit list.

There won’t be any efforts to capture him, this means that he’s going to be taken out by a Predator drone or suchlike, and I find this to profoundly troubling.

Glenn Greenwald makes the point that this is authorizing the killing of an American citizen on the decision of one man, the President, a power that even George W. Bush did not claim, and I agree, though I am not quite as strident in my views.

Additionally, this has the effect of legitimizing the use of lethal force by other governments against those whom they deem terrorists.

Under the rules adopted, I could see the Chinese assassinating Uighur activists, the Russians assassinating Chechen activists, or the Turks assassinating Kurdish activists, on US soil.

Also, from a purely tactical perspective, if you have a person who is willing to die to accomplish their mission, and al Qaeda does, then it is rather simpler to locate the President of the United States than it is to locate Anwar al-Aulaqi or Saddam Hussein.

This may have the effect of encouraging direct action against American officials.

31 March 2010, 8:02 PM

Court Finds NSA Guilty of Illegal Wiretapping

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This was the lawsuit against the NSA for their warrantless wiretapping of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, and their discussions with their lawyers, and Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker has granted a summary judgment against the government, basically saying that the Foundation had good evidence of wiretapping, and if the US government was unwilling to provide exculpatory evidence, it was making a broad claims of the state secrets privilege.

Basically, he said that the government refused to defend themselves, and that the state secrets privilege is trumped by FISA. so they lose the case.

As Emptywheel notes:

Walker is basically saying, “Well, government, if you won’t give us any evidence to prove you legally wiretapped al-Haramain, and given all the evidence they’ve presented proving they were wiretapped, then they win!”

Here’s his argument. The government had a way to defend against al-Haramain’s case directly, in camera, but they refused to avail themselves of it.

Unfortunately, this may not mean much, because they actually had proof of wiretapping, because the prosecution accidentally delivered logs of the wiretaps to them during discovery.

This is unlikely to be repeated.

Needless to say, I am sick and tired of the Obama administrations full throated defense of executive branch overreach and secrecy, as well as their attempts to further the coverup of Bush administration law breaking under the guise of “looking ahead.”

I am very happy that they lost today.

23 March 2010, 7:57 PM

Google Redirects Google.cn to Google.hk

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So, they have essentially shut down their Chinese search engine and are instead redirecting traffic to their Hong Kong domain:

Google has shut down its Google.cn site and is redirecting users to Google.com.hk, where it will offer uncensored Chinese-language search services. The company will maintain a research and development organization in China as well as a sales office, it announced Monday.

“Figuring out how to make good on our promise to stop censoring search on Google.cn has been hard,” Google said in a statement. “We want as many people in the world as possible to have access to our services, including users in mainland China, yet the Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement. We believe this new approach of providing uncensored search in simplified Chinese from Google.com.hk is a sensible solution to the challenges we’ve faced–it’s entirely legal and will meaningfully increase access to information for people in China.”

It’s the right thing to do, and, I think, the good long term business decision.

Obviously, the Chinese “Great Wall” firewall will still censor once you click on the links, but with Google.hk actually see the links.

Now, how about fixing your misbegotten auto-pagination “upgrade” on blogger?