On Fri, Mar 28, at 10:27AM, Sunder wrote: | Um, watch your attributions, I didn't write that paragraph. :)
My apologies, I wrote the paragraph below. Must have missed your attribution while deleting stuff. --Gabe
We probably all ought to be very careful about who said what, versus who was quoting what, in these dangerous times. As we saw in the Bell and Johnson cases, courts are often careless about how e-mail is handled, with authorship often attributed by ignorant DAs to those merely quoting (and with rebuttal blocked by equally ignorant judges).
If nothing else, the national security fascista may take a "Joe Blow said" as grounds for a no-knock raid, with pumped-up ninja soldiers anxious to deal with "those who undercut our boys in Iraq."
The First Fascist is getting increasingly irritable about what the proles are saying, lashing out at reporters for undermining the war effort. The U.S. may be heading for massive losses along the Convoy of Death. Torrie Clark, spokesbimbo for the Defense Department, refers to Iraqis defending their country as "thugs."
(As they may be, but this whole clusterfuck is showing the well-known problems with invading another country with strung-out supply lines and with urban/guerilla battles. We could all write for pages and pages on what's going wrong, so I won't.)
To cut to the chase, several of my former friends are calling me a traitor and claiming to have reported me to the FBI for my statements about how the war machine ought to be hacked and undermined.
This may be one of my famous "it could happen" statements which don't go as "predicted," but, like the Siege of Baghdad, life is unpredictable. To wit, it seems to me that a war-torn U.S., with a PATRIOT Act and a Homeland Security Act, plus a Congress more interested in debating child safety seats in SUVs during this crisis, plus a Supreme Court overseeing the repealing of the Bill of Rights, may very well lash out and those seen as a "Fifth Column" in their Iraq fiasco.
Daniel Ellsberg was not successfully prosecuted, nor was the "New York Times" successfully enjoined, in 1971's "Pentagon Papers" case. Different times. A different court. Today, would such a dismissal of charge and failure to enjoin occur? I think not.
We may see some major prosecutions of alleged sedition and treason. (Recall that Eugene Debs, a very public figure, was convicted and imprisoned for speaking out against forced enslavement of free persons into an army butting in in Europe. Speaking out, not bombing, not derailing trains, just speaking. So much for the First Amendment. This was one of many disgraces in American history.)
I expect Homeland Security to push to prosecute similar cases.
--Tim May
"They played all kinds of games, kept the House in session all night, and it was a very complicated bill. Maybe a handful of staffers actually read it, but the bill definitely was not available to members before the vote." --Rep. Ron Paul, TX, on how few Congresscritters saw the USA-PATRIOT Bill before voting overwhelmingly to impose a police state
