"We do not think a military commander carrying out a raid on a terrorist cell would be required to demonstrate probable cause or to obtain a warrant," the Office of Legal Counsel memo (.pdf) said. "We think that the better view is that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to domestic military operations designed to deter and prevent future terrorist attacks."

I think thats fucking ridiculous. I could be persuaded that courts would find such activity to be "reasonable" with regard to the 4th amendment without a showing of probable cause, but there is a difference, and there are limits to what would be acceptable.

Bush Lawyers Approved Constitution-Free Domestic Military Ops, Docs Show | Threat Level from Wired.com

When a search is removed in time and place from the border, the courts have repeatedly held that this represents a greater intrusion on the person requiring that under the totality of the circumstances, customs officers had reasonable suspicion of criminal activity in order to justify the search.

In my opinion, which I've explained at length in numerous places, is that a detailed forensic analysis of a computer is a non-routine search and requires reasonable suspicion. It doesn't really matter whether the analysis occurred at the border or whether the computer was moved to a different location - however, the fact that the computer had to be moved is a indicator that this is a search which is far more intrusive than a "routine" search. Thus, the decision here is appropriate.

The Volokh Conspiracy - Does the Border Search Doctrine Apply To Searching Computers if the Government Moves the Computer Away from the Border Before Searching It?:

Professional 3D animation, accurately reconstructed to match the event.

YouTube - Hudson River Plane Landing (US Airways 1549) Animation with Audio

                     Trailing P/E   Year Ago   Forward                
Dow Industrial 	        22.43 	      51.57 	10.81 
S&P 500 	        13.66 	      19.63 	11.90

This link is extremely useful. DJIA still looks expensive by this measure! I don't understand why Forward P/Es would be down. Does that assume earnings growth? We're in a contraction, so I don't know how reliable that is.

P/Es & Yields on Major Indexes - Markets Data Center - WSJ.com

Resolved: The government can force you to decrypt files so long as it knows that you know how to decrypt them. The "logic" here is that the act of decrypting the files doesn't, in and of itself, teach the government something that they didn't already know. The content of those files might teach the government something new, but that content didn't come out of your head, and so it doesn't fall under the scope of what is protected by the 5th amendment - only the decryption key.

Bottom line: Through the magic of technology and legal sophistry people can now be compelled to provide reams of self incriminating evidence to the government while our Constitution simultaneously maintains that people will never be forced to testify against themselves.

Whatever social ill is caused by the later will obviously be caused by the former. It is, in fact, possible for the legal system to paint itself into a corner where it reaches a conclusion that undermines its own values. It has done so in this case.

You have no Fifth Amendment right to encryption keys

VeriSign has promised to deploy DNS Security Extensions – known as DNSSEC – across all of its top-level domains within two years.

VeriSign: We will support DNS security in 2011 - Network World

In my humble opinion, this is the most fully realized edition of a periodical that I have been involved in since the glory days of Mondo 2000 in the early '90s.

Potentially interesting...

New issue of h+, edited by R.U. Sirius, available for free download - Boing Boing

A lot of other people have Kathryn Johnston’s blood on their hands too, people with names like Bennett, Gates, Walters, Souder, Tandy, and Meese. They’ve been ratcheting up the war rhetoric of drug prohibition for 30 years.

I would have added Biden to that list.

Most of America is now accustomed to the notion that state agents dressed in battle garb can and will tear down the doors of private homes in the middle of the night for nothing more than mere possession of psychoactive substances. And most of the time, they do it under the full color of law.

If a violent, terrifying, paramilitary-style raid in the middle of the night on someone suspected of a nonviolent, consensual crime isn’t “unreasonable,” I don’t know what would be.

Kathryn Johnston’s death is tragic. But the real tragedy here is that had the cops found a stash of marijuana in her basement that actually did belong to her–say for pain treatment or nausea–her death would have faded quickly from the national news, these tactics would have been deemed by most to be wholly legitimate, and we probably wouldn’t still be talking about her today.

The Agitator » Blog Archive » Tearful Atlanta Cops Express Remorse for Shooting 92-Year-Old Kathryn Johnston, Leaving Her To Bleed to Death in Her Own Home While They Planted Drugs in Her Basement, Then Threatening an Informant So He Would Lie To Cover It All Up

I'm a little bit irked by Obama's claim... it's gratuitous, unappealing boosterism. Yes, America is great and its people are highly inventive. God bless America! But it just happens to be true that, in the case of solar technology and the automobile, the Europeans got there first. Claiming otherwise is both desperate and unnecessary, like copying homework in kindergarten.

America invented everything - The Atlantic Business Channel

The story I kicked off in late October, Tech layoffs: The scorecard, is a real bummer. On it, we're tracking the current layoffs in the tech economy. I hate the story, since each line on the sheet stands for real people who have lost jobs.

So I sent a query out to my Twitter followers: Send me good news. That led to this anti-layoff spreadsheet, the one tracking companies that are hiring. I present it here.

The spreadsheet of sunshine: Who's hiring (updated) | Webware - CNET