I recent ranted about why I don't think civil libertarians should support Ron Paul's Candidacy. In the linked essay, Glen Greenwald calls people who've been writing things like the rant I wrote out on the floor, accusing us of being either simple minded or "lying partisan enforcers."

My problem with Paul, which I've expressed consistently for several election cycles, is that he does not support civil liberties, yet he is presented as someone who does, without qualification. I think that is dishonest - I think its a trap that is used to reel in money and support from libertarians with whom Paul does not actually share common cause. I care about this because I care about what it means to be libertarian, and I don't like to see civil liberties issues left in the dust. Greenwald misses this point in his essay, and calling people names is not a useful way of engaging a serious argument.

So why link Greenwald's essay at all? Because I think his point is nonetheless interesting:

Paul’s candidacy forces progressives to face the hideous positions and actions of their candidate, of the person they want to empower for another four years. If Paul were not in the race or were not receiving attention, none of these issues would receive any attention because all the other major GOP candidates either agree with Obama on these matters or hold even worse views.

The exact same accusation that I make about Ron Paul - that he is being sold as a civil libertarian but he is not one - can be made about Barack Obama. The reason that I was excited about Obama's candidacy is that my primary problem with the Bush Administration was their deliberate disregard for legal structures in our society such as habeas, FISA, and international norms regarding warfare that have been created as a consequence of historical lessons as framework for statecraft that prevents totalitarianism. I thought a law professor who claimed to care about civil liberties could help construct a new framework in the wake of the destruction that the Bush administration left behind - a framework that balances liberty and security in the age of terrorism.

Obama has done no such thing. On civil liberties, Obama has been just like the Bush admin. In many ways, civil liberties might have been better off under the Bush admin because at least then the Democrat's partisan noise machine was drawing attention to every debate. The left is now silent on these issues, and when the Republicans try to raise them they lack credibility given their cheerleading for Bush. In the future, the failure of the left to raise the profile of these issues right now will harm their credibility if they try to raise them during a future Republican admin. Its basically check mate for civil liberties as a political issue in the United States.

The differences between Obama and the Republicans are real... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

Progressives and the Ron Paul fallacies - Salon.com

Greenwald calls people out for defending Ellsberg and condemning Manning. Its an interesting read. Its important to recall that no one ever said Ellsberg wasn't guilty. Ellsberg got off on a mistrial. I think this is the key observation:

As Ellsberg himself makes clear, everything that is being said now to condemn Manning — everything – was widely said about Ellsberg at the time of his leak. Back then, Ellsberg was repeatedly accused of being a traitor, of violating his oath, of endangering America’s national security, of aiding its enemies, of taking the law into his own hands; he was smeared and had his sanity continuously called into question. Had it not been for the Nixon administration’s overzealous attempts to destroy him by breaking into the office of his psychiatrist — the primary act that caused the charges against Ellsberg to be dismissed on the grounds of government misconduct — there is a real possibility that Ellsberg would still be in a federal prison today. He’s viewed as a hero now only because the passage of time has proven the nobility of his act: it’s much easier to defend those who challenge and subvert political power retrospectively than it is to do so at the time.

The intellectual cowardice of Bradley Manning’s critics - Salon.com

They discovered that tornadoes and hailstorms occurred at a rate of about 20 percent above average during the middle of the week. In contrast, the phenomena occurred at a rate of roughly 20 percent below average on the weekend.

Why Tornadoes Take the Weekends Off in Summer

Thanks for the explanation...

Rattle wrote:
I do know that CAP took alot of heat over that Dodd event... In the absence of policy work, CAP sees events as exploratory. It's useful to have people come out and get them talking.

All things being equal, its great to have Dodd out and to have him articulate his organization's point of view - thats how we have a political dialog. His statements there got a lot of coverage and analysis. Its helpful to have a forum like that.

The problem is that its not clear that all things are actually equal. If the MPAA is the only organization that CAP is interested in hearing from on this issue, then we're not really having a dialog - we're having an event in which a particular POV is being promoted.

Prior to the Dodd event, Alyssa Rosenberg used the ThinkProgress blog to float the idea that what I'd refer to as copyright maximalism is a valid progressive goal, due to the number of middle class and union workers involved in the content industries. This position was directly reflected in Chairman Dodd's comments.

There are, of course, other valid progressive goals in play here, such as the vitality of the public domain as well as the right to tinker with and criticize commercial products.

Unfortunately, these are goals that aren't backed by multi-million dollar lobbying efforts.

RE: The Heritage Foundation takes a principled stand against SOPA

This article does a good job of summarizing the way that most of our leadership is indifferent to reasonable civil liberties issues relating to the Internet, and also very eager to do the bidding of their paymasters.

The sad state of Internet Civil Liberties in America

Hosting and domain registrar company Go Daddy has lost more than 37,000 domains in the past two days due to the company’s wishy-washy stance on the Stop Online Piracy Act.

GoDaddy has apparently dropped its support for SOPA, FWTW. Very little in my opinion. Reports are that they are calling customers who transfer to beg them to stay.

Its only been two days and its the holidays. Its going to take a while for this to fully work through. I certainly don't have time to switch right now and doing so is going to take several steps in order to ensure that nothing goes down.

Go Daddy loses over 37,000 domains due to SOPA stance | VentureBeat

Keep things festive the whole year through with this free calendar that includes reminders of major events in terrorism history and potential dates for future attacks!

National Counter Terrorism Center's 2012 Calendar

EasyDNS wrote:
If this becomes law, it's a short stretch from SOPA to NODA (No Online Dissent Anywhere) and if you think I'm a nutcase for saying so, I'd like to remind everybody what happened just over a year ago, when US politicians were tripping over themselves to shut down wikileaks (a royal fiasco in which this company was embroiled) and to this day, they have not been charged with a crime anywhere.

I totally agree with this sentiment and I still think that the Wikileaks fiasco a year ago was both totally inappropriate and a sign of what is to come with SOPA, its worth pointing out that Wikileaks is actually guilty.

In another chat, dated March 8, 2010, Manning asked “Nathaniel Frank,” believed to be Assange, about help in cracking the main password on his classified SIPRnet computer so that he could log on to it anonymously. He asked “Frank” if he had experience cracking IM NT hashes (presumably it’s a mistype and he meant NTLM for the Microsoft NT LAN Manager). “Frank” replied yes, that they had “rainbow tables” for doing that. Manning then sent him what looked like a hash.

Cracking an NTLM hash for somebody who you know intends to gain unauthorized access to a computer system is not "journalism" - its a crime. Someone at Wikileaks, possibly Assange, offered to do this for Manning. Whatever happens in court, it seems clear that Wikileaks was not just a drop box for information.

Now, that doesn't mean its OK for the US Government to use all kinds of extralegal measures to go after them by hook or by crook, but there is no reason that anyone should withhold judgement about them anymore.

Wikileaks is guilty

“Not only is there no First Amendment concern, but the notion that we should turn a blind eye to criminal conduct because other countries may take oppressive steps in response is an affront to the very fabric of this nation.”

I guess thats the final nail in the coffin - I've got to switch registrars.

GoDaddy Faces Boycott Over SOPA Support | Threat Level | Wired.com

Three cheers to the Heritage Foundation who join the Cato Institute in opposing SOPA.

The federal government needs to protect intellectual property rights. But it should do so in a way that does not disrupt the growth of technology, does not weaken Internet security, respects free speech rights, and solves the problem of rogue sites. Congress should carefully consider the consequences of and alternatives to the legislation before moving forward.

James L. Gattuso is Senior Research Fellow in Regulatory Policy in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

The Center for American Progress doesn't appear to have taken a position, although they did provide the MPAA with a forum to promote the bill. Not the same thing as endorsing it, but...

At least their Campus Progress subdivision has spoken out against SOPA.

Lesson: Only trust Democrats under the age of 30?

The Heritage Foundation takes a principled stand against SOPA