On Thursday, June 26, the House Judiciary Committee will conduct hearings into the legal genesis of the Administration’s torture policies. Featured witnesses will be David Addington and John Yoo, who was the principal draftsman of the torture memoranda. KPFA and participating Pacifica Network stations will be carrying the hearing live, gavel-to-gavel, starting at 9:00 a.m. Eastern time. Pacifica’s Larry Bensky and Harper’s legal affairs contributor Scott Horton will be co-anchoring the broadcast, which can be monitored through a streaming webcast.

From the archive:

While the gregarious Mr. Yoo continues to insert himself into the limelight and is now the best-known, it’s clear that his role is subsidiary to that of Haynes and Addington.

From Mike, from May:

David Addington, Cheney's chief of staff, refused to testify without a subpoena. No date has been set for his appearance before Congress.

"We're one bomb away from getting rid of that obnoxious [FISA] court," Addington had told me in his typically sarcastic style during a tense White House meeting in February of 2004.

After 9/11 they and other top officials in the administration dealt with FISA they way they dealt with other laws they didn't like: they blew through them in secret based on flimsy legal opinions that they guarded closely so no one could question the legal basis for the operations.

From last year:

The most provocative aspect of Goldsmith's argument, however, is also the least persuasive. He contends that the problem was not that Addington and the administration did not care sufficiently about the law, but that they cared too intensely, so much so that they were "strangled by law." He claims that "this war has been lawyered to death," and describes government officials as overly chilled by the prospect that they might be held criminally accountable for actions taken in the name of the country's security. Goldsmith prefers the good old days when matters of national security and war were, for the most part, not regulated by federal legislation, and presidents, such as FDR, were free to shape their judgments without regard for law, and could concentrate instead on "political legitimation."

Also from last year:

In the aftermath of 9/11, the Justice Department and the White House made a number of controversial legal decisions. Orchestrated by Cheney and Addington, the department interpreted executive power in an expansive and extraordinary way, granting President George W. Bush the power to detain, interrogate, torture, wiretap and spy -- without congressional approval or judicial review.

See also:

a typical display of Mr. Yoo’s dubious talents; "is it true that in America, Bush can fire prosecutors he doesn't like?"; In America today, the mentality of courtiers has reappeared; "Because the danger remains, we need to ensure our intelligence officials have all the tools they need to stop the terrorists"; "If a government defendant were to harm an enemy combatant ..."; the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations.

The Addington–Yoo Hearing, Gavel-to-gavel

Decius wrote:

Unless there is some detail that I'm missing, this sounds positively orwellian.

According to Sense Networks, all the location data that it gathers from mobile phones, GPS and Wi-Fi is completely anonymous so privacy should not be an issue.

It's not an issue, okay?!?

See also, from recent NYT:

Sense’s models were developed initially from sources like taxicab companies that let it look at location data over such a period. Sense also uses publicly available data, like weather information, and other nonpublic sources that it would not disclose.

Reality mining raises instant questions about privacy, especially when cellphone data is involved. In the United States, it is illegal in many cases for cellphone companies to share customers’ location data without their consent.

Mr. Skibiski says that Sense is interested only in aggregate data and that it’s looking for broad patterns, not the specific behavior of individuals. But he recognizes the privacy issue.

RE: Citysense - Powered by Sense Networks

“A wonderful, important book…I’d recommend Little Brother over pretty much any book I’ve read this year, and I’d want to get it into the hands of as many smart thirteen-year-olds, male and female, as I can. Because I think it’ll change lives. Because some kids, maybe just a few, won’t be the same after they’ve read it. Maybe they’ll change politically, maybe technologically. Maybe it’ll just be the first book they loved or that spoke to their inner geek. Maybe they’ll want to argue about it and disagree with it. Maybe they’ll want to open their computer and see what’s in there. I don’t know. It made me want to be thirteen again right now, and reading it for the first time.” —Neil Gaiman, author of Sandman and American Gods on Little Brother

“A believable and frightening tale of a near-future San Francisco … Filled with sharp dialogue and detailed descriptions… within a tautly crafted fictional framework.” -Publishers Weekly starred review

“Readers will delight in the details of how Marcus attempts to stage a techno-revolution … Buy multiple copies; this book will be h4wt (that’s ‘hot,’ for the nonhackers).” -Booklist starred review

“Marcus is a wonderfully developed character: hyperaware of his surroundings, trying to redress past wrongs, and rebelling against authority … Raising pertinent questions and fostering discussion, this techno-thriller is an outstanding first purchase.” -School Library Journal starred review

"Little Brother is generally awesome in the more vernacular sense: It's pretty freaking cool ... a fluid, instantly ingratiating fiction writer ... he's also terrific at finding the human aura shimmering around technology." -The Los Angeles Times

“Read this book. You’ll learn a great deal about computer security, surveillance and how to counter it, and the risk of trading off freedom for ‘security.’ And you’ll have fun doing it.” —Tim O’Reilly

“I know many science fiction writers engaged in the cyber-world, but Cory Doctorow is a native…We should all hope and trust that our culture has the guts and moxie to follow this guy. He’s got a lot to tell us.” —Bruce Sterling

See also here, where you can download a soft copy.

Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow

SHOOTING WAR began as a serialized web comic here on SMITHMAG.net in May 2006. What was to be a short online preview of the story expanded to 11 bi-weekly chapters as reader and media interest grew. Earlier this year, the web comic was nominated for an Eisner Award.

In the fall of 2006, the story was acquired by Grand Central Publishing (formerly Warner Books) for publication as a hardcover graphic novel in North America and in the U.K. by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Think of the web comic as a sort of beta version of the book. We ended up remastering every panel from the online version, reworking the storyline and the political context, some of which came as a result of suggestions from our loyal readers on this site. The full-color 192-page hardcover graphic novel takes the story to its dramatic conclusion and features over 110 pages of new material, including all new plots twists and, by popular demand, more Dan Rather than you can shake a dead armadillo at.

The original (unedited) web comic chapters can we viewed here.

The book earns a Starred Review from Publishers Weekly:

A scathing near-future satire of the Iraqi occupation that rings with eerie plausibility, this Web comic-to-print hardcover collection follows a cocky young journalist named Jimmy Burns, who finds himself video-blogging across the front lines of Iraq in the year 2011. An accidental Internet celebrity transplanted suddenly to the Baghdad battlefields, Jimmy quickly progresses from arrogant to regretful, then jaded—in short, he is America in Iraq.

As the world slowly disintegrates around him, Jimmy finds himself caught between the competing agendas of Muslim insurgents, the American military and a sensational cable news network as they all clamor for blood on the battlefields. Journalist and first-time graphic novelist Lappé takes obvious delight in skewering all three with a whip-smart, left-leaning indictment of both American media and foreign policy that offers little hope and fewer heroes.

The bleak prognostications are cut with black humor and a penchant for explosions that keep the narrative moving.

The collection adds 110 pages of new content to the Web version, and Goldman's art, a cinematic blend of photography and digital painting, is framed in widescreen panels that lend an air of video documentary to a grim graphic novel that manages to make media—and the truth—seem more fluid than ever.

Shooting War

At once audacious, dazzling, pretentious and infuriating, David Mitchell's third novel weaves history, science, suspense, humor and pathos through six separate but loosely related narratives. Like Mitchell's previous works, Ghostwritten and number9dream (which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize), this latest foray relies on a kaleidoscopic plot structure that showcases the author's stylistic virtuosity. Each of the narratives is set in a different time and place, each is written in a different prose style, each is broken off mid-action and brought to conclusion in the second half of the book. Among the volume's most engaging story lines is a witty 1930s-era chronicle, via letters, of a young musician's effort to become an amanuensis for a renowned, blind composer and a hilarious account of a modern-day vanity publisher who is institutionalized by a stroke and plans a madcap escape in order to return to his literary empire (such as it is). Mitchell's ability to throw his voice may remind some readers of David Foster Wallace, though the intermittent hollowness of his ventriloquism frustrates. Still, readers who enjoy the "novel as puzzle" will find much to savor in this original and occasionally very entertaining work.

Cloud Atlas: A Novel

Dmitry Orlov:

In the waning days of the American empire, we find ourselves mired in political crisis, with our foreign policy coming under sharp criticism and our economy in steep decline. These trends mirror the experience of the Soviet Union in the early 1980s. Reinventing Collapse examines the circumstances of the demise of the Soviet superpower and offers clear insights into how we might prepare for coming events.

Rather than focusing on doom and gloom, Reinventing Collapse suggests that there is room for optimism if we focus our efforts on personal and cultural transformation. With characteristic dry humor, Dmitry Orlov identifies three progressive stages of response to the looming crisis:

* Mitigation-alleviating the impact of the coming upheaval
* Adaptation-adjusting to the reality of changed conditions
* Opportunity-flourishing after the collapse

He argues that by examining maladaptive parts of our common cultural baggage, we can survive, thrive, and discover more meaningful and fulfilling lives, in spite of steadily deteriorating circumstances.

This challenging yet inspiring work is a must-read for anyone concerned about energy, geopolitics, international relations, and life in a post-Peak Oil world.

Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects

Ouch.

DIY Yahoo! Resignation Letter

Where would we be without rating and reputation systems these days? Take them away, and we wouldn’t know who to trust on eBay, what movies to pick on Netflix, or what books to buy on Amazon. Reputation systems (essentially a rating system for people) also help guide us through the labyrinth of individuals who make up our social web. Is he or she worthwhile to spend my time on? For pity’s sake, please don’t check out our reputation points before deciding whether to read this article.

Rating and reputation systems have become standard tools in our design toolbox. But sometimes they are not well-understood. A recent post at the IxDA forum showed confusion about how and when to use rating systems. Much of the conversation was about whether to use stars or some other iconography. These can be important questions, but they miss the central point of ratings systems: to manage risk.

So, when we think about rating and reputation systems, the first question to ask is not, “Am I using stars, bananas, or chili peppers?” but, “what risk is being managed?”

On A Scale of 1 to 5: Understanding Risk Improves Rating and Reputation Systems

New work by Jon Kleinberg and Duncan Watts:

Social networks are of interest to researchers in part because they are thought to mediate the flow of information in communities and organizations. Here we study the temporal dynamics of communication using on-line data, including e-mail communication among the faculty and staff of a large university over a two-year period. We formulate a temporal notion of "distance" in the underlying social network by measuring the minimum time required for information to spread from one node to another -- a concept that draws on the notion of vector-clocks from the study of distributed computing systems. We find that such temporal measures provide structural insights that are not apparent from analyses of the pure social network topology. In particular, we define the network backbone to be the subgraph consisting of edges on which information has the potential to flow the quickest. We find that the backbone is a sparse graph with a concentration of both highly embedded edges and long-range bridges -- a finding that sheds new light on the relationship between tie strength and connectivity in social networks.

The Structure of Information Pathways in a Social Communication Network

Andrew Bacevich reviews new books by Douglas Feith and Ricardo Sanchez.

Setting aside combat memoirs, of which there are a growing number, the literature of the Iraq War divides neatly into two categories. The first category, dominated by journalistic observers, indicts. The second category, accounts authored by insider participants, acquits. The two books reviewed here fall into the second category: They are exercises in self-exculpation. Pretending to explain, their actual purpose is to deflect responsibility.

Apart from the finger-pointing and score-settling, these two accounts do agree at least implicitly on a single issue: taken as a whole, the national security apparatus is irredeemably broken. The so-called “interagency process” created to harmonize the efforts of national security institutions so that the president receives sound and timely advice and to ensure that presidential decisions are promptly implemented, whether in Baghdad or within the Beltway, actually produces the opposite effect. From quite different vantage points, Feith and Sanchez affirm that the principal product generated by the interagency process is disharmony, dishonesty, and dysfunction. Whether a different process employing the same people or recruiting different people while retaining the existing process would yield different results is difficult to say. To imagine, however, that simply electing a new chief executive in November will fix the problem is surely to succumb to an illusion.

Fault Lines: Inside Rumsfeld's Pentagon