Josh Dugan, in the January 2009 issue of the Georgetown Law Journal:

The Third Amendment is not merely an esoteric prohibition on an obscure and outdated inconvenience. Instead, the Amendment prescribes practical rules for limiting the enforcement power of the most coercive and dangerous organ of government power: the military. The Amendment's proscription against military enforcement of civilian law is evident in the founding debates and documents and is the best explanation for the Amendment in the larger constitutional scheme. This explanation also frees the Third Amendment from offering a redundant protection already contained in the Fourth Amendment.

Far from being irrelevant to contemporary constitutional law, the Third Amendment could have an enormous role to play in today's constitutional schema. As the military establishment grows and its role confronting terrorism expands within the United States, the Third Amendment provides the proper backdrop against which to analyze those military actions which intrude on an individual's life and constitute traditional law enforcement functions, such as wiretapping. This test would categorically bar the military from enforcing the law against civilians during peacetime but would allow the military to do so without any further conditions, so long as the activities were approved by Congress, during time of war.

The Third Amendment may have fallen into obsolescence, but its history suggests it should not remain there. Despite what many are content to believe, the American experience with quartering may not be over. It might have just begun.

You might ask, "What's this all about?"

It's not about Google. It's about you.

What are the locals saying?

Give me money. No consequences, no whammies, money. Money for me ... Money for me, databases for you.

Surrounded by piles and piles of it, you might reasonably ask:

Is more what we really need?

Ira Glass:

"Not enough gets said about the importance of abandoning crap."

When is a Search not a Search? When It's a Quarter: The Third Amendment, Originalism, and NSA Wiretapping

"There is nothing like a deadline to clarify the issues."

-- Thomas Blanton, director of the National Security Archive

From the archive, Decius:

These things usually make me angry. This just makes me sad.

Ha-Ha!

Court Orders Search of White House Computers

A new book from the leaders of Stanford, Intel, MIT, Aerospace, CMU, KPCB, CSIS, and many others.

The export controls and visa regulations that were crafted to meet conditions the United States faced over five decades ago now quietly undermine our national security and our national economic well- being. The entire system of export controls needs to be restructured and the visa controls on credentialed foreign scientists and engineers should be further streamlined to serve the nation’s current economic and security challenges.

As economic conditions have improved in China, India, and other countries, many young people who would have come to the United States to study or work in science and technology now opt to stay home for their education or to return to their home country after graduate school in the U. S. All these changes mean that American security and prosperity now depend on maintaining active engagement with worldwide developments in science and technology, and with the global economy.

While the United States remains a world leader in advanced science and technology, it no longer dominates; it is now among the leaders. We are increasingly interdependent with the rest of the world. What is the United States doing to reap benefits from its increased interdependence? Instead of promoting engagement, the United States is required by our current system of controls to turn inward. Our visa controls have made it more difficult or less attractive for talented foreign professionals to come and learn what is great about this country, or to stay and help grow the American economy. Our export controls retard both the U.S. and its allies from sharing access to military technology, and handicap American business from competing globally.

In the post-9/11 world, even if we could accept the costs associated with mistakenly turning away some of the brightest international students or accept the forfeit of some business growth opportunities in the interest of national and homeland security, these are not the only outcomes of current policies.

From the archive:

This is the road to despotism. This is the fevered dream of theocracy. This is America.

We're going to be okay, aren't we Papa?
Yes. We are.
And nothing bad is going to happen to us.
That's right.
Because we're carrying the fire.
Yes. Because we're carrying the fire.

Also:

History suggests that, all other things being equal, a society prospers in proportion to its ability to prevent parents from influencing their children's success directly.

Finally:

By the age of five, in other words, American children are already a year behind their Asian counterparts in the most fundamental of math skills.

Beyond "Fortress America"

Obama was poised to name Cass Sunstein, an American legal scholar, to an existing White House post as the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Sunstein would oversee government regulations and devise new approaches for government efficiencies.

From the archive:

Every day, we make decisions on topics ranging from personal investments to schools for our children to the meals we eat to the causes we champion. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly.

People, it turns out, want to be generous and they want to retain their dignity -- even when it doesn’t really make sense.

Organizations and nations are far more likely to prosper if they welcome dissent and promote openness.

Filtering and focusing on people's interests creates a diverse society with many points of view, but commonality creates one whose members can understand each other.

We should explore ways to structure the law to defer political and legal decision-making downward to decentralized group–based decision–making. If we take seriously the potential impact of technology on collective action, we ought to think about what it means to give groups body as well as soul — to "incorporate" them.

Obama Promises Overhaul

SIR – Thank you for not “starring out” Rod Blagojevich’s expletives when reporting his alleged exploits to sell Barack Obama’s Senate seat (“The Chicago way”, December 13th). Apart from taking pleasure in being treated as a grown-up (many other newspapers deleted the swearing), I was struck by how much more powerfully the Illinois governor’s seedy, cynical greed was communicated when the obscenities were printed in full. F***ing good decision.

See also, from last week, William Safire:

Today we are going to deal with the media coverage of profanities, expletives, vulgarisms, obscenities, execrations, epithets and imprecations.

Star reporting on Rod Blagojevich | The Economist

William Safire:

Today we are going to deal with the media coverage of profanities, expletives, vulgarisms, obscenities, execrations, epithets and imprecations.

The need for today’s review is the coverage given to the participial modifier employed with great frequency and immortalized on recordings of telephone conversations made by the F.B.I. as its shocked — shocked! — agents eavesdropped on Rod Blagojevich, the Illinois governor. His favorite intensifier was reproduced in many newspapers and Internet sites with dashes as “----ing” or with asterisks as “****ing” and was substituted in broadcasts, telecasts and Netcasts as a word descriptive of the sound called bleep. The Wall Street Journal went almost all the way, using both the first letter and three dashes in the participle before “golden,” the word it modified.

From the archive:

The New York Times said Cheney had used "an obscenity" against Patrick Leahy. The Los Angeles Times had Cheney saying "Go ... yourself." CNN said Cheney used "the F-word."

But The Washington Post printed the word yesterday for the first time since publishing the Kenneth Starr report in 1998. And that set the town buzzing.

"Readers need to judge for themselves what the word is because we don't play games at The Washington Post and use dashes."

For the judges:

"Fuck yourself," said the man who is a heartbeat from the presidency.

See also:

Mr. Leahy then suggested that the president of the Senate take his gavel and use it to perform an act that, while not technically impossible in anatomical terms, would certainly be considered both unseemly and unhygienic, and which would require an unusual combination of single-minded ambition and physical relaxation.

Finally:

The word “scrotum” does not often appear in polite conversation.

Bleeping Expletives

Hundreds of the inmates in the Prince George's County jail are repeat offenders, recidivists who have done time and been released only to find themselves back in trouble with the law years, months, weeks or even days later.

Then there's Sean Hawkins.

On Dec. 14, the Temple Hills resident was charged with assault. Hawkins was taken to the jail in Upper Marlboro, where he appeared before a court commissioner and was released on personal recognizance.

Hawkins then walked out of the jail and, according to police, carjacked a Toyota 4Runner in the parking lot. Arrested in Suitland a short time later, Hawkins told police that he carjacked the vehicle "because he needed a ride home from jail," according to charging documents.

He has been ordered held without bond in the carjacking. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Jan. 12.

From a year ago:

Every now and then I meet someone in Manhattan who has never driven a car. Some confess it sheepishly, and some announce it proudly. For some it is just a practical matter of fact, the equivalent of not keeping a horse on West 87th Street or Avenue A. Still, I used to wonder at such people, but more and more I wonder at myself.

From the archive:

Igbal Asghar reached across the counter at Super Halal Meat market and passed two butchered chickens to the man with the familiar face. Then he ducked into the walk-in freezer to fetch the customer's second order, goat meat.

When the butcher stepped out seconds later, the customer's severed left hand lay on the floor by the meat saw. The customer ran down the Springfield store's center aisle and into the front parking lot, leaving a trail of blood and yelling repeatedly that he was "not a terrorist." Outside, the man announced that he had used the meat saw to cut off his hand "for Allah."

Out of Frying Pan And Into Fire

Rory Stewart:

Without music, time has a very different quality.

In November, Stewart concluded:

We will not be able to eliminate the Taliban from the rural areas of Afghanistan’s south, so we will have to work with Afghans to contain the insurgency instead. All this is unpleasant for Western politicians who dream of solving the fundamental problems and getting out. They will soon be tempted to give up.

Recently:

"You Westerners have your watches," the leader observed. "But we Taliban have time."

Stewart, a year ago:

If Gertrude Bell is a heroine, it is not as a visionary but as a witness to the absurdity and horror of building nations for peoples with other loyalties, models, and priorities.

What I've Learned

Jace Clayton:

Borders are about violence and fixedness and centralised authority. Music is about pleasure and fluidity and endless waves of influence.

Decius, from the archive:

Al Qaeda is not an organization. It is a scene.

From Tim Winton's Breath:

The angelic relief of gliding out onto the shoulder of the wave in a mist of spray and adrenaline. Surviving is the strongest memory I have; the sense of having walked on water.

From the recent archive:

Though some federal appellate courts do not appear to require any degree of suspicion to justify a search, one federal district court stated categorically that all laptop searches conducted at the border require at least reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.

From way back:

Neyshabur, one of the oldest cities on the Silk Road, was a major cultural crossroads that boasted one of the ancient world's first universities. It produced many of Iran's greatest poets and was also known for its turquoise.

In Blue as the Turquoise Night of Neyshabur, Kayhan Kalhor combines Western strings and Indian tabla with his core ensemble of kemancheh, santur, and ney.

The piece is an arabesque-like elaboration of an Iranian melodic formula called chahargah. According to Kalhor, chahargah means literally "fourth time," and its mood reflects the quiet and introspective atmosphere of the fourth part of the old Iranian daily cycle, from late night until just before dawn.

Rory Stewart:

Without music, time has a very different quality.

Rupturing Borders

Back in October, in the NYT:

The average Afghan spends one-fifth of his income on bribes.

Now, Dexter Filkins reports from Kabul:

Governments in developing countries are often riddled with corruption. But Afghans say the corruption they see now has no precedent, in either its brazenness or in its scale.

Ghafar said he routinely paid bribes to the police who threatened to hinder his passage through Kabul, sometimes several in a day.

Nowhere is the scent of corruption so strong as in the Kabul neighborhood of Sherpur.

Often, the corruption here is blatant.

Follow the money, and then ask:

What happens when the militants you have been encouraging grow too strong and set their sights on Pakistan itself?

Filkins' The Forever War was published last year to wide acclaim:

... searing, unforgettable ... amazing characters and astonishing scenes ... visceral ... brilliant, fearless ...

From an excerpt:

There was no law anymore, no courts, nothing — there was nothing at all.

Finally, from a few months ago:

We're not going to win this war.

Bribes Corrode Trust