"I had thought I would be sentenced to death based on the emotions and anger toward me for the deaths on Sept. 11, but after reviewing the jury verdict and reading how the jurors set aside their emotions and disgust for me and focused on the law and the evidence ... I now see that it is possible that I can receive a fair trial even with Americans as jurors."

I must fully concur with the two opinions expressed so far in the thread. This, right here, is the win.

We couldn't have asked him to say something better..

Moussaoui Asks to Withdraw Guilty Plea - Yahoo! News

Thanks to our super-secret source for telling us about this ABC feed that got posted, with a camera trained on the President Bush during Colbert's video skit during last week's White House correspondents' dinner.

You can watch his level of amusement drop like his poll numbers.

The president is not amused

This just in from Decius:

I just received fairly reliable word that the Georgia Private Investigator Felony Statute has been vetoed by the Governor. Unfortunately I don't have a press link on that, so if anyone out there has a secondary source they can confirm this through, that would be helpful, but it seems like the Governor has heard the message from the technology community and understood the ramifications of this law. Thank you to everyone who communicated with them!

The bill summary does not show that it has been vetoed yet. There does not appear to be any press engaging the story yet either... There is a recent AP story referring to 20 bills the Governor vetoed, but nothing about this bill yet.

Confirmed:

The existing definition of “private detective business,” continued in this bill, in conjunction with the applicable exemptions in the law, fails to exclude from the private investigator licensing requirement many professions that collect information or may be called as expert witnesses in court proceedings. To expand the penalty from a misdemeanor to a felony without revision of the existing definitions in the law could result in unintended consequences; I therefore VETO HB1259.

HB 1259 Vetoed!

MEDIA ALERT -- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Monday there will be a meeting at Kennesaw College:

Date: May 8, 2006
Time: 10:00am
Location: Room 300

Speakers: Calvin Hill, Representative who sponsored the bill, and
John Villanes, Chairman, Georgia Board of Private Detectives

It would be nice to see anyone that cares at all about this topic. REALLY if you care - make arrangements to be there. It does matter and I think we can all make a difference even if it means banding together. The Governor has to make a choice by Tuesday to Sign or Veto.

Scott Moulton

Decius: Unforuntately I will be unable to attend due to some responsibilities at work, but I strongly encourage those who care about this issue to make a showing at this meeting if at all possible. If they don't, this will turn into a very one sided discussion about a nationally unprecidented and extremely destructive law.

Rattle: I am going to be somewhere in the northeast/atlantic region while this is taking place, and unable to attend in person. I would highly appreciate it if someone present with a cell phone that has speaker phone capability could relay me the talk. I can mute the phone on my end and be able to hear the content. Now would be a very good time for everyone in contact with the media to send them a reminder about the debate. People need to make sure this is in their Monday morning calandar.

More information:

* Atlanta High Crimes Investigation Association web page
* SecurityFocus Article
* ForensicFocus Thread
* MemeStreams Thread #1
* MemeStreams Thread #2
* Bill Text

Update: There is an unconfirmed report that the Governor has vetoed the bill.

Debate on HB1259 in Kennesaw

John Allen Muhammad introduced himself to jurors as a distraught father who was only in Maryland in October 2002 to search for the children he lost in a custody dispute _ not to become the Washington-area sniper.

"I woke up this morning knowing that I needed to come into this court room and fight for my life to survive or I will die," Muhammad, acting as his own lawyer, said Thursday in opening statements at his trial for six Maryland killings. "It's that simple, people."

During his 20-minute statement, Muhammad quoted Plato and referred to his military training. He likened his case to the betrayal of Jesus, and asked jurors to judge him wisely. He said he would rely on "quantum physics, immaterial evidence and material evidence" to prove his case.

I'm at a loss for words.. I just got the mental image of this guy sitting in a bare jail cell, thinking about OJ and Michael Jackson, while trying to remember scenes from Oliver Stone's JFK.

Chron.com | D.C. Sniper Introduces Himself to Jurors

It has taken almost three years—by some counts, more than 6 years—but ICANN’s domain name policy making organization has finally taken a stand on Whois and privacy. And the results were a decisive defeat for the copyright and trademark interests and the US government, and a stunning victory for advocates of the rights of individual domain name registrants.

In Historic Vote on WHOIS Purpose, Reformers Win by 2/3 Majority

"Like the 309," the last song written by Johnny Cash before his death, will be included on "American V: A Hundred Highways."Due July 4 via American Recordings/Lost Highway, the album was recorded with producer Rick Rubin in the months leading up to Cash's September 2003 passing.

The balance of the set includes such songs as Bruce Springsteen's "Further On (Up the Road)," Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind," Hank Williams' "On the Evening Train," Rod McKuen's "Love's Been Good To Me" and the traditional spiritual "God's Gonna Cut You Down."

With Cash's engineer David "Fergie" Ferguson, the songs were completed by a group of musicians who had worked on previous "American" recordings: Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell and keyboardist Benmont Tench and guitarist Smokey Hormel (Beck, Tom Waits), along with guitarists Matt Sweeney (Guided By Voices, Chavez) and Jonny Polonsky.

The Man in Black will ride once more...

CNN.com - Johnny Cash's final song: American V to come out July 4th

Decius has been following this situation for awhile now. He is extremely knowledgeable about export restrictions, so I strongly suggest posing any questions you have about these bills in this thread.

Tonight, I thought I'd check up on the bill's status. Apparently its still a live issue as its being discussed in the press. Much to my suprise, I also learned that another bill, called the Global Internet Freedom Act, was proposed at the same time as the Global Online Freedom Act, and it does exactly what I was thinking we ought to do. This bill funds research on content filtering and filtering subversion to the tune of $100 million over two years! For some reason the bill appears twice on Thomas, once as HR2216 and once as HR4741. I think the texts are the same but I haven't checked line for line. I like this quote:

It is the sense of Congress that the United States should... deploy, at the earliest practicable date, technologies aimed at defeating state-sponsored and state-directed Internet jamming by repressive foreign governments and the intimidation and persecution by such governments of their citizens who use the Internet.

Here, Here! Kathryn Cramer, who I link above calling for censorware to be added to the USML, also calls HR4741 "lame." I could not disagree more. HR4741 has a much better chance of impacting the real situation on the ground in these countries then HR4780, for the aformentioned reason. The pricetag is expensive, much more then I would have asked for, but I'll bet the impact of that expenditure on the U.S. economy would be dwarfed by the impact of HR4780, which makes it illegal to host Internet connected computers inside of any country designated as a censoring state.

So, in sum, if you're talking to your representative, I say No on HR4780 (without serious revision), but Yes on HR2216/HR4741.

No to Global Online Freedom Act, Yes to Global Internet Freedom Act!

President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ''whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.

Legal scholars say the scope and aggression of Bush's assertions that he can bypass laws represent a concerted effort to expand his power at the expense of Congress, upsetting the balance between the branches of government. The Constitution is clear in assigning to Congress the power to write the laws and to the president a duty ''to take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Bush, however, has repeatedly declared that he does not need to ''execute" a law he believes is unconstitutional.

''Years down the road, people will not understand why the policy doesn't look like the legislation," he said.

''This is an attempt by the president to have the final word on his own constitutional powers, which eliminates the checks and balances that keep the country a democracy," Fein said. ''There is no way for an independent judiciary to check his assertions of power, and Congress isn't doing it, either. So this is moving us toward an unlimited executive power."

Rather than using vetos, Bush is using signing statements. The result is policy which does not match legislation passed by Congress. This is how systems based on the rule of law break down.

While pondering this Orwellian nightmare, I remind you that today was Loyalty Day, as declared by the Bush Administration.

Bush challenges hundreds of laws - The Boston Globe

According to current and former intelligence officials, Plame Wilson, who worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran.

Interesting.. Plame was working on Iran nuclear proliferation at the time the Bush Administration outed her.

The Raw Story | MSNBC confirms: Outed CIA agent was working on Iran