Name this quote:

"I shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war, no matter whether
it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked afterwards whether
he told the truth or not. When starting and waging war it is not right
that matters, but victory."

Godwin's Guffaw

Does encrypting Internet communications create a reasonable expectation of privacy in their contents, triggering Fourth Amendment protection? At first blush, it seems that the answer must be yes: A reasonable person would surely expect that encrypted communications will remain private. In this paper, Professor Kerr explains why this intuitive answer is entirely wrong: Encrypting communications cannot create a reasonable expectation of privacy. The reason is that the Fourth Amendment regulates access, not understanding: no matter how unlikely it is that the government will successfully decrypt ciphertext, the Fourth Amendment offers no protection if it succeeds. As a result, the government does not need a search warrant to decrypt encrypted communications.

The Volokh Conspiracy - Can Encryption create an expectation of privacy

The issue of what happened in 2004 is not an academic one. For the second election in a row, the president of the United States was selected not by the uncontested will of the people but under a cloud of dirty tricks. Given the scope of the GOP machinations, we simply cannot be certain that the right man now occupies the Oval Office -- which means, in effect, that we have been deprived of our faith in democracy itself.

American history is littered with vote fraud -- but rather than learning from our shameful past and cleaning up the system, we have allowed the problem to grow even worse. If the last two elections have taught us anything, it is this: The single greatest threat to our democracy is the insecurity of our voting system. If people lose faith that their votes are accurately and faithfully recorded, they will abandon the ballot box. Nothing less is at stake here than the entire idea of a government by the people.

Voting, as Thomas Paine said, ''is the right upon which all other rights depend.'' Unless we ensure that right, everything else we hold dear is in jeopardy.

This article is truly disturbing. I clearly remember the allegations of voter manipulation and fraud in Ohio, but I had no idea of the scale or how strong the case was. The fact that Rolling Stone has been the only outlet to publish an examination of this issue in this much detail is even more disturbing. We require the media, as the 4th estate, to provide a check against government impropriety. The freedoms the press, and the rest of the public, enjoys does not come without responsibility. If there is in fact voter fraud persisting on the scale this article alleges, the major media outlets have not honored the responsibility they have to the American public.

On one level, I concur with Decius's opinion that this type of analysis would best be presented in a non-partisan academic journal, rather than a music magazine. That being said, I wonder why this has not occurred already. In no uncertain terms, this article is a challenge to the rest of the mediasphere to further investigate the issue. Much to Kennedy's credit, he provided a reference for every factoid he used, totaling a whooping two-hundred-and-eight footnotes. There is no challenge here figuring out where he got his information from, in order to challenge or validate the allegations present.

This challenge should be answered. Our constitutional values demand it. At this point, the goal should not be to overturn the presidency, but to insure that all votes are counted in future elections. This is critical in order for our democracy to work.

Rolling Stone : Was the 2004 Election Stolen?

The State Secret Privilege was used dishonestly in its first case!

United States v. Reynolds, 345 U.S. 1 (1953) is a landmark legal case in 1953 that saw the creation of the State Secrets Privilege, an unofficial but judicially-recognized extension of presidential power.

The widows of 3 crew members of a B-29 Superfortress bomber that had crashed in 1948 sought accident reports on the crash, but were told that to release such details would threaten national security by revealing the bomber's top-secret mission.

In 2000, the accident reports were declassified and released, and were found to contain no secret information. They did, however, contain information about the poor state of condition of the aircraft itself, which would have been very compromising to the Air Force's case. Many commentators have alleged government misuse of secrecy in the landmark case.

United States v. Reynolds - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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

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

The American Constitution Society and the Liberty Coalition host a speech by Fmr. Vice Pres. Al Gore at the DAR Hall in Washington. Gore speaks about the limits of executive power, the issue of monitoring domestic communications and the authorization of the use of torture in the war against terrorism.

Transcript here.

This is the best speech Gore has given lately. It may be the best speech he has ever given. Its rare you get to see Al invoke some true passion. In many of his speeches, he takes sly swipes at the opposite political party in ways I've often thought were inappropriate. In this case, the entire speech was a swipe, but an entirely deserved and accurate one. Not just against the Bush Administration, but the entire Congress.

One comment that has been abound lately, is that the Democratic party is lacking a single clear and concise voice. Is Al prepared to be that voice, again, for real this time?

C-SPAN: Fmr. Vice Pres. Gore Speech on Executive Powers

If, based on their zip code, voters could access wiki based information about upcoming local and federal races and referenda items relevant to their districts, working families would have a powerful and democratic information resource at their disposal in the ballot box.

I've discussed this idea with Decius in depth. A Wiki voter guide would be possible, but extremely hard. In terms of spam and attacks, this would pose the greatest challenge to the Wiki format either of us can think of. No content would be as charged as a voter guide.

Even seeding the Wiki would be tough. Just finding out who is running in what district and what zip codes cover a district is non-trivial.

A wiki voter information guide | SinceSlicedBread.com

EULAlyzer™ 1.0

Analyze license agreements for interesting words and phrases.

This is a very good idea. I've wondered before about the idea of making a parser to sum up legal contract text. It always seemed like something that was possible, even if way outside my personal coding skill level.

I hope they release a OSX version of this.

EULAlyzer