Political Bloviation

File this under “no surprise”. Funny how downloads prices are remarkably similar across different providers for content from the big 3 record companies. Also there’s a note that the labels gave themselves a raise at customer expense even though costs dropped in the move away from CD to digital downloads. Sounds like there’s significant distortions [...]

Conservatives Ignore GWB Record on Terrorist Trials | Crooks and Liars.
Effective push back against Liz Cheney and others of her ilk by Jason Sigger at Crooks & Liars. Turns out the Bushies made frequent and effective use of civilian courts to try people on terrorism charges. Much more effective than the military tribunal train wreck [...]

via Lawyers plan class-action to reclaim “$100M+” RIAA “stole” – Ars Technica.
Not content simply to defend Jammie Thomas-Rasset in her high-profile retrial next week in Minnesota, lawyer Kiwi Camara is joining forces with Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson to file a class-action lawsuit against the recording industry later this summer.
The goal is nothing less than [...]

It seems bizarre that it’s necessary to explain why torture is bad. I found this Rolling Stone piece via Andrew Sullivan on the path taken by a 15 year old prisoner from the early months of the action in Afghanistan. What happened to him at the hands of Americans is flatly, obviously torture. They took [...]

We were one vote away from destroying the most basic of rights and underpinnings of our constitution:
Justices Rule Terror Suspects Can Appeal in Civilian Courts – NYTimes.com
Foreign terrorism suspects held at the Guantánamo Bay naval base in Cuba have constitutional rights to challenge their detention there in United States courts, the Supreme Court ruled, 5 [...]

Tortures Blowback – washingtonpost.com
THE GHOSTS of interrogations past have come back to haunt the Bush administration. This week, the legal officer supervising the military trials at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, dismissed capital charges against Mohammed al-Qahtani, who allegedly would have been the 20th hijacker during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks [...]

As Jefferson Ruling Stands, Prosecutors Feel Stymied – washingtonpost.com
The Supreme Court announced yesterday that it will not review a lower court’s decision that an FBI raid on Rep. William J. Jefferson’s congressional office violated the Constitution, a ruling that federal prosecutors had said could make lawmakers’ offices a “sanctuary for crime.”
And how is this different? [...]

EzraKlein Archive | The American Prospect
I strongly agree with Ezra’s post. Job one: Close Guantanamo. No dallying around thinking about it. Scrap the military tribunal kangaroo court. Put them in a Federal maximum security facility and start civilian trials. The issue will be that evidence gained through torture won’t be admissible, and it shouldn’t be [...]

US Appellate Court, DC circuit holds that innocent people held as prisoners and tortured in US custody are essentialy a sort of judicial unperson.
McClatchy Washington Bureau | 01/11/2008 | In voiding suit, appellate court says torture is to be expected
The detainees allege that they were held in stress positions, interrogated for sessions lasting 24 [...]

It was just a matter of time:
Download Uproar: Record Industry Goes After Personal Use – washingtonpost.com
Now, in an unusual case in which an Arizona recipient of an RIAA letter has fought back in court rather than write a check to avoid hefty legal fees, the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step [...]

Crooks and Liars » Rev. Fred Phelps loses 11 million in lawsuit—cries: “Hogwash!”
I wonder why CNN wanted to give this person airtime? All he did was make an ass out of himself and never even attempted to address any questions in an intelligible way.

The Westboro Baptist hate group Church gets a well deserved comeuppance.
Father Awarded Millions for Funeral Protest – New York Times

Appeals Court upholds FCC anti-line-sharing rules
Why? I have exactly 1 phone company, and 1 cable company offering broadband to my house. I’m not in the boonies. How is this enough competition? If the incumbents aren’t forced to share they won’t. period.
Broadband is a natural monopoly, rife with market failure and barriers to entering the market. [...]

This makes the argument that telcos should be exempted from lawsuits arising from their extra-legal cooperation with NSA spying because they were patriotically trying to help protect the nation after 9-11 specious.
Former CEO Says U.S. Punished Phone Firm – washingtonpost.com
A former Qwest Communications International executive, appealing a conviction for insider trading, has alleged that the [...]

Check out this little gem from Jennifer Pariser, the head of litigation for Sony BMG. Somebody stop them please…
Sony BMG’s chief anti-piracy lawyer: “Copying” music you own is “stealing”
Gabriel asked if it was wrong for consumers to make copies of music which they have purchased, even just one copy. Pariser replied, “When an individual makes [...]

I turned on CNN about 11:00 AM this morning. They were carrying live coverage of a bail hearing for O.J. Simpson. Mostly it amounted to watching an empty defendants table and judges chair. What’s so earth shattering about that? Is there nothing more important in the world than a bail hearing for an armed robbery [...]

Interesting op-ed in today’s Post:
Israel’s Example – washingtonpost.com
NO ONE would say that Israel is soft on terrorism, which makes it all the more fascinating that a country that essentially lives under siege provides so many legal accommodations to those it detains as unlawful combatants. It’s a stark contrast to the Bush administration’s approach and one [...]

Crooks and Liars » Justice, Guantanamo Style
Someone has to explain to me,  what existential threat justified descending into what can only be called barbarism? 9-11? If that’s the case in what way has debasing our legal system made us safer? Are we less likely to suffer mass casualty attacks because we torture people that may [...]

The Daily Dish -
Padilla’s Love For The Decider
Sully snarks all over the Padilla case Orwellian style.

If the fight is for freedom, then why do we trample basic rights for a trumped up terror charge?
A verdict on Padilla – and the US | csmonitor.com
The ordeal of this former gang member and Taco Bell worker born in Brooklyn, who allegedly met with Al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan to plot a radiological “dirty [...]