Monday, August 16, 2004

JOHN KERRY ON CIVIL LIBERTIES: An analysis from Reason:

This isn't the first time Kerry and Ashcroft have been at odds over civil liberties. In the 1990s, government proposals to restrict encryption inspired a national debate. Then as now, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and electronic privacy groups locked horns with the DOJ and law enforcement agencies. Then as now, Kerry and Ashcroft were on opposite sides.

But there was noteworthy difference in those days. Then it was Sen. John Ashcroft (R-Mo.) who argued alongside the ACLU in favor of the individual's right to encrypt messages and export encryption software. Ashcroft "was kind of the go-to guy for all of us on the Republican side of the Senate," recalls David Sobel, general counsel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

And in what now seems like a bizarre parallel universe, it was John Kerry who was on the side of the FBI, the National Security Agency, and the DOJ. . . . Responding directly to a column in Wired on encryption that said "trusting the government with your privacy is like having a Peeping Tom install your window blinds," Kerry invoked the Americans killed in 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. "[O]ne would be hard-pressed," he wrote, "to find a single grieving relative of those killed in the bombings of the World Trade Center in New York or the federal building in Oklahoma City who would not have gladly sacrificed a measure of personal privacy if it could have saved a loved one." Change a few words, and the passage could easily fit into Attorney General Ashcroft's infamous speech to the Senate Judiciary Committee in late 2001.

Read the whole thing.

HERE'S ANOTHER ARTICLE on Orrin Hatch's dumb "INDUCE" Act:

INDUCE is supposed to target copyright infringement via illegal downloads, especially on peer-to-peer (p2p) networks like Kazaa and Grokster. The bill would create a new cause of action against anyone who "induces" such infringement -- with "inducement" to be determined on a case-by-case basis, using an unspecific "reasonable man" standard to evaluate the presence of intent to induce a copyright violation.

The problem is, this concept has no real limits. Suppliers of any technology that allows transmitting, copying, or sharing of material protected by intellectual property law could be accused of "inducement." That list is potentially endless: PC's, broadband service, dial-up service, scanners, printers, mp3 file systems, CD recorders, and so on. INDUCE's subjective standards of proof would have a dramatic chilling effect on the development, marketing, and distribution of new and existing technologies (once an accusation makes it to court, costs start to pile up quickly).

This doesn't count as championing small government, does it?. Plus -- at a crude political level, but one that's apparently not crude enough to be obvious to the Republicans -- this is a subsidy to an industry that consistently opposes Republicans. How stupid is that?

HUGH HEWITT continues to blog up a storm.

BEST OF THE WEB is back, after an extended hiatus.

MICHAEL BARONE'S LATEST COLUMN is about the Kerry Christmas-in-Cambodia story.

UPDATE: More columnists on the subject, here and here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Beldar says that the SwiftVets are pursuing a tar baby strategy.

DIGITAL CAMERAS AND LEGAL EDUCATION: Law school starts this week (though I'm on sabbatical this fall) and an incoming student who's also an InstaPundit reader sends this email:

Since you have as a theme on your website the wonders and utilities of digital cameras, I thought you might find this particular use interesting.

I just got out of the morning session of orientation at UTK Law School (so you'll be seeing me soon enough) and we all shuffled upstairs to the bulletin board. While all of my classmates were busy jockeying for position around the assignments, I just pulled out my Canon S400 and took snapshots of the board.

Instead of spending ten or fifteen minutes scribbling furiously, I spent my time outside sipping an ice cold Coke. Ahhh.

It pays to be an early adopter!

UPDATE: And here's a blogging UT 1L, with more digital photography!

ANOTHER UPDATE: Related thoughts here.

KATHY KINSLEY survived the hurricane. Follow the link for a status report.

MARK WHITTINGTON has thoughts on the Kerry space policy.

BLOGGER ARTHUR CHRENKOFF is in the Wall Street Journal today.

DANIEL DREZNER is applying Kerry-like nuance. And it's working!

UPDATE: And Hugh Hewitt's latest blog post was inspired by Atrios! And it's working, too. . . .

JESSE WALKER NOTES THE CHAVEZ SPIN, pro- and anti-. Meanwhile you might want to check out some Venezuelan blogs, here, here, and here.

TOMMY FRANKS' NEW BOOK, AMERICAN SOLDIER, IS NUMBER ONE on the New York Times bestseller list, but it's not getting a lot of attention. Max Boot explains:

It is a good read, thanks to the work of veteran ghostwriter Malcolm McConnell; the early sections on Franks's blue-collar upbringing and Vietnam service are particularly affecting. But it has not made as much of a media splash as some other accounts of the administration, because it is not hostile to George W. Bush.

To the contrary, American Soldier rebuts some criticisms directed against the president. Bush has been accused, for instance, of taking his eye off Afghanistan by ordering the plan for a possible war with Iraq in the fall of 2001. Franks writes that, given the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, this was a sensible request, and that "our mission in Afghanistan never suffered" as a result.

Scores of pundits have accused the administration of lying, or at least distorting the evidence, about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. But Franks reveals that the leaders of Egypt and Jordan told him that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons. Though no weapon of mass destruction was ever found, he writes, "I do not regret my role in disarming Iraq and removing its Baathist regime."

Another charge made against the administration is that political appointees failed to give the generals enough troops in either Afghanistan or Iraq. In fact, Franks writes, it was his own choice to employ limited forces in order to avoid getting bogged down. Instead of relying on sheer size, he thought surprise and speed were the keys to victory -- a judgment largely vindicated by events.

I hate to buy into a theory as seemingly simplistic and cynical as "if it makes Bush look good, it'll be buried" -- but I can't deny its explanatory power.

UPDATE: Thoughts from a bookseller on this phenomenon.

SOME THOUGHTS ON WORLD WAR IV, in Commentary.

LET'S HOPE THIS STORY PANS OUT: Thin film fuel cells may make fossil fuel-burning electric plants obsolete.

I DON'T DO THAT MUCH ECONO-BLOGGING or business-blogging here at InstaPundit. But you can get loads of both at The Carnival of the Capitalists, which is up for this week over at The Frozen North. Check it out!