Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Jeff Buchanan]

On keeping track of the likes of the Farooks and the Maliks .........

There is room for reasonable debate on how this should be done and if it should be done at all.

I get the reference to John Mitchell. One could add Joseph McCarthy to make their point.

I know Jon is not going to trust the government to do anything right in this regard. Hack, having similar views from what I can tell of his posts, is going to side with him. Jon and I have been on opposite sides of this discussion before. That was probably 7-8 years ago and I've become way more liberal since then so, let me say out of the gate, I get your point but don't keep making it with one liners that evoke the specter of Big Brother and the Surveillance State.

Having said that, everyone posting here knows that this issue has been debated for at least the last 8 years ...... National Security v. Privacy rights. It should be a presidential debate issue but it probably won't be.

My view is that there are very likely to be acceptable ways to conduct surveillance while protecting personal privacy. There are also effective means to manage the huge amounts of data that surveillance produces. Given that I would expect authorities who are empowered to do so to act on it such that responsible government, whose Constitutional roll it is to defend and protect its citizens, to actually defend and protect them.

We'll find reasonable points to disagree on in the first two parts of the paragraph above, no doubt, but reasonable people should be able to come up with reasonable ways to do this in the age of the vast technology we have at our disposal to do this.

But there should be absolutely no disagreement on the second part of that paragraph. None.

[Ghengis Jon]

I have no issue using technology to accomplish the constitutional role of defending the citizenry. Playing six degrees from Kevin Bacon is perfectly acceptable when tracking suspects. Saying that one must scoop up all the dots in order to find the relevant ones is an argument totalitarian govts make. There is no place in American society for it. I am not a 'bad guy' and I have nothing to hide. The govt has absolutely no right or need to sift through my business. When we change our way of life as American citizens because of psychotic jihadists, then we are surrendering to their actions and ideology. That is not an option in my book. The Brits had the best advice during the Blitz: "Keep Calm And Carry On". And they perservered. I do not approve of widespread civil restrictions and the relinquishing of small freedoms so that the govt can hide behind an illusion of doing something. If you're looking for hills, don't look under pebbles and then claim you're only being thorough.

[hack]

I know Jon is not going to trust the government to do anything right in this regard. Hack, having similar views from what I can tell of his posts, is going to side with him.

I think that whether it's government, private, commercial or non, the real problem is that once organizations get past a certain size the problems creep in. Government is just a favorite place to focus on that particular aspect of human nature because it's more transparent than the private sector and because we all fund it.

In this specific case, however, there's very little since 9-11 that should not be understood primarily through the idea of transferring wealth from the public sector to defense contractors. If you can find a reason why the essential motive of greed does not apply in any specific case, double check that carefully before proceeding on to other analytical themes.

[froot loops]

The alleged Facebook activities prior to the shootings seem to originate for a bogus NY Times article. The FBI has criticized the Times for it.

[Da Geezer]

Good debate.

Government is just a favorite place to focus on that particular aspect of human nature because it's more transparent than the private sector and because we all fund it.

Government is unique in that it has no competitors, and, indeed, has the power to make sure it has no competitors. Even the most corrupt defense contractor has to openly bid for contracts.

McDonald's has been a good stock this year. They decided to offer breakfast all day, and the stock has been up 20%. I don't believe the government would ever make a significant change of how they operated their business like McDonald's did. There is absolutely no incentive to do so, and a lot of incentive to stand pat.

The e coli outbreak at Chipotle is another story of the market making a decision on a way of doing business. What the phrase "organic" actually means is "fertilized with shit" rather than fertilized with chemicals. Now the shit has bacteria, a different strain discovered today, and the stock is down 30%. My point is that the government avoids similar market-driven accountability.

As to the tension between freedom and safety, I hold with those who favor freedom. But we are living in a time where Obama has accomplished those things that Nixon only dreamed of.

"Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely"

[Ghengis Jon]

For all you paranoid scare-d-cats who worry about world events, terror and all that stuff, just relax and find inner peace glancing through the limited edition 2016 Vladimir Putin Calendar. As you can see, when he's not at church he's communing with nature and hanging out with puppies. Come on, lets all be like Vlad!!

[Wild Hoss]

Well, he doesn't look so much like an unscrupulous, power-mad Machiavellian former KGB chief to me!

[entropy]

As long as he grabs ISIS attention...


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[Wild Hoss]

So....thoughts on the Latte Revolution taking place in Oregon?

I know the Feds need to be the grownups in this situation, but I have to admit that the notion of sending the Fibbies in there to crack some skulls and set an example against this behavior is appealing on some level.

[iam416]

Ridiculous. I guess the upside is that they're non-violent for the moment. That gives them a leg up on on other acts of protest. And, I'll confess, they got their message out to me, at least -- reading about the folks who have pretty clearly been assfucked by the Feds worse than a Husker in Indy. Of course, those folks want nothing to do with these crazies.

All in all, complete non-entity....but interesting nonetheless.

[AlabamAlum]

I haven't followed this. So, the Feds are to blame?

[iam416]

No, not for the asstarded "occupancy" nonsense.

For prosecuting folks as terrorists for "arson" -- yes.

[AlabamAlum]

I assume terrorist arson carries a stiffer penalty than non-terrorist arson?

[Mike]

So....thoughts on the Latte Revolution taking place in Oregon?

I know the Feds need to be the grownups in this situation, but I have to admit that the notion of sending the Fibbies in there to crack some skulls and set an example against this behavior is appealing on some level.

Same here. I'd give them the full Waco as I've grown quite tired of extremism in our country.

Talent, were the father/son that were convicted of arson tried as terrorists? All I keep hearing is that there were poaching on the nature reserve and set a fire to cover it up which burned 138 acres.

[iam416]

Yes. There seems to be facts suggesting that the Government was motivated by this particularly family's refusal to sell its land to the Feds. I haven't read enough on that angle to form an informed decision.

However, what happened at trial is pretty much beyond dispute. The "burns" are arguably at dispute -- for the first one, the family contended it was to rid the land of an invasive species; the Feds contended poaching. The second seems irrelevant.

While “arsons” might sound suspicious to urban ears, anyone familiar with land management in the West (and to a lesser degree, in the rural South and Midwest) knows that land must sometime be burned to stop the spread of invasive species and prevent or fight destructive wildfires. Indeed, the federal government frequently starts its own fires, and protesters allege (with video evidence) that these “burns” often spread to private land, killing and injuring cattle and damaging private property. Needless to say, no federal officers are ever prosecuted. The prosecution of the Hammonds revolved mainly around two burns, one in 2001 and another in 2006. The government alleged that the first was ignited to cover up evidence of poaching and placed a teenager in danger. The Hammonds claimed that they started it to clear an invasive species, as is their legal right. Whatever its intent, the fire spread from the Hammonds’ property and ultimately ignited 139 acres of public land. But the trial judge found that the teenager’s testimony was tainted by age and bias and that the fire had merely damaged “juniper trees and sagebrush” — damage that “might” total $100 in value.

The other burn was trifling. Here’s how the Ninth Circuit described it: "In August 2006, a lightning storm kindled several fires near where the Hammonds grew their winter feed. Steven responded by attempting back burns near the boundary of his land. Although a burn ban was in effect, Steven did not seek a waiver. His fires burned about an acre of public land."

In 2010 — almost nine years after the 2001 burn — the government filed a 19-count indictment against the Hammonds that included charges under the Federal Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which mandates a five-year prison term for anyone who “maliciously damages or destroys, or attempts to damage or destroy, by means of fire or an explosive, any building, vehicle, or other personal or real property in whole or in part owned or possessed by, or leased to, the United States.”

At trial, the jury found the Hammonds guilty of maliciously setting fire to public property worth less than $1,000, acquitted them of other charges, and deadlocked on the government’s conspiracy claims. While the jury continued to deliberate, the Hammonds and the prosecution reached a plea agreement in which the Hammonds agreed to waive their appeal rights and accept the jury’s verdict. It was their understanding that the plea agreement would end the case.

At sentencing, the trial court refused to apply the mandatory-minimum sentence, holding that five years in prison would be “grossly disproportionate to the severity of the offenses” and that the Hammonds’ fires “could not have been conduct intended [to be covered] under” the Anti-terrorism act: "When you say, you know, what if you burn sagebrush in the suburbs of Los Angeles where there are houses up those ravines? Might apply. Out in the wilderness here, I don’t think that’s what the Congress intended. And in addition, it just would not be — would not meet any idea I have of justice, proportionality. . . . It would be a sentence which would shock the conscience to me."

Thus, he found that the mandatory-minimum sentence would — under the facts of this case — violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment.” He sentenced Steven Hammond to two concurrent prison terms of twelve months and one day and Dwight Hammond to one prison term of three months. The Hammonds served their sentences without incident or controversy.

The federal government, however, was not content to let the matter rest. Despite the absence of any meaningful damage to federal land, the U.S. Attorney appealed the trial judge’s sentencing decision, demanding that the Hammonds return to prison to serve a full five-year sentence.

The case went to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the court ruled against the Hammonds, rejecting their argument that the prosecutor violated the plea agreement by filing an appeal and dismissing the trial court’s Eighth Amendment concerns. The Hammonds were ordered back to prison. At the same time, they were struggling to pay a $400,000 civil settlement with the federal government, the terms of which gave the government right of first refusal to purchase their property if they couldn’t scrape together the money.