I miss the Fourth Amendment

Another day, a little less privacy.

Federal officials are routinely asking courts to order cellphone companies to furnish real-time tracking data so they can pinpoint the whereabouts of drug traffickers, fugitives and other criminal suspects, according to judges and industry lawyers.

In some cases, judges have granted the requests without requiring the government to demonstrate that there is probable cause to believe that a crime is taking place or that the inquiry will yield evidence of a crime. Privacy advocates fear such a practice may expose average Americans to a new level of government scrutiny of their daily lives.

The good 'ol Fourth Amendment. I miss it. There was a day when probable cause was required to invade citizens' privacy. Nowadays it seems to be reduced to an "internal recommendation."

Such requests run counter to the Justice Department's internal recommendation that federal prosecutors seek warrants based on probable cause to obtain precise location data in private areas. The requests and orders are sealed at the government's request, so it is difficult to know how often the orders are issued or denied.

Another practice that seems to be "in" lately. But oh wait, it gets better. See, the Federal Government actually mandates that cellular companies invest in the technology that allows law enforcement to perform such practices. The cell phone companies are even going so far as to offer such technologies as part of their "service" so that they can recover their "investment."

The issue is taking on greater relevance as wireless carriers are racing to offer sleek services that allow cellphone users to know with the touch of a button where their friends or families are. The companies are hoping to recoup investments they have made to meet a federal mandate to provide enhanced 911 (E911) location tracking. Sprint Nextel, for instance, boasts that its "loopt" service even sends an alert when a friend is near, "putting an end to missed connections in the mall, at the movies or around town."

With Verizon's Chaperone service, parents can set up a "geofence" around, say, a few city blocks and receive an automatic text message if their child, holding the cellphone, travels outside that area.

Losing patience

Some things have been known to make me lose patience.

McClellan stirring up the dust?

Earlier today, the publishing company of former Bush White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan's yet to be released book on his time in the White House teased the public with 121 words from said book. It's hard to tell whether Scott McClellan's assertions that he was lead to unintentionally lie to the White House press corps. about Karl Rove and Scooter Libby's involvement in the C.I.A. leak scandal is indeed genuine or if these 121 words are merely a cheap ploy to increase book sales come April. If true, it would certainly confirm one of the most damning suspicions that people have had regarding this President since 2003, that he knowingly aided in the outing and/or cover up of the outing of a C.I.A. non-official cover operative, one that was working on nuclear non-proliferation no less. I give you the incriminating words:

The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

There was one problem. It was not true.

I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President's chief of staff, and the President himself.

I'm just sayin'

Okay, so I'm not saying it, somebody from the Oregon Center for Public Policy is. As somebody should be.

Kicker checks are going to be mailed out soon, and with an excess of $1.1 billion, there's plenty to go around. So what does $1.1 billion in could have been tax dollars amount to?

A billion dollars is a lot of money -- and a lot of lost opportunity. This year's kicker, for example, would cover four years of tuition and fees for about 45,000 Oregonians at one of Oregon's public universities. About 8,000 Oregon high school graduates enter Oregon colleges each year. A billion dollars could have funded full college rides for all Oregon high school graduates entering the next five freshman classes.

OLCC considers rule change, groups weigh in

In case you haven't heard, the Oregon Liquor Control Commission is considering changing their rules to allow some music venues that serve alcohol to allow older teenagers into the venue. In the meantime, one group has already weighed in with a big "no."

I remember coming to PSU in 2004 and going to the Bus Project's Candidates Gone Wild with some fellow PSU Dems. Once we got to the event, all the new (and obviously younger) members were immediately separated and quarantined into a little area off to the side underneath a balcony. I felt bad for the leadership at the time, who had to decide who was going to stay with the scared Freshman and who was going to have fun with the "adults."

Hillary Clinton: The Politician

She is definitely not my "first choice" for President. I still do not have a "first choice. " What I will say is that Hillary Clinton is a damn good politician.

I am tired, so here is Context

Someone said it for me again

Once again, someone has said it for me. This time about the Portland Business Alliance's private police force, compliments of Matilda from our local Indymedia.

I highly recommend a full reading of Matilda's account, and I will supplement it with this article from MSN Money brought to my attention by a fellow classmate.

I'm not sure what the scariest part of this article is. The fact that nearly 25% of our labor force are classified as "security workers," or that this guy is advising people on how to make money off of this unfortunate statistic. You decide!

Similar calculations of guard labor for 18 other countries suggest that the United States is pretty much the leader in this category, slightly trailing Greece, a former military dictatorship, but well ahead of Western democracies such as Switzerland, which has just a 10th of its labor force devoted to guard labor.

Major groan-age.

My dad cut down that tree

I was walking to class last Friday when I saw a semi-truck parked outside of the School of Business Administration building with a giant tree on the back of it. There were lots of people gathered around it, which I thought was curious, since it was a tree on the back of a truck which didn't look to be moving any time soon. It didn't immediately click with me that this was the tree, you know, the giant one that goes in Pioneer Courthouse Square every year.

In fact, I didn't realize it was the tree for a couple of days. I was talking to my mother on the phone and she mentioned that my father had once again, for the nth year in a row, cut down the tree. You see, my father works for Stimson Lumber Company, the company that donates the tree every year. When two and two finally made four in my head, it seemed cosmically strange that my father cut down the tree in rural Oregon on Friday and within hours it ended up outside the classroom I was sitting in. I've long enjoyed the fact that the tree is a product of my father's labor, but I've rarely enjoyed the tree as the tree, in all its holiday glory in the square. I think this year I will make a point to do so.

ORblogs and condoms

If you're not yet familiar with ORblogs yet, I will give you a reason why that mistake, whether or not the fault lies with you, should be rectified immediately.

You see if it weren't for ORblogs, I never would have noticed Institute of Jurassic Technology's post on a condom fashion show in China. Now, that show was four months ago, but just because it's old news doesn't mean a Google image search won't yield amazing results now.

PETA: Super-duper-undercover-special investigation edition

Make that two times that PETA has gone super-duper undercover and infiltrated the Oregon National Primate Research Center.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a national animal-rights group, planted one of its undercover investigators at the Hillsboro center from April 9 to July 25, officials at the nonprofit told The Oregonian.

The investigator, whom neither PETA nor the primate center would identify, took a job as an animal husbandry technician and secretly took notes and shot video to document her complaints. PETA will formalize her accusations today in a complaint to federal regulators.

Many people find great joy in marginalizing and even criticizing PETA. More often than not, at least in conversations I've had with folks, their tactics are cited. To me, in regard to this tactic at least, that argument carries no water.

How many people out there working for some cause or another actually have the wherewithal to
go undercover and infiltrate an organization for their cause? You're not going to see many hands raised. That is some serious gumption.

If only we could see such gumption, dedication, and effort in regard to our cause. The cause of the American citizen. We could use some undercover-special-investigations.

For Democracy.

Gordon Smith: All things to all people

Gordon Smith has carved out a reputation is a "moderate" Republican who is willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done, even if that means "crossing the aisle." The Oregonian has always gone out of their way to perpetuate this mythical idea of the maverick Republican Senator from Oregon. They've gone so far out of their way in fact, that even articles pointing out Smith's "partisan attack dog" moments look like long, sweet kisses.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., works hard to cultivate an image as a lawmaker who will work with the enemy to get things done. His affiliation with liberal Sen. Ted Kennedy recently on several issues only reinforced the image.

On Wednesday, however, Smith assumed another role -- partisan attack dog.

In a mid-afternoon news conference designed to shred Democrats, Smith took the stage with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Trent Lott, Charles Grassley, and John Kyl -- all Republicans -- to condemn Democrats for not yet renewing legislation that would shield 25 million middle class taxpayers from an unintended tax. [...]

"That's a wrong we ought to right and it isn't being righted because of the intransigence of this Congress,'' Smith said. "We believe in a low tax society. We believe in a high opportunity society.''

In fact, you have to read all the way till the second-to-last paragraph to shed any sort of light on the Republican antics at play here.

Yet even Republicans admit that the AMT will pass eventually. And they often fail to admit that one reason it's being delayed is that Republicans have linked other tax cuts to the bill.

Ah ha. So there we have it, folks. Attach tax cuts for the rich and famous whilst decrying Democrats for not protecting the middle class. It would be cute really, if the Oregonian's first priority was to slice through the bullshit, but it's not. Their first priority is to let you know how willing our Junior Senator is to cross the aisle, never mind that it's merely in the interest of the haves.

Also snuck into the latter end of this article is Gordon Smith's cozy friendship with Trent Lott.

Smith found a friend in Lott, the Republican from Mississippi.

``If you want a better example of how this Congress has become dysfunctional, take a look at this,'' he said.

Yes, that Trent Lott.

Krugman said it (Or why I love blogs)

Last week I saw the comments that Barack Obama made about Social Security and it's "coming crisis" and such. I couldn't believe I was hearing this crisis fear-mongering again. And from a Democrat, no less. Didn't we win this debate already? I got quite angry and began blogging in my head about it but I never really had time to sit down and spill it into the intertubes. That's why I was quite pleased when Krugman said everything that I was thinking for me.

This is why I love teh blogosphere. If you're too busy to put down the words, odds are somebody is thinking what you're thinking.

2008 Initiatives

The Oregonian has a sneak peak of a couple ballot measures that are now approved for circulation for the 2008 election.

One petition calls for amending the Oregon Constitution to prohibit "the use of public or private funds to facilitate the killing of any human being from the moment of conception, wholly or partially within the womb or after delivery, and the acceptance of funds for performing such a procedure." Violations would be punishable as murder or accessory to murder.

The initiative would allow ending an ectopic pregnancy or executing someone convicted of a capital offense by a jury.

Last year's Measure 43, Parental Notification, failed. In fact, the two abortion measures failed to pass in 1990 as well. Year after year these same right-wing initiatives make it onto the ballot and voted down by Oregonians. One of the main reasons I think is because people often don't know what their signing. The best way to find out what you're signing I've found is to ask who the sponsor is.

Chief petitioners are Jack Brown and Barbara Gonzalez of Grants Pass and Richard Hake of Rogue River, and they will need 110,358 valid signatures to put it to a statewide vote next year.

You see, in the signature-gathering world, over time you'll begin to see a pattern.

Two landmark gay-rights laws, signed less than a week ago by Gov. Ted Kulongoski, were officially targeted Monday for referral to voters.

Jack Brown of Grants Pass, chairman of the Constitution Party of Oregon, and two other southern Oregonians filed papers with the Oregon secretary of state so they can begin collecting the 55,179 signatures they will need to put the two laws on the ballot in fall 2008.

Then of course, there's the infamous Bill Sizemore.

So next time someone asks you to sign an initiative or referendum petition, just ask who is the sponsor. There are two names from a list of many to avoid.

Smith votes for torture

The vote to confirm the nomination of Michael B. Mukasey as Attorney General just passed and Oregon's own Junior Senator Gordon Smith cast an AYE vote.

Thanks to Nation of Laws for providing Gordon's next bumper sticker.

Gordon Smith has effectively given George Bush a giant thumbs up to continue torturing people, in spite of both U.S. and international law. Americans are depressingly fed up with George Bush's blatant disregard for the law and Gordon Smith is nothing more than an enabler of the King's giant finger to the Constitution.

Steve Novick could not have put it more simply:

"If the Senate again confirms an attorney general who refuses to denounce torture, it will be giving a green light to President Bush to continue to use torture around the world," said Novick. "It will disgrace the United States across the globe. And it will not make us safer. As Senator John McCain has said: 'We should not torture or treat inhumanely terrorists we have captured. The abuse of prisoners harms, not helps, our war effort.'"

It's that simple. The law is the law, and the Attorney General prosecutes our law. If he refuses to recognize the law, that is a problem. If our elected representatives in government are okay with this, that is a far graver problem.

Mukasey vote going down now

It looks like the Mukasey confirmation is going down right now. C-SPAN2 for those interested.

Update 7:20 PM:

Tom Harkin (D-IA) is calling George Bush "the king." Nice.

Update 8:28 PM:

Torture man confirmed. 53-40. Voting was cut off and Senators did not appear happy about it.

DeFazio comes out against Peru Free Trade Agreement

Rep. Peter DeFazio speaks the truth.

"The dollar is dropping like a rock. We're borrowing $2 billion a day from overseas to buy things that we don't make in America anymore. We've lost 4 million manufacturing jobs nationally, and 40,000 jobs here in Oregon due to so-called free trade policies. Millions of middle class Americans are seeing their pay go stagnate or decline. Our current trade policy is a dismal failure. It's a failed engine for America's economy."

I'm especially interested to see where Portland's own Rep. Earl Blumenauer is going to come down on this issue. The nicest way of describing his record on trade that I can think of is "mixed," which breaks my heart seeing as he's such an advocate for, well, pretty much everything else that Progressives stand for. I was very pleased to see him vote against CAFTA and I hope he will do the same with this lousy trade agreement.

How badly did Measure 50 fail?

Bad.

Oregon's largest county is the only county where voters liked Measure 50's proposed cigarette tax increase, according to election results with 1.13 million ballots counted Wednesday morning.

According to the latest results, NO votes reached as high as 80% in Oregon counties.

That's what 12$ million in advertising from the people who invented advertising will get you. Sorry, children. I hope you get well soon.

The Office is closed

I wrote previously about the rhyme and reason of the Writers Guild of America strike.

What has really been great to see is the writers taking their message to the Internet these last few days, much like Progressives have done when attempting to bring about change. The Writers Guild of America has even set up a YouTube channel so you can see the progress of the strike from the ground. And from that YouTube channel, a message from the writers of the Office.

FEMA still doing a heckuva job

They did a heckuva job in the summer of 2005 and they did a heckuva job during the fall of 2007.

In all the media surrounding the California wildfires the last few weeks, you might have missed the fact that some of it was staged by FEMA officials.

FEMA officials hurriedly called a press conference on October 23, giving media outlets only a few minutes notice. When no reporters were present for the conference, FEMA staffers asked questions of the agency's No. 2 official, Harvey Johnson. Reporters were allowed to call in for the conference, but they were kept in listen-only mode and not allowed to ask questions.

And what did many of those questions sound like?

"Are you happy with FEMA's response so far?" a reporter asked. Another asked about "lessons learned from Katrina."

"I'm very happy with FEMA's response so far," Johnson said, hailing "a very smoothly, very efficiently performing team." [...]

Very smooth, very professional. But something didn't seem right. The reporters were lobbing too many softballs. No one asked about trailers with formaldehyde for those made homeless by the fires. And the media seemed to be giving Johnson all day to wax on and on about FEMA's greatness.

Of course, that could be because the questions were asked by FEMA staffers playing reporters. We're told the questions were asked by Cindy Taylor, FEMA's deputy director of external affairs, and by "Mike" Widomski, the deputy director of public affairs. Director of External Affairs John "Pat" Philbin asked a question, and another came, we understand, from someone who sounds like press aide Ali Kirin.

Within days of the fake press conference coming to light, one official involved announced they were leaving the agency. After which he was promptly offered a new post as the head of public affairs for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. No joke. Today, another official resigned.

But don't worry, folks. The White House is aware of the situation.

"It is not a practice that we would employ here at the White House."

Except that you have employed it at the White House.

Paging Jeff Gannon.