Let's (not) talk about the "S"word

I love California. On the same day, we have a (probably temporary) victory for equal rights in the state supreme court’s decision to overturn the ban on same-sex marriage. This is problematic because it actually benefits those who are insecure in their own sexuality those who find non-traditional sex so repulsive they want to put a stop to it legislatively.

The California Supreme Court actually overturned a voter sponsored referendum. If the sexually repressed socially conservative folks of California would like, they are welcome to vote for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. That’ll show ‘em. This country has a long and (dis)honorable history of keeping the minorities down. If they got the referendum passed, they have a pretty good shot at passing a constitutional amendment. That just might get the social conservatives to the polls this November which means…Uhhggg. Sigh. Trying not to think about it…

At least the Governator isn’t too concerned about making this an issue.

Anyway, leave it to California. On the same day, this issue *ahem* popped up. Some California lawmakers also want to spank the porn industry with a 25 percent tax, which will only encourage them to move elsewhere. I would certainly pull out.

As long as the topic is sex, here’s a little flashback. The military has been under fire (what an asinine media cliché, all things considered) for allowing the PX to sell, of all things, Playboy. This doesn’t add up. We are dealing with a two front war that is only half justified and the biggest problem the military is dealing with is whether or not an officer may purchase a nudie mag? Be happy that Playgirl is not the biggest seller at the PX. And believe it or not, a porn ban might actually HURT morale.

Imagine that.

Chris

Update on Wikileaks

Just a quick update today. A federal judge in California has reversed his decision to restrict access to wikileaks.org. A Swiss bank that was caught up in some shady dealings is involved in a court case in California (even though the alleged dealings took place in the Cayman Islands, outside of U.S. jurisdiction.) Documents posted on the site detailed some of those dealings and were released by a former bank executive. The bank requested and got a ruling from the judge to block all public access to those leaked documents, even though they were already out there and available.

Here is a telling quote from the New York Times article.

In reversing himself at a hearing here on Friday, Judge White acknowledged that the bank’s request posed serious First Amendment questions and might constitute unjustified prior restraint. He also appeared visibly frustrated that technology might have outrun the law and that, as a result, the court might not be able to rein in information once it had been disclosed online.

Judge White ordered that the site shut down access to the site from its American portal. Too bad for the judge, the site is intentionally accessible from its many overseas sites. The whole point was to circumvent censorship efforts. Read all about it here.

It all seemed pretty pointless at the time. Kudos (I guess) to the judiciary for recognizing a pointless and potentially illegal ruling.

Chris

What's the sound of a whistle not blowing?

Yesterday, I ranted about the Executive Branch decision to shut down a website that provides easy access to all manner of economic data. Today, the good folks at Daily Kos brought us this little ray of sunshine from the Judicial Branch.

It seems that U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White in California has ordered that Wikileaks be shut down. (The link is not intentionally broken; that is the message currently displayed.) According to the BBC, Swiss bank Julius Baer is in a tizzy because some information leaked on the site about the bank might reveal some shady dealings in the Cayman Islands. It seems the bank is in the middle of a court case right now.

Here is the official ruling:

"Dynadot shall immediately clear and remove all DNS hosting records for the wikileaks.org domain name and prevent the domain name from resolving to the wikileaks.org website or any other website or server other than a blank park page, until further order of this Court."

I'm taking bets on when we hear a "further order" from the court. I'm taking 2182 AD. In the meantime, the site that claims to have leaked 1.2 million documents since 2006 has been entirely silenced over one court case and the documents in question are likely to be released in court sooner or later anyway.

Wikileaks was a powerful tool that allowed whistle-blowers to anonymously post government and corporate documents. It had particularly irritated the governments of China and Thailand because the site allowed people to documents regarding non-spurious issues like human rights abuses and misinformation about the Iraq War.

I guess corporate interests trump human rights and transparency yet again.

Yesterday, I made the point that democracy requires open government. Daniel Ellsberg proved that in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers and Senator Mike Gavel read them into the Congressional Record, making them a public record. (A congressional committee later determined that only .5 percent of the 7000 pages were indeed "top secret." I will add an attribution later.) That information helped end the Vietnam War.

As Daily Kos' stephen soldz so eloquently points out, Nixon did not try to shut down the New York Times and Washington Post entirely for printing the Pentagon Papers. My own educated guess, though, is that Nixon would not have been too upset about that, but he could not find a judge to go along with him.

Whistle blowers are an integral part of any democracy. As a nation, we entrust our government to operate in our own best interests. With such a large government entrusted with so much power, there will be abuses of power. That's the sad reality. The silver lining is that there are ways, like "blowing the whistle," that uncover abuses of power and that is the first step toward correcting abuses. Our judiciary did no favors today for American democracy or for democratization efforts across the globe.

Keep digging into those government records.
Chris