From FindLaw, links to the text of the two statutes cited in the executive order:

• "the Authorization for Use of Military Force Joint Resolution (Public Law 107-40, 115 Stat. 224) and sections 821 and 836 of title 10, United States Code"

- posted by levinson @ 11/30/2001 10:54:00 AM

 
Here's the text of the order on military tribunals. What has the legal eagles in a twist is the following paragraph:

• "(a) The term "individual subject to this order" shall mean any individual who is not a United States citizen with respect to whom I determine from time to time in writing that:
  (1) there is reason to believe that such individual, at the relevant times,
  (i) is or was a member of the organization known as al Qaida;
  (ii) has engaged in, aided or abetted, or conspired to commit, acts of international terrorism, or acts in preparation therefor, that have caused, threaten to cause, or have as their aim to cause, injury to or adverse effects on the United States, its citizens, national security, foreign policy, or economy; or
  (iii) has knowingly harbored one or more individuals described in subparagraphs (i) or (ii) of subsection 2(a)(1) of this order;
  and
  (2) it is in the interest of the United States that such individual be subject to this order."

So what we have here is the right of the president to try in secret any non-citizen (including resident aliens) that W and only W determines may have acted to plan something that may that had the aim of having adverse effects on the US economy. All of this is subject to extremely broad and dangerous interpretation. The point is that the order could be used to try a foreign executive who is in meetings on US soil that plan to move significant manufacturing off US soil. Kind of like a takeover and restructuring of a US company by a foreign one. Obviously this is extremely hypothetical and taking the powers of the order to the extreme, but the order made by the executive with no consultation of the legislative seeks to remove the judiciary and the legislative from the process of trying legal residents of the US. Very troubling indeed. At least the Alien and Sedition acts had the backing of Congress (though not of the citizens).


- posted by levinson @ 11/30/2001 10:38:00 AM

 

• First on the list (above yesterday's budget item) of things the media won't deal with head-on. Five front page stories a day about the "war" in Afghanistan and nothing on the military tribunals except that everyone in the white house is continually defending them. The defense is never substantive, nor has the memo justifying the legality of the action been produced to any media outlet. Significantly, it's not known if a media outlet has asked for it. Illegal aliens have no right to protection under the constitution; nor do P.O.W.'s. However, resident aliens are vulnerable under the executive order (this has never been run by congress) under vague tenets of the order. See here for the usual suspects lining up the challenge the order as soon as it is used to prosecute someone.
• Joe Conason has a nice piece about the media.
• On the subject of Enron and Adam Lashinsky's op-ed today. Have stock analysts become more like journalists or the other way around. Kind of a chicken or the egg problem, but which one started doing no real work aside from the crap they were spoon fed from power sources. Is it still bad to bite the hand that feeds you if all you get is inedible waste or excrement?

- posted by levinson @ 11/30/2001 10:07:00 AM

 
More on the item below. It is entirely up to the press to treat this is a major story that ought to wipe the war from the top of the fold for the next 4 days. They won't, but they should. The war won't be over for a long time and this has more to do with the health of our country than the terrorists in the caves of Afghanistan. It is often said that governments should run deficits when fighting a war, but let's be clear about what kind of war that comment intends. Bombing a stone-age country into pre-history is not a war that needs to have deficits run to finance it. $96 billion a year is not a huge deal considering that is not all added cost to the current budget. A year ago we had enough money to prosecute this war, bolster national defense, save social security and stimulate a flagging economy. We have now erased 8 years of prosperity in 11 months. That's a record-breaking and breath-taking decline.
- posted by levinson @ 11/29/2001 11:17:00 AM

 
Not yet apoplectic, but if the dems don't make enough hay from this to take back 2 of the 3 branches of government in the next two elections it will be a major strategic and political failure. Don't believe the nonsense about the war (a whopping $8 billion a month) and the recession (due to be over by March and thus last less than a year). This is about the tax cut and other pure-pork spending that's been earmarked by the House. Taking the next two elections is more of a lay-up than the 2000 election. No one can screw something like this up twice can they?
- posted by levinson @ 11/29/2001 11:11:00 AM

 
Salon out in front again. The first real look at the anthrax being sent by right-wing extremists. Our own, home-grown terrorists with whom the people of Oklahoma City are all too familiar. I should think, the sending of anthrax to the two most high-profile, and executive power-checking democrats would direct the investigation almost directly to the country's right-wing extremists for close scrutiny. Purely speculative now, I would hope that the white house, in the event that extremists are behind it, would not hesitate to disclose those responsible just becuase these terrorists stain the republican party.
- posted by levinson @ 11/21/2001 06:42:00 AM

 
People like to knock the king. That's just the way it is. Harry Potter set a record this weekend in ticket sales. Forbes, however, is calling it a fraud. Without getting into an analysis of the lack of scientific thought in the article, one thing deserves to be pointed out because it is an outright fallacy and the journalistic community needs to stop lying to us on this one. One disclaimer, these reporters don't know they're lying to us since they pay less attention to detail than we do, so it's not really their fault. Anyway, here's a quote from the article that uses a comparison to show why the Harry record is a fraud:

• "In 1961, when Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth's single-season home-run record, Major League Baseball's record-keepers put an asterisk by Maris' name because he hit his 61 home runs in a 162-game season. The Babe hit his 60 in 154 games. By the same token, there should be an asterisk or two next to Harry Potter."

The problem? There never was an asterisk in the baseball record book. In point of fact, there was no official record book at the time Maris hit 61. Allen Barra tells the story concisely. I find the asterisk fraud to be annoying. As for Harry Potter, I think, as long as there are accurate stats, a good comparison should be made between it and the previous record-holders. However, the stats bar is high on this one since right now we talk about how many theatres or (more accurately) how many screens a movie opens on. What this doesn't take into account is how long a movie is. Lost World is 129 minutes. Star Wars I is 133 minutes. Harry Potter is 152. Length affects how many times a movie can be shown on a screen. It may very well be that Lost World made more money per showing than any other, but the fact remains that the dollar take for Harry breaks all previous openings. I'm bored today, that's why I'm harping on this so much.
- posted by levinson @ 11/19/2001 01:35:00 PM

 
Belaboring the plane crash thing here for a bit. Found a site on plane crashes. Did a search of their site and here're the only two crashes that they have listed since 1938 that come close to similar circumstances:

• Stavropol Airlines 1023


• Braniff Airlines 352

Seems like a good site, but couldn't find any info as to how in-depth its information is, or where the info comes from. Just a disclaimer.
- posted by levinson @ 11/16/2001 11:57:00 AM

 
STRATFOR on Omar's latest statements of doom against the US. They raise the question of whether this is a credible threat/message to his US based troops or the flailing of a defeated foe. The hard part is we don't know until there's another attack.
- posted by levinson @ 11/16/2001 11:54:00 AM

 
To be field under "Just Not Adding Up":
The investigation into the crash of AA 587 is currently looking into why and how the tail separated from the plane. Makes sense. Planes hit a lot of turbulence a lot of the time and I'm still waiting for an expert to explain this to me in English or techno-speak. I don't care. If being 15 seconds shy of the minimum take-off separation causes the tail of the plane to fly off, two questions are raised:

1. When was this minimum standard set-up and has it ever been adjusted.


2. More importantly, I defy anyone to tell me that this is the first time a plane has taken off early. Why were the consequences before not catastrophic?

Finally, the plane seems to have come apart in three stages. First the tail flies off. Second, both engines separate at close to the same time. Third, the body of the plane drops like a stone into Queens. Each stage seems to have occured at definite intervals as there are three concentrated areas of debris. This is important. The whole plane isn't breaking apart. First the tail, then each of the engines and finally the whole plane. STRATFOR had hypothesized that a shoulder launched missle could be responsible. They said this very early on, and I think the evidence that is public doesn't allow for that theory, although I have no pracitcal or theoretical experience with plane explosions. The "dunno list" for this story is a mile long and gets longer with each press release. Hopefully someone in some news room will start looking closely at this. Investigations take a long time and when you're flying, you have myriad varibles in three dimensions. That's a lot of data to analyze. Right now, though, you're going to have to do a lot better explaining the turbulence thing to me, because to my simple mind, it just doesn't add up.
- posted by levinson @ 11/16/2001 11:23:00 AM

 
What if there was a war and a recession and no good music came from it?

Traditionally, either a war, or an economic downturn has produced some fabulous rock music. Obviously the 60's are a good example. After that, in the late 70's/early 80's, we had another resurgence. Most recently, we had the explosion of Seattle bands in the early 90's. Since then, however, it's been either uncreative remakes of the early 90's genre. In the late 90's we were all subjected to the terror of the boy bands and the platinum teen nymphs. It's early yet, but I'm getting antsy for some good tunes. We've had an economic downturn for the better part of a year followed by unspeakable human trajedy and all we get is the newest offering from Michael Jackson and Britney in Vegas (which I'll be watching for purely personal reasons).
- posted by levinson @ 11/15/2001 01:18:00 PM

 
Well now you really can buy an election in Florida.
- posted by levinson @ 11/15/2001 12:17:00 PM

 
I am so friggin jazzed for both Harry Potter and LOTR that it's hard for me to type. All geeks like me are going to be flying out of the closet this holiday season. Chris Petrekin talks about the two movies being promoted by AOLTimeWarner this year. Of course, the incorrect spelling of Aragorn and Galdalf the Grey in the second paragraph doesn't get things off on the right foot. It's a good story, but that's just sloppy.

Still can't get Jess to read LOTR. She starts and stops incessantly and then frets that the books move too slowly. They move a little slowly, but if you actually read them, they don't move that slowly. Regardless, we're both plowing through all the Harry Potter's again. Bought our tickets last weekend for tomorrow night. I am such a loser.
- posted by levinson @ 11/15/2001 07:55:00 AM

 
To date, the most comprehensive review of the outlook on the console wars among Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft. Long and well written, this article evenly presents the situation while adding in Wagner James Au's, the author, own thoughts on how the future will play out. In a nut shell, the sees the future as a three-pronged market dominated by Sony because Sony is willing to take more risks with its titles than MSFT is.
- posted by levinson @ 11/15/2001 07:52:00 AM

 
It's happened a few times in the W administration, but never so scathing. William Safire denounces the latest law enforcement actions by W. As I've said before, when a former Nixon aide starts telling you that you're going about things in the wrong way, you better listen. As in the past, however, they won't.
- posted by levinson @ 11/15/2001 07:49:00 AM

 
Praise for the UN. Having been one of their detractors of late, this is putting me in my place. Hopefully they will follow through and we can make some real progress in Afghanistan. Additionally, it would be nice if the US became more of a force in the UN and guided it towards dealing with the rest of the region and some parts of Africa that need its help badly.
- posted by levinson @ 11/13/2001 10:32:00 AM

 
I'm not sure what the UN is waiting for. There have been few situations that scream out for UN control more than the current Afghanistan situation. However, I have little confidence since during this entire war it has demonstrated just how castrated an orgainzation it is. Sometimes circumstances just roll out the red carpet, right up to your door and all you have to do is walk out. Right now the UN is still on the couch yelling for someone else to get the door. Just too lazy; inept; scared; paralyzed. Take your pick from any of these or other pejorative adjectives. They just one the Nobel Peace Prize, now they have a chance to earn that award.
- posted by levinson @ 11/13/2001 08:01:00 AM

 
Psyched about the D-Backs winning the World Series. They did it in dramatic fashion that was both a pleasure and diffcult to watch. I couldn't, and still can't, (doing my best arm-chair managing) understand why Brenley left Schilling in for the 7th. He then makes me look like a true rube with clutch pinch hitting and running in the bottom of the 9th against the Sandman. Very impressive and thrilling to watch.
- posted by levinson @ 11/05/2001 09:10:00 AM

 
Reading the special report in the Times yesterday on the WTC/Pentagon attacks, two things became very clear. Our customs screening must be much more thorough and include a record of when someone has travelled outside the country and to where. According to this report, the hijackers made several international trips in the year leading up to Sept. 11. I don't know enough about our Customs practices to say whether there was a breakdown in communication between them and other government departments, or if an overhaul of customs procedures is needed. Second, and more importantly, it is becoming clear that the country we need to deal with forcefully and decisively before any other, save Afghanistan and perhaps Sudan, is Saudi Arabia. The country is not only needlessly oppressive and run by a regime that is solely concerned with covering its own ass, but it is a greater breeding ground for terrorism than any other. As with my belief of what needs to be done in Afghanistan, I don't think our, or any, government has the political clout, the backing or the will to remedy this situation. It would be an ugly and complicated affair to topple the Saudi government and replace it with a more democratic one (if that's what the Saudi people want). I put will last on the list of the three things our government lacks, because even if it had the will, the other two factors (political clout and backing) would supercede its will to act. I think it will take two or three more attacks on the scale of the WTC/Pentagon in other countries to shake the world enough to deal with the problem. The middle east and Africa alike are ugly quagmires of repression and wealth disparity to such a degree that for many the concept of democracy is nice, but right now what they'd really like is a job, a house and some food. You can't have the former (a peaceful democracy) without the latter. To that end, the UN needs to become a much more active and forceful body. If it means to live up to its declaration of human rights, it needs to look hard at the true problems of the world (sorry, Zionism doesn't make the top 20) and possible solutions which are harder still.
- posted by levinson @ 11/05/2001 08:30:00 AM

 
Haven't done anything for a few days mostly due to the fact that I'm trying to move a little away from the terrorism front. It's been tough, so I haven't had much. In perhaps his funniest story/picture coupling since the "Sharon Stone says no to Bush" headline, Drudge today couples his story of Geraldo moving to Fox News with this picture. Priceless.

- posted by levinson @ 11/02/2001 10:25:00 AM