Expect Resistance & Library Autonomous Zone

AP Wire | 11/24/2004 | Higher ed officials question request to access student records

Higher education officials in South Carolina are concerned about a proposal that would give the federal government more access to individual student records….

The U.S. Department of Education says it wants more information about students as a way to better track trends such as retention, graduation rates and net tuition. The agency wants to create a unit record system at the federal level that would collect data from individual student records

The Arrival Of Secret Law
by Steven Aftergood, Secrecy News,
Volume 2004, Issue No. 100.
November 14, 2004.

Americans can now be obligated to comply with legally-binding regulations that are unknown to them, and that indeed they are forbidden to know.

This is not some dismal Eastern European allegory. It is part of a continuing transformation of American government that is leaving it less open, less accountable and less susceptible to rational deliberation as a vehicle for change.

Harold C. Relyea once wrote an article entitled “The Coming of Secret Law” (Government Information Quarterly, vol. 5, no. 2, 1988) that electrified readers (or at least one reader) with its warning about increased executive branch reliance on secret presidential directives and related instruments.

Back in the 1980s when that article was written, secret law was still on the way. Now it is here.

The Quaint Mr. Gonzales

More public interest groups — such as the Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch and the ACLU (although they officially take no position, they call for a full and thorough hearing) — are coming out and voicing their displeasure over President Bush’s choice for attorney general, Alberto Gonzales. There’s no question that the AG can have a profound affect on civil and human rights in the US. What’s not as clear is whether or not Gonzales will uphold those solemn responsibilities, or continue unchanged with the horrendous record of the outgoing AG.

ÒMr. Ashcroft’s legacy has been an open hostility to protecting civil liberties and an outright disdain for those who dare to question his policies. We need to do more than just replace John Ashcroft; we need a wholesale re-examination of Justice Department policies that trample on civil liberties and human rights.”
– Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

ALA | In wake of Ashcroft departure, American Library Association renews call for return to privacy protections

That’s all well and good, but the library community shouldn’t count on a change of policy from Alberto Gonzales, Bush’s new nominee for Attorney General. This is the same person who wrote the memo to the president calling the Geneva Conventions “quaint” and did not apply to enemy combatants captured in Afghanistan.

For more on Gonzalez, see Disinfopedia and/or wikipedia.

We seize servers, you can’t complain - US gov,
By John Lettice,
The Register,
11th November 2004 12:22 GMT.

In case you haven’t been following the rather bizarre case of the seizure by the US Government of web servers in London, [yes, London, UK], here is
a bit of an update. The adjective “Kafkaesque” is overused, but if anything requires it, it is this episode.

You operate a web site which is hosted by an external company, and an unidentified agency of an unidentified government has the power to take data which you own, but which is situated on hardware hosted by the external company, and according to the US Government, it’s nothing to do with you

Arts > Frank Rich: Will We Need a New ‘All the President’s Men’?” href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/arts/17rich.html?ex=1255492800&en=8c2a594add800736&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland”>Frank Rich: Will We Need a New ‘All the President’s Men’? (NYT: 10/17/04 Arts section)

“The fundamental right of Americans, through our free press, to penetrate and criticize the workings of our government is under attack as never before,” wrote William Safire last month.

Wow, you know it’s getting scary if Safire, once a Nixon speechwriter, is getting nervous.

This is an interesting study where the combination of uber secrecy in the Whitehouse combines with media consolidation to create the situation where Sinclair broadcasting can air an anti-Kerry infomercial disguised as “documentary” days before the election and Fox News can pander to the republican party in return for favorable rules changes by the FCC. Read on.

National Lawyers Guild

The National Lawyers Guild last month released a report entitled, “The Assault on Free Speech, Public Assembly, and Dissent.” (PDF) In it, they interviewed people from across the United States and documented the “ongoing reaction of law enforcement to the legal exercise of free speech in the US.” In short, they found that our various law enforement officials and departments are engaged in an agressive, concerted and overt effort to destroy lawful public expressions of dissent and free speech.

To read the testimony is to know that the American democracy is in serious trouble. Not because the country lacks for a successful
economy or a splendid military equipage, but because the wisdoms in office find the practice of democratic self-government vulgar and unsafe. Too loud, too uncivil and disrespectful, too many people in the room who donÕt belong to a health club or the Council on Foreign Relations, not enough marble in the ceilings and the walls. The corporate and political gentry disapprove of the company and deplore the noise; whether seated in the Senate, installed in a television studio, charged with the management of an insurance
company or a police precinct, they donÕt like to be reminded that democracy is by definition a work in progress, a never-ending argument between the inertia of things-as-they-are and the energy
inherent in the hope of things-as-they-might-become.

–Forward by Lewis Lapham

Weapons of mass delusion by Richard Forno

I wouldn’t normally advertise new books, but this one’s of interest, both for its content examining American culture since September 11, and for the fact that he’s just released it under a Creative Commons license.

Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Suppress the Vote?” href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/16/opinion/16herbert.html?hp”> Bob Herbert: Suppress the Vote? (NY Times, 8/16/04) and Herbert: A chill in Florida (NY Times, 8/23/04) . (Free registration required)

Here’s more chicanery from the republican party in Florida, a swing state and state where thousands of mostly black voters were disenfranchised in the 2000 election (see the thorough reporting of Greg Palast)

State police officers have gone into the homes of elderly black voters in Orlando and interrogated them as part of an odd “investigation” that has frightened many voters, intimidated elderly volunteers and thrown a chill over efforts to get out the black vote in November.

firstamendmentcenter.org:

AmericansÕ support for their First Amendment freedoms Ñ deeply shaken by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 Ñ continues to rebound and is back at pre-9/11 levels, according to the annual State of the First Amendment survey, conducted by the First Amendment Center in collaboration with American Journalism Review magazine.