From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Wed Jul 31 2002 - 07:18:57 MDT
On Tue, Jul 30, 2002 at 02:52:01PM -0400, Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
> It was quite a big story locally, and I never could understand why it
> never made national news.
Overall, there seems to be a noticeable filtering/bias about these
issues. I enjoy looking at american news services and comparing them
with european services, and there are a lot of things related to the War
on Terror (tm) that is ignored or downplayed. I don't think this is
because of some sinister information control agenda, but a combination
of journalists and the media having fairly biased preconceptions of what
is important and interesting.
For example, there has been practically no mention of the people abroad
who have had their assets frozen due to possible terrorist involvement.
This was implemented in law very quickly across the EU, and among others
three swedes (of Somali origin) had their assets frozen - which included
*everything*. On what grounds? Well, that was a secret - a secret it
turned out that the Swedish government was not briefed on, but since the
US is a trustworthy nation they went along with it. This, and their
struggle to at least learn what they were accused of, got a quite
sizeable local opinion to support them (this was largely how they were
supported - since government agencies would not give them anything to
live on (that would be against the law) people volunteered money to help
them). In the end, after around six months two of them have been freed
from suspicion. What little evidence has leaked out seems to be
extremely circumstantial and thin, and quite likely could be something
as trivial as a mixup of names.
The importance of this case (or rather non-case) cannot be overstated.
It shows not just that the "innocent until proven guilty" principle and
need to produce evidence is seriously out of whack. What is worse, a
problem within the US legal system is allowed to spill over to citizens
in other countries. And even if the Swedish government eventually (after
quite some time and plenty of pressure) started to argue their case the
US government response was both wague and opaque: no chance of either
transparency or accountability.
Right after 911 I warned on this list that we needed to safeguard the
open society. At first I was really worried, and then it seemed for a
while that the dangers were overstated - yes, a lot of rushed
anti-terror legislation, but not quite as evil and unopposed as I had
expected. But it was more than enough, and now some extremely risky
practices have been made part of the effective legal system of the US.
The problem is that rot spreads: similar laws are being considered
elsewhere with US laws as a template, and laws intended to stop one
thing can easily be applied to other things with slight semantic
trickery (hacking has been equated with terrorism in some jurisdictions,
which means that the harsh and non-transparent laws can be applied; look
at how the DMCA affects freedom of speech despite being about copyrights
- lots of spillover). Also, laws whose enforcement can be both arbitrary
and lacks error correction (if an innocent is grabbed, how can anybody
tell?) undermine the respect for the rest of the legal system.
A lawyer friend opinioned that it may take a generation to repair the
damage to due process caused by the last months, and that the damage to
international law is even more severe. The US government has undermined
many conventions that have been developed since WWII, and this will have
serious repercussions on many levels. On a political level the US
government has lost (at least from an European perspective) most of the
sympathy and respect it had gained, and is increasingly being viewed as
a problem rather than an ally for democracy. Things like the US
government's attempts to stop the UN resolution against torture and
nearly managing to derailing the International Criminal Court (since it
might look into the activities of US soldiers) by threatening withdrawal
from Bosnia reinforce this image and weaken support.
What to do about it? Clearly the US citizens on this list are in the
best position to help deal with the source by getting their
representatives aware that this is a serious problem, that it is hurting
long-term US interests and civil rights and by suggesting methods of
reining in the current legal mess. For example, it is important to
demand at least eventual accountability for everything being done in the
name of fighting terrorism, and also more transparency in the process.
The choice isn't necessarily between passing bills with no transparency
and safeguards and not passing any bills, but rather how much and what
safeguards to build in.
The open society is built on laws. That is why it must defend itself
from bad laws.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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