From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Tue Nov 27 2001 - 17:27:55 MST
> In a war, ALL information about a) the enemy, and b) your own
> capabilities, operations, methods, and assets, is to be regarded as
> intelligence information. You may choose to release some of that
> information, but such decisions should be based entirely on the basis of
> its utility in the propaganda war versus the cost of letting the enemy
> know that information, as they would once it is publicly published.
>
> If, for example, it is detailed at trial what methods were used to
> discover evidence about the planning, preparation, logistics, or
> operations of terrorist attacks, the public record of this evidence is
> then available for the al Qaeda or any other terrorist network to use to
> figure out ways to avoid evidentiary discovery in the future.
That's a pretty good argument. I'll have to think about some way to
maintain the accused's right to public scrutiny of his trial with
national security objectives that seem, at least as presented here,
legitimate. Perhaps in such extraordinary cases, certain portions
of a trial could be accessible to a limited oversight group who are
required to sign non-disclosures and meet security clearance tests.
Or maybe a judge should have discretion to hear evidence in private,
and only if he judges that it is both relevant, reliable, and a
security risk, then he can allow the jury (who is also under non-
disclosure) to hear it in camera in front of designated witnesses.
It is a tricky issue. I acknowledge that this concern in valid,
but star chambers are all too easy to create, and I fear that allowing
even this exception will lead to abuse if not checked, the way Nixon
abused "national security" classification to avoid subpoenas for his
personal records.
> You can live your own life by your standards, so I can live my life by
> mine. When you try to force me to live by your standards, I sure as hell
> am going to force you to live by your own standards. The one sure
> defense against rape is to make the rapist enjoy the experience even
> less than you do.
I think we're talking past each other here. Lethal force in self-
defense is one of _my_ standards; I employ it not because the other
guy thinks force is OK, but because _I_ think force is OK in that
situation, whether he thinks so or not. Likewise, I find Hiroshima
justified not because Japan ignored the Geneva conventions, but
because I find the Geneva conventions themselves stupid.
> > transparency, not whatever particulars some document mentions. The
> > particulars can change with the circumstances, but the one, and only,
> > absolute inviolable principle is that trials be PUBLIC.
>
> Even at the cost of your own life?
I fear it's all too easy to use "it's a life-and-death matter" or
"we're at war" t justify relaxing our principles. Let's put it this
way: if I thought that testifying against a criminal in open court
might pose some risk to my safety, I might still choose to do it if
I thought the benefit was sufficient. If I knew with near certainty
that it would cost my life to testify _and_ that it would cost my
life for the criminal to go free, I might take pre-emptive action
against the criminal and face my own trial for my actions--and I
would hope that trial were public.
> So you don't mind kangaroo court trials, so long as they are
> held in public?
Publicity is my greatest protection from proceedings becoming
kangaroo courts.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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