The End of Due Process in Amerika
The freedom to own and carry the weapon of your choice is a natural, fundamental, and inalienable human, individual, civil, and Constitutional right -- subject neither to the democratic process nor to arguments grounded in social utility. -- L. Neil Smith
Netherweb, my web service provider, was down this morning at my normal blogging time. If you're reading this, that means that they're back up. No problems with my site in particular that I know of.
Glenn Reynolds at InstaPundit.com - A Prediction - Mr. Renolds predicts that many of the small anthrax finds in post offices are wild anthrax that's always been there. We just haven't looked before. [instapundit]
Philip Sherwell at The Telegraph - Veiled but deadly - female fighters who defy Taliban - Afghan families know how to fight the Taliban. They are all armed, even the women. [instapundit]
The women here have an extra incentive to fight off the enemy. During previous raids, Taliban fighters have raped some women and kidnapped others as sex slaves - despite their regime's official commitment to a fanatical Islamic experiment.
Sharifa's husband, Hashim, 42, said: "All the women and children here know how to use a gun. They can take a Kalashnikov to pieces, clean it and reassemble it. The men teach them. If we are to die, we want to die in our homes."
Handling weapons is a family affair. When Hashim goes out, he leaves behind seven guns - one each for his wife and six sons. He said: "There is no school here so the children learn to use guns instead."
Douglas Valentine at CounterPunch - Homeland Insecurity - a few more tasty morsels about GW's plans for our new gestapo. [lew]
During the Vietnam War, under the CIA's Phoenix Program -- which is the model for the Homeland Security Office -- a terrorist suspect was anyone accused by one anonymous source. Just one. The suspect was then arrested, indefinitely detained in a CIA interrogation center, and tortured until he or she (or in some cases children as young as twelve) confessed, informed on others, died, or was brought before a military tribunal (such as Bush is proposing) for disposition.
Dan Gillmor at the San Jose Mercury News - Entertainment control freaks have an ally in Microsoft - The SSSCA folks are still pushing their abomination. Meanwhile, the latest version of Microsoft's Media Player contains the following warning. Seems to me that Microsoft is in bed with the feds. This may compel this lover of freedom to stop using Microsoft's software. Jury's still out, though. [brianf]
You agree that in order to protect the integrity of content and software protected by digital rights management (`Secure Content'), Microsoft may provide security related updates to the OS Components that will be automatically downloaded onto your computer. These security related updates may disable your ability to copy and/or play Secure Content and use other software on your computer. If we provide such a security update, we will use reasonable efforts to post notices on a Web site explaining the update.
Abbie Hoffman - LSD, My Problem Child - the entire text of this 1980 classic is online at DRCNet's Drug Libarary. I haven't read it. [anodyne]
William Raspberry at The Washington Post -
'Freak Out' in Force 
- Mr. Raspberry was denied the possession of
his cigar cutter on a recent flight. He considers this fairly mild
compared to three Arabic-looking folks who were pulled off of a plane
after it had taxied out for takeoff because they wouldn't make eye
contact with a stewardess and she freaked. Indeed! Bad craziness
everywhere. [unknown]
John Marzulli at The New York Daily News - Cop Army Will Guard Stadium - 1000 NYC cops at the World Series games. 2,500 at the marathon. Can you say "police state"? [unknown]
Nat Hentoff at The Washington Times - Round up the usual suspects - The Injustice Department has been detaining aliens with no regard to the due process that is their constitutional right. You see, the constitution says nothing about citizens. It applies to every resident of the United States. Oh. I forgot. The constitution was shredded long ago. [unknown]
The very core of our system of justice is due process -- fairness. And the U.S. Supreme Court -- in Zadvydas vs. Davis (2001) -- has reaffirmed that due process "applies to all 'persons' within the United States, including aliens, whether their presence here is lawful, unlawful, temporary or permanent."
John Silveira at Backwoods Home Magazine - ID cards are an idea whose time should never come - And how!
