Obsidian Wings

Immigration and Crime -- Weekend Open Thread

by wj

Between 1990 and 2010, the number of "unauthorized" (aka "illegal") immigrants in the US tripled.

During the same period, crime rates plunged. Specifically, the rate of Aggravated Assault (per 100,000 of the populaton) fell by helf. As did the rate of Robbery. The rate for Motor Vehicle Theft fell by 40%. (All these per the FBI Uniform Crime Reports)

Therefore, clearly, immigrants are all criminals and are the reason that our prison populations have skyrocketed. After all, since correlation is not causation, lack of correlation must be causation. Right?

Flames out of the Side of My Head: Guantanamo and Torture Plea Agreements

--by Sebastian

Apparently the Administration is leveraging torture victims into plea bargained fact witnesses.  This article reveals some of the details (I know it is from February, but I somehow missed it.  And the fact that it hasn't been all over the news suggests that worrying about it hasn't gained much traction).

 

When a suburban Baltimore high school graduate steps out of the shadows of CIA detention this week to admit to serving the senior leadership of al Qaida, the Obama administration will be unveiling its latest strategy toward an endgame.

Majid Khan has agreed to be a government witness at future military commissions, sources say, in exchange for Wednesday’s guilty plea and the possibility of return to his native Pakistan in four years. It’s part of an evolving effort to quell criticism that confessions were extracted through torture by offering live testimony from willing captive witnesses.

“It’s like organized crime,” said retired Air Force Col. Morris Davis, a Bush-era Pentagon war crimes prosecutor. “Sometimes you pick the lesser of the two evils and bargain with who you can.”

Federal prosecutors describe Khan, who turns 32 Tuesday, as a one-time willing foot soldier for radical Islam. He allegedly recorded a martyr’s message and donned a fake bomb vest in 2003 in a test to see whether he was willing to kill then-Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. He allegedly delivered $50,000 from Pakistan to Thailand, money used to fund an al Qaida affiliate’s August 2003 suicide attack on a Marriott hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia. Eleven people died, and more than 80 others were wounded.

The attack’s alleged architect, Riduan Bin Ismouddin, an Indonesian man known as Hambali, and two reputed Malaysian deputies were, like Khan, subjected to years of secret CIA interrogations — never charged but still at Guantánamo and, according to a Malaysian newspaper’s report, in the queue to face military trials.

...

Khan has always been a bit of an anomaly among the CIA’s so-called “ghost prisoners” who were subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques.” His parents live in suburban Baltimore, where they moved the family in the ’90s and became legal residents. Khan graduated from Owings Mills High School in 1999 and went back to Pakistan after the 9/11 attacks over the objections of his parents, who hid his passport.

Pakistani security forces arrested him in 2003. FBI agents searched the family’s Baltimore house and trailed them for a time. The family heard no news of their son until September 2006 when President George W. Bush announced that “a terrorist named Majid Khan” was in custody and had confessed under interrogation to delivering “$50,000 to individuals working for a suspected terrorist leader named Hambali, the leader of al Qaeda’s Southeast Asian affiliate.”

A year later, defense attorneys filed a brief in federal court declaring him a torture victim of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation program. “Khan admitted anything his interrogators demanded of him,” his lawyers wrote, “regardless of the truth, in order to end his suffering.”

According to transcripts, Khan told a military board in April 2007 that he emerged from CIA custody so despairing of his isolation that he tried to kill himself by chewing through an artery in his arm.

So this is the person who is going to give useful factual testimony as part of his plea bargain?  This is the person whose testimony will be used to create the factual underpinnings for other convictions?  The practice of leveraging a plea bargain into flipping you for testimony against people 'higher up the chain' has serious reliability problems built in, even as currently practiced.  It seems like a great way to have the prosecution encourage perjury.  But linking it with torture makes it even more obvious: torturing someone so much that they want to kill themselves, and then offering to free them if they give the 'right' testimony is almost guaranteed to get false testimony. 

As John Quiggin wrote at Crooked Timber: "The idea that the state can torture someone, imprison them indefinitely, and then use their “voluntary” testimony (given in the hope of release) against another, then claim that this is an improvement on using confessions extracted by torture of the accused is more reminiscent of the legalisms of a totalitarian state than of anything that could be described as the rule of law."

 

Government Mandates And Moral Disagreement

--by Sebastian

Now that the Supreme Court has ruled to uphold the PPCA, a fruitful discussion about government mandates should be more possible without immediate worries of whether gettting it 'wrong' hurts your own side or helps the other side of whichever political divide you happen to be on.

I tend to buy into many of the libertarian arguments against mandates--that the government should generally minimize its decisions about how citizens live their lives.  But an anti-mandate stance has virtues even to those who don't agree with the libertarian critique. 

Government mandates tend to undermine the democratic balance between government action and conscientious objection.  In most modern democratic-style states, we allow for tolerance of moral disagreement by separating taxing and spending.  For the most part, everyone gets taxed and the money goes into a government pool.  That pool of money becomes the government's money.  There are then various government means for determining how that money is spent (direct acts of the legislature, funding through various agencies, etc.).  Nearly everyone has some disagreement with some of the choices made.  Sometimes that agreement has specific and strong moral dimensions (you may believe that the death penalty, or abortion, or crack vs. powder cocaine sentencing disparities are injustices).  You are certainly free to use the political process to attempt to change those government allocations.  But the process allows for some moral distance.  You disagree with how the government is spending its money.  You want to use politics to change how the government is spending its money.  But you aren't generally forced to participate in whatever it is that you object to more than the fact that you have been taxed, and the government later decided what to do with the tax money it collected.  Systemically this allows for diversity and tolerance for many of those who lose out in the political system.  You lost out on your opinion about the death penalty?  Fine, but we don't force you to pull the switch on a murderer. 

Government mandates raise the stakes because they don't allow for that distancing.  They force moral dissenters to choose between personally engaging in the activity in which they lost the political fight, or to defy the government and break the law by violating the mandate.  Even in non conscientious objector cases, government mandates force dissenters to directly participate in the activity that they just lost a political fight over.  It is something worth thinking about when there are non-mandate options. 

Thoughts on Drone Strikes

--Sebastian

There is a pretty interesting discussion of drone strikes going on at crookedtimber, you all should check it out.

I'm torn on drone strikes, so what follows aren't really conclusions about them, but rather examinations of the tension in different ways of looking at them.

The Pentagon view appears to be that they are much more targeted, much more accurate, have less risk for our soldiers, and cause much less collateral damage than bombing strikes.  From that perspective they sound pretty good.  If we have to get at some known terrorist organization, some known terrorist, or some clear military target near civilians, drone strikes seem like an excellent choice. 

Given the choice between bombing and using a drone, I would think that using a drone is morally better almost all of the time. 

However, I worry that from an institutional perspective, the relative ease, saftey and lower level of collatoral damage means that drones end up being used in situations where bombing would not be remotely considered.  That could easily create a situation where there are fewer civilian deaths per strike, but still a greater number of civilian deaths total.  And also, insofar as each bombing run/drone strike could potentially end up being a diplomatic disaster, having vastly more instances risks diplomatic disaster more frequently. 

Also the apparent accuracy leads to problematic situations that may not have existed with bombing strikes.  The idea of using a bombing strike to kill a 'bad' American citizen doesn't seem very likely.  But a drone strike?  Apparently the administration thinks that is different. 

I think ideally I would want to have the military analyze whether or not a target was worth a bombing run (keeping them rarer) and then only after that analyze whether or not a bombing run or drone strike is better (keeping non-target casualties down).  Unfortunately I know of no way to do that in an actual human system.  Given bombing strikes, I'd rather do drone strikes most of the time, but I'd rather not just let the bombing strikes be a given. 

I Don't Like the Result, So Let's Make the Whole System Worse!

--by Sebastian

Over at the legal blog, Balkinization, Magliocca seems concerned about the possibility of the Supreme Court striking down the individual mandate of the Health Care bill, so he proposes a counter measure which on about a moment's thought seems highly dangerous if legitimized:

In the absence of a line-item veto, legislatures can coerce the executive to sign a controversial provision into law by putting it into an omnibus bill that contains lots of popular things.  In effect, a dare is made that a President or a Governor would rather swallow one bad part rather than block many good parts.  This dare does not always work, of course, and legislation structured in this way cannot always pass, but omnibus bills do tilt the balance of power in favor of popular assemblies.

Why can't the same be done with respect to courts?  Suppose Congress knows that a certain provision (say about campaign finance) will be constitutionally suspect.  They could bundle it with lots of unrelated matters and insert a non-severability clause providing that: "If any portion of this legislation is found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, then every other portion becomes inoperative." In that case, the SG would solemnly tell the Justices that striking down the contested provision would deprive orphans of milk, stop the construction of a dam in Utah, and so on.  This doesn't preclude the Court from acting.  It just makes it harder.

As far as I can see, there is nothing unconstitutional about this tactic at the federal level.  (At the state constitutional level there may be impediments to omnibus legislation.)  There are political checks on the abuse of this sweeping authority by Congress.  Many members will not want to risk their pet projects by tying them to an uncertain constitutional fight.  Moreover, you need the President (and perhaps 60 senators) to go along.  If you jump those hurdles, though, then the Court would face an all-or-nothing choice in constitutional litigation.  (An as-applied challenge might not come within a given non-severability clause, but that would depend on how the legislation was drafted.)

In the context of health care, this framing of the issue might have made a big difference.  There may be five votes to strike down the individual mandate. It's less likely that there are five votes to strike down the entire 2,000-plus-page statute.  If the Court's only choice was between this and upholding the individual mandate, the result might be different from what we will see in a few weeks.

This is a horrible idea.  It took me about ten seconds to come up with a plausible hypothetical: RomneyCare Health and Indefinite Secret Detention of Terrorists Act.  This near future act would solidify the funding of the Affordable Health Care law by creating funding sources to make up for the hypothetically struck down individual mandate, while also offering the President indefinite secret detention of citizens deemed by the administration to be terrorists and small print authorizing torture, but only in extreme but unreviewable instances.  Non-severability clause duly inserted.  The biggest problem would be getting enough Republicans to sign on to the health care side, finding enough Democrats to support the 'national security' side would be trivial.  So now to get the court to review the most basic civil right--not to be indefinitely detained without court oversight, the Supreme Court will have to strike down the whole health care act. 

What could possibly go wrong if we designed court challenges like that? 

File this under: don't give sweeping new powers to a branch of government that you wouldn't ever want to see in the hands of your political opponents. Magliocca correctly notes that it is much more likely that the Supreme Court will just invalidate the indivdual mandate rather than the whole act.  Turning irritation at the loss of a political skirmish (while leaving the Affordable Health Care Act largely intact) into a suggestion that could easily and literally endanger civil rights across the board is horribly short-sighted.  The 'tough on crime' streak in the US makes all sorts of civil rights curtailments much too easy.  This would make fighting them in court later almost impossible. 

 

Much More Restricted In Europe

--by Sebastian

I was recently having a discussion with a friend, and she wondered why abortion remained such a big deal in politics in the United States while its political valence in Europe was nearly zero.  It seemed to me that it was because European restrictions on abortion tend to be much more restrictive than those in the US, and thus much more in line with most people's intuitions about a fetus having a protectable interest as it became close to becoming a separate child.  She thought that was crazy because she thought that abortion laws were much more permissive in Europe than in the United States.

It isn't true.  A very large number of European states (and most of the large ones) have much more restrictive abortions laws than even the very most restrictive states in the US.  I think most left leaning people in the US imagine that you can't have a progressive state with dramatically tighter abortion restrictions.  Here is evidence to the contrary.  (Largely though not entirely culled from here)  Significant abortion restrictions in the States do not kick in until week 24 (if at all). 

Sweden

Gestational limit: 18 weeks

Conditions: Between 12 and 18 weeks of gestation, the women must discuss the procedure with a social worker. After 18 weeks, permission must be obtained from the National Board of Health and Welfare.

France

Generally available only in the first 12 weeks.  After that, two physicians must separately certify that the abortion will be done to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman; a risk to the life of the pregnant woman; or that the child will suffer from a particularly severe illness recognized as incurable. A multi-disciplinary diagnostic center is required to certify if relying on the birth defect exemption.[more beyond the fold]

at night we ride through mansions of glory in suicide machines

by fiddler

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) is taking aim at the single biggest killer of teenagers -- car crashes. For the second year she's sponsoring a bill to require all states to make 18 the minimum age for an unrestricted driver's license. At this point only a few states and DC keep teen drivers from unrestricted licenses until age 18; the others are divided between 16 and 17-1/2. States that let a driver have an unrestricted license at 18, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association, include Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey and Virginia. Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts and Ohio requires drivers to be 18 to drive at night. The article above, from Congress.org, said 12 states plus DC, which means they're including Pennsylvania. In Pennsylvania, when young drivers turns 18 their licenses automatically become unrestricted; otherwise, restrictions are removed after a year of driving without a crash or conviction if the driver has completed a driver's education course.

There are good statistical, practical reasons for this change. 'Motor Vehicle Traffic' accounts for 39.98 percent of fatalities for people age 16-19, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

What Is Best In Academic Freedom, Cronon? Not To Crush Your Enemies

by Gary Farber

The current attempt by the radical "conservative" Republican Party of Wisconsin, which is so typical of the national and other state Republican Party leadership, has met a roadblock.

But a reminder of what the philosophy of the GOP is, here:

Wisconsin Republic Party Leader: Hao! Dai ye! We won again! This is good, but what is best in life?
Cronan: The open steppe, fleet horse, falcons at your wrist, and the wind in your hair.
Wisconsin Republic Party: Wrong! Conan! What is best in life?
Wisconsin Republic Party Leader: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.
Wisconsin Republic Party Leader: That is good! That is good.

We have video of this meeting:

 

And thus the saga of Conan meets Cronan.

What's the latest development?

The Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin, Biddy Martin, has issued a public statement:

GOP's Radical Breakage Continues

by Gary Farber

Who is "Wisconsin's most dangerous professor"?  He's William Cronon.  Who he?  He's this incredibly threatening man:

[...] In 1991, Cronon completed a book entitled Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, which examines Chicago 's relationship to its rural hinterland during the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1991, it was awarded the Chicago Tribune's Heartland Prize for the best literary work of non-fiction published during the preceding year; in 1992, it won the Bancroft Prize for the best work of American history published during the previous year, and was also one of three nominees for the Pulitzer Prize in History; and in 1993, it received the George Perkins Marsh Prize from the American Society for Environmental History and the Charles A. Weyerhaeuser Award from the Forest History Society for the best book of environmental and conservation history published during the preceding two years. 

[...]

In July 1992, Cronon became the Frederick Jackson Turner Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin ­Madison after having served for more than a decade as a member of the Yale History Department. In 2003, he was also named Vilas [pronounced "Vy-lus"] Research Professor at UW-Madison, the university’s most distinguished chaired professorship.

Cronon has been President of the American Society for Environmental History, and serves as general editor of the Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books Series for the University of Washington Press.  [...]  He has served on the Governing Council of The Wilderness Society since 1995, and on the National Board of the Trust for Public Land since 2003. He has been elected President of the American Historical Association for 2011-12.

Born September 11, 1954, in New Haven , Connecticut, Cronon received his B.A. (1976) from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He holds an M.A. (1979), M.Phil. (1980), and Ph.D. (1990) from Yale, and a D.Phil. (1981) from Oxford University. Cronon has been a Rhodes Scholar, Danforth Fellow, Guggenheim Fellow, and MacArthur Fellow; has won prizes for his teaching at both Yale and Wisconsin; in 1999 was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society' and in 2006 was elected a Fellow of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters as well as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He is obviously a Maoist of the worst Marxist-Leninist sort! 

How do we know?  Because the Republican Party of Wisconsin wants him investigated.

The Republican Party of Wisconsin has made an open records request for the e-mails of a University of Wisconsin professor of history, geography and environmental studies in an apparent response to a blog post the professor wrote about a group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Professor William J. Cronon, who is the president-elect of the American Historical Association, said in an interview Friday that the party asked for e-mails starting Jan. 1.

The request was made by Stephan Thompson of the Republican Party of Wisconsin. In his request, Thompson asked for e-mails of Cronon's state e-mail account that "reference any of the following terms: Republican, Scott Walker, recall, collective bargaining, AFSCME, WEAC, rally, union, Alberta Darling, Randy Hopper, Dan Kapanke, Rob Cowles, Scott Fitzgerald, Sheila Harsdorf, Luther Olsen, Glenn Grothman, Mary Lazich, Jeff Fitzgerald, Marty Beil, or Mary Bell."

Most of the names are Republican legislators. Marty Beil is the head of the Wisconsin State Employees Union and Mary Bell is the head of the Wisconsin Education Association Council.

Cronon said the university had not yet complied with the open records request. The e-mails would be subject to the state's open records law because they were written on an university e-mail account.

The university has an e-mail policy that states, "University employees may not use these resources to support the nomination of any person for political office or to influence a vote in any election or referendum.”

Cronon said he did not violate the policy in any way. "I really object in principle to this inquiry," Cronon said of the party's open records request.

Thompson was not available for comment. But in an statement, Mark Jefferson, the party's executive director, said, "Like anyone else who makes an open records request in Wisconsin, the Republican Party of Wisconsin does not have to give a reason for doing so. [...]"

What was Cronon's offense?  He wrote an Op-Ed piece for the terrorist-loving New York Times.

Their urge to betray - and ours

WRITTEN BY Thomas Nephew, of Newsrack, NOT BY Gary Farber

Until recently, Peter Benjamin was the chairman of the Washington, D.C. area Metro transit system's Board of Directors. A former mayor of Garrett Park, he brought an avuncular personality and long experience with Metro affairs to the table. While in correspondence with us about the bag search issue I've written about before, he dismissed some of our assertions about the program's drawbacks -- for example, he didn't believe it would cause much decline in ridership. But he seemed to take seriously the civil liberties issues involved.

Still, sometimes I think if I had a dollar for every time I've heard or read "I'm a supporter of the ACLU, but..." I could afford the richer, more refined lifestyle I truly deserve.

 

And sure enough, when push came to shove at a February 10 discussion of the bag search issue, Mr. Benjamin delivered what may be the new low standard in that genre. Beginning with the heart-sinking words "I am a long term member of the American Civil Liberties Union. Many of my friends consider me a civil liberties nut," Benjamin was giving the lie to those words within roughly twenty seconds. Even though asserting that the rights we have as citizens are "why we are the great country that we are" and personally believing that "bag checks are a violation of those rights, and ...the beginning of a process that moves towards us having fewer and fewer and fewer of those rights," Mr. Benjamin continued: