The Yin Blog

Portland's Human Rights Commission on the JTTF

Portland's Human Rights Commission is recommending that the city not rejoin the Joint Terrorism Task Force.  It's hard to tell what they were thinking from the Oregonian's story, as this was the only bit of reasoning offered:

"There's plenty of room for human rights violations to occur with that relationship," [Commission Chair Donita] Fry said Monday.

Well, there's almost always going to be room for human rights violations to occur when state actors have discretionary authority to do things.  Hopefully, there's more to what the commission is thinking than this bare quote.  After all, there might be the potential for human rights violations, but if it is unlikely that such violations will occur, should the city still avoid rejoining the JTTF?

Snow . . . in late February? Seriously?

Some people like the look of fresh snow on the ground.  From my seven years in Iowa, I got a lifetime's worth of looking at the stuff.

But in any event, snow in Portland in late February?  Seriously?

Mind you, this was taken at about 8 in the morning.

Of course, by early afternoon, pretty much all of it had melted away, and as it turns out, there was no need for Portland Public Schools to have declared a snow day, but whatever. . . .

No gag order on Holder, but something of a judicial spanking

Not surprisingly, the district judge in the Mohamud case denied a defense motion to have a gag order issued against Attorney General Eric Holder.  I did some quick research on this when the motion was first filed, and I didn't find anything remotely close to such an order being issued against an AG.  On the other hand, Holder's public statements seemed pretty over the line, and the judge did find that the AG violated government policy three different times by saying more than what a prosecutor should have said.

This seems like a compromise ruling; I just can't see a judge gagging the Attorney General, a ruling that would be appealed and probably overturned, out of interbranch comity if nothing else -- unless direct harm could be shown.  By denying the motion, the judge took away any incentive for the government to appeal.  Thus, the public criticism of Holder remains intact.

How to gain . . . and lose sympathy when mistreated by the police

This story about a police drug raid gone wrong involves a Hastings law professor:

In his search warrant, Officer Scott Biggs of the SFPD's narcotics unit says that prior to the raid, he spent two days and two nights casing the address looking for Mahmoud Larizadeh, the property's owner. Larizadeh also owns a 13th Street warehouse, a part of which he rents to Bruce Rossignol, a licensed medical cannabis patient who now faces three felony charges for growing pot there.

Biggs describes 243 Diamond as a "two-story, one-unit" building in the warrant. There's no mention of [Hastings law prof Clark] Freshman or Larizadeh's son-in-law or seven-months pregnant daughter who were detained in the downstairs unit that morning. But property records — and a quick visual scan of the property — reveal it to be a three-story, two-unit building. That mistake alone may be enough to invalidate the search warrant.

It sounds pretty awful.  The police handcuffed Freshman -- who was dressed only in a bathrobe -- while they conducted the search, even though Freshman pointed out problems with the warrant.  Freshman says that he plans to sue the DEA and SFPD, and up to that point in the news account, I was totally on his side.

But then I got to the end of the story, which, while not impacting his legal position, makes him seem considerably less sympathetic to me in terms of his attitude:

"I've been on the fence for years about the legalization of drugs ... and now I'm a victim of this crazy war on drugs," says Freshman, who pledged to sue until "I see [the agents'] houses sold at auction and their kids' college tuitions taken away from them. There will not be a better litigated case this century."

Their kids' college tuitions taken away from them?  Really?  I can only imagine the anger and humiliation and frustration at undergoing the search, which is why I was totally sympathetic to Freshman's idea of the lawsuit, but to state as your goal, the impoverishment of not just the alleged wrongdoing agents, but also their children?  I don't have any sympathy for that.

Law (or its absence), ethics, and donations of teflon-coated cookware and other potentially hazardous items

Here's an ethical issue that my wife and I have been pondering.  We've been increasingly vigilant about trying to detoxify our house, and not just in terms of organic food, but trying to buy solid wood furniture rather than stuff with MDF, which apparently de-gases formaldehyde and other nasty stuff.  Another step we've taken is getting rid of all our non-stick cookware, because the teflon coating breaks down at high temperatures (high, but within the range of cooking).

But what to do with that cookware?  We could donate it to Goodwill, not so much for the tax write-off as to help lower-income people . . . but is it really helping them to make available something that we don't want because we think it's potentially hazardous?  I mean, the FDA hasn't issued regulations to ban this kind of stuff yet, so it's still legal, but then, the FDA still hasn't banned BPA yet either.  In other words, just because the teflon coated cookware is still legal doesn't mean it's ethical to pass it along.

On the other hand, cookware without teflon coating can be expensive, and probably not the sort of thing that low-income persons would be in the market for, when there are cheaper (if potentially hazardous) alternatives available, at least until such time as the FDA actually decides to take action.

This raises the age-old question of regulation and paternalism.  On the one hand, I have a mild libertarian streak (that's small-l libertarian, not the Libertarian party type), so I sort of think people should be free to make decisions for themselves.  On the other hand, if people are buying non-stick teflon cookware because it's cheaper than the better stuff, not because they want to, then it's not really a case of "deciding" so much as "being forced to."

So, I'm at an impasse about the right thing to do.  For what it's worth, we ended up just tossing the stuff.

Round up of links on the Portland City Council's JTTF hearing

Lots of links on the Portland City Council's hearing yesterday regarding the JTTF:

Gov’t pleads with city to rejoin terrorism task force (KATU)

Experts weigh in as council takes hard look at terrorism task force (Portland Tribune)

Portland's JTTF debate reveals how oversight agreement with FBI not followed for bomb plot (Oregonian)

City Council Meets on Joint Terrorism Task Force (Willamette Weekly)

At Today's JTTF Throwdown at City Hall (Portland Mercury)

Portland examines rejoining terror task force (KGW)

My op-ed on Portland's upcoming decision of whether to rejoin the Joint Terrorism Task Force

The Oregonian published my guest editorial on Portland's upcoming decision of whether to rejoin the Joint Terrorism Task Force.  The headline ("Why Portland should rejoin the terror task force") is the editorial page's, not mine, and in fact, I didn't actually advocate a position so much as point out that while there are concerns to the JTTF (as articulated by others), there are also benefits that weren't being mentioned publicly.  I suppose that puts my editorial more on the "join" than "not join" side, but I was actually just raising some pro-considerations to be taken into account.

Shh, don't give the aliens advice about how to conquer us!

A funny account of six things movie aliens do wrong.

"Is that fiction or non-fiction?"

So asked my wife upon seeing me with a copy of Jessica Stern's The Ultimate Terrorists.

This is a totally reasonable question, since these days, it seems like most of the books that I've been reading are about terrorism, fiction as well as non-fiction.  (I did make a slight detour for another one of those "what could possibly go wrong?" techno-science thrillers . . . Ancestor by Scott Sigler.)

Stern, a terrorism expert, was supposedly the role model for Nicole Kidman's nuclear physicist character (Julia Kelly) in the 1997 thriller The Peacemaker.

One downside of wearing a suit to teach . . . coming back to a flat tire

I like to wear a suit and tie when I teach classes, for a number of reasons.  On days that I don't teach class (MWF this semester), I dress for comfort -- which these days would be a long-sleeve T-shirt, pants, and a hooded sweatshirt with zipper.

Naturally, the day that I came to my car in the parking lot to see a flat tire was one of my teaching days.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, I suppose), changing flat tires is something that I've had enough experience at to be pretty good at it.

Even better, it was decent weather -- about 50 degrees and dry.  I mean, can you imagine being in a business suit and trying to change a flat tire in frigid weather?  Or pouring rain?