Drew Carey and our friends at Reason have produced a great 25 minute documentary about the Corey Maye case.
For additional background on the Maye case, go here.
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Drew Carey and our friends at Reason have produced a great 25 minute documentary about the Corey Maye case.
For additional background on the Maye case, go here.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a legal permanent resident who was arrested because he shared a common name with a suspected illegal immigrant. It illustrated how the E‑Verify program would foul things for legal workers, a prominent subject of this paper.
Here’s another story of legal permanent resident mistreatment. This illustrates how overblown terror fears can cloud officials’ judgments and foul things for … well, everyone.
It seems that a woman in Florida asked her relatives in Monterrey, Mexico to ship her the birth certificates of two relatives who want to apply for their Mexican passports at the consulate in South Miami. At the behest of U.S. Customs and Border Security, the envelope is being held by the United Parcel Service in Louisville, Kentucky until she identifies herself further.
Asked to explain, a CBP spokeswoman in Washington asserted the U.S. government’s right to examine everything entering or exiting the country and said, “Identity documents are of concern to CBP because of their potential use by terrorists.”
This is a terrific example of poorly generated suspicion. In our paper on predictive data mining, Jeff Jonas and I wrote about how suspicion is properly generated in the absence of specific leads: “[T]here must be a pattern that fits terrorism planning … and the actions of investigated persons must fit that pattern while not fitting any common pattern of lawful behavior.”
The Style section of today’s Washington Post features a terrific article about the National Security Archive, the nonprofit group dedicated to unearthing goverment secrets. The privately funded group, about 35 strong, uses the Freedom of Information Act to collect about 75,000 documents a year, which staffers analyze and then post on the website. The Archive’s greatest hits (see, e.g., here and here) demonstrate that as Patrick Henry put it, one should “never depend on so slender a protection as the possibility of being represented by virtuous men.” Don’t trust: verify.
One of my favorite documents on the site is the Operation Northwoods Memo, prepared by the Pentagon in the wake of the Bay of Pigs disaster:
titled “Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba” [the memo] was provided by the JCS to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13, 1962, as the key component of Northwoods. Written in response to a request from the Chief of the Cuba Project, Col. Edward Lansdale, the Top Secret memorandum describes U.S. plans to covertly engineer various pretexts that would justify a U.S. invasion of Cuba. These proposals — part of a secret anti-Castro program known as Operation Mongoose — included staging the assassinations of Cubans living in the United States, developing a fake “Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington,” including “sink[ing] a boatload of Cuban refugees (real or simulated),” faking a Cuban airforce attack on a civilian jetliner, and concocting a “Remember the Maine” incident by blowing up a U.S. ship in Cuban waters and then blaming the incident on Cuban sabotage.
Sounds like tinfoil-hat stuff, I know, but thanks to FOIA and the National Security Archive, you can check for yourself [.pdf]. But if Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld had had their way, you couldn’t. As top aides to Gerald Ford 34 years ago, they urged the president to veto amendments strengthening FOIA (he did, and Congress overrode his veto). The Archive has the documents on that too.
(cross-posted on genehealy.com)
A TV News helicopter filmed Philadelphia police officers as they repeatedly kick three suspects as they lay on the ground. Go here to see the video clip.
Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey says 5 officers have been taken off street duty because of their actions. Why are those 5 not under arrest for battery?
Philadelphia authorities reportedly hope to identify the other police officers involved in the incident. Hope?! If the Commissioner can’t or won’t issue an order to come forward or face dismissal by the close of business, there are deeper problems with the police department.
Joining the National Conference of State Legislatures, the Association of Corporate Travel Executives has endorsed S. 717, the Identification Security Enhancement Act of 2007. This bill would reinstitute a negotiated rulemaking process regarding identity security that was established in the 9/11-Commission-inspired Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act.
A letter writer in the Washington Post complains about this Post editorial, which criticized the repression in Cuba, particularly the lack of freedom of expression and the right to emigrate. The writer declares,
Cuba is managing its economy and is making incremental changes and reforms within its socialist and human-needs-oriented system. The U.S. government and The Post shouldn’t lecture Cuba when we have our own problems with the economy, the budget, health care, infrastructure and our moral standing in the world.
I’ve just published a book, most of whose 300 pages are devoted to criticisms of the U.S. government on a far wider range of issues than that, so I’m no knee-jerk defender of any government, much less of the Bush administration. But let’s take a closer look at the writer’s claims:
Cuba is managing its economy…
Well, every country manages its economy in some sense. The Cuban government has managed to turn a beautiful country of tropical beaches 90 miles from North America into one of the poorest countries in the world.
…and is making incremental changes and reforms…
Yes, as the Post editorial noted:
In the past few weeks, Cuban President Raúl Castro has introduced a handful of micro-reforms to the oppressive and bankrupt regime left behind by his brother. Cubans are now officially allowed to buy cellphones, computers and microwave ovens; state workers may get deeds to apartments they have been renting for decades; and farmers may be able to sell part of what they grow at market prices. The measures won’t have much impact (though they have evidently annoyed the officially retired Fidel Castro): The vast majority of Cubans can’t afford to buy electronic goods, and the agricultural reforms fall short of steps taken years ago by North Korea.
So reforms are good. Wake me when they reform more than North Korea.
Read the rest of this post →Today, Cuba officially lifted its ban on the sale of computers to the general public. Some other prohibitions have also been scrapped in recent weeks: Cubans can now buy cell phones, stay in hotels previously reserved for tourists, and buy appliances like microwaves and TV sets.
Is this a sign of openness from Cuba’s geriatric regime? Not so.
A Cuban dissident I met in Havana last year sent me today an article he wrote about the real motive behind relaxing these bans. It has been reported in the state-controlled media that people purchasing these goods are later being investigated by the authorities who want to know the real sources of their income. As it’s widely known, the average Cuban salary is less than $20 a month, while the cost of most of these goods ranges in the hundreds of dollars. Many Cubans get their extra money from relatives in the United States, but many others run independent (and illicit) small businesses.
My friend tells the story of the first person to purchase an electric bicycle, which cost the equivalent of $1,070. This man had a small butter factory that apparently was very profitable, since he was selling the butter at a lower price than the government. After buying his electric bicycle, the authorities investigated him and discovered his factory. They proceeded to confiscate everything they found in his home, including the bike.
Let’s not forget that, after all, there is still a Castro brother running the show on the island. As my Cuban friend says about the so-called “reforms,” the fact that something is no longer prohibited doesn’t mean that you can do it.