Category: crime and punishment

Categories
Accountability crime and punishment

Report No Evil?

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee recommends that Attorney General Eric Holder be held in contempt of Congress for his refusal to turn over thousands of subpoenaed documents.

Motivations may be hard to decipher, but Democrats charge Republicans with evil partisanship. But then, the president’s claim of executive privilege in “Fast and Furious”-gate is surely every bit as partisan. As was the same plot that played out (several times) when Bush was in the White House and Democrats controlled Congress.Three Wise Monkeys

It takes a partisan to know a partisan.

There is no disputing that the ATF botched the effort to trace illegal gun trafficking, handing over thousands of guns to criminals who used the weapons to murder lots of people, including Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

That seems worth an investigation.

Holder’s congressional testimony regarding when he first heard of the program has since been proved “inaccurate.” He followed this by refusing to hand over documents. Then, when the contempt vote was at hand, President Obama claimed executive privilege to shield Holder.

Obama once promised the “most transparent and accountable administration in history.” Give that promise a funeral.

Mr. Obama and Mr. Holder work for you and me. The documents — those shedding light on the disastrous gun-​walking program and any that illuminate a cover-​up — belong to us.

So, why do so many media mavens excuse, rather than accuse, the administration? MSNBC’s Chris Matthews suggested that the whole investigation is racist. But Chris, why don’t you want to see the documents?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
crime and punishment general freedom too much government

Robots in Amber

In 2010, Newark, New Jersey, collected more than $3 million in fines based on the watchful (and programmed) work of red-​light/​amber-​light intersection cameras. The next year there were even more violations.

Politicians love these Orwellian devices, while citizens remain extremely suspicious.

New Jersey recently suspended ticketing based on the results from 63 of the state’s 85 intersection cameras. It seems that these specific cameras (including all those in Newark) had not been properly configured according to the specifications set by the enabling legislation.Big Brother Is Watching You

A Star-​Ledger report neatly explains the calibration method, which requires intersection speed studies to set the proper duration of the amber lights. Figuring caution-​light duration based on actual intersection speeds, not on posted speed limits — that is, the average actual speed of 85 percent of drivers — would seem to have something to do with safety. The 85 percent rule is an old highway safety engineering standard, and safety is allegedly why governments are involved in this at all.

A problem, though: This compliance procedure is great for setting speed limits, but in this case, wouldn’t it punish slower, legal drivers on streets where people tend to drive faster than the limit? Were the overwhelming majority of folks to speed through intersections, that would correspondingly lower the duration of the amber lights. Consequence? The folks most likely to receive tickets would be those who drove slowly through the intersections.

Hardly a good idea. As one driver commented, “Virtually from green it turns into red.”

More telling against the cameras is the increase in infractions, suggesting that the robotic cameras do not have a net instructional effect.

That is, they don’t make intersections safer.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
crime and punishment national politics & policies

The “Barbaric” Visigoths

Thanks to the September 11, 2001, atrocities, some Americans began to accept a practice previously considered barbaric; thanks to John Yoo and the Bush administration, that practice became something American military and “intelligence” organizations did. Torture.

The moral aspects of the issue convince me that good people do not use torture. But, apart from concerns of justice and principle, there’s a big hurdle: unreliability. Torturers rarely retrieve good information.

Under torture, victims will say almost anything; even the innocent fabricate confessions to stop the pain.

Economist David D. Friedman recently discussed one “ingenious, if imperfect, solution to the problem in what is apparently the oldest surviving Germanic law code,” that of the Visigoths: The judge compels the accuser to describe the crime in detail and in writing, and makes sure this information is not told to the person about to be tortured. If, under torture, the victim confesses with the appropriate detail, then he’s considered guilty. But if he confesses without the appropriate detail, then the accuser is himself tortured.

What’s good for the goose.…

On Sunday, viewers of CBS’s 60 Minutes took a gander at Jose Rodriguez, the CIA official who says he’s proud of the “enhanced interrogation techniques” he oversaw, and not ashamed of his destruction of the 92 tapes of those interrogations. It was a bizarre interview, at the very least not “enhanced.”

Amy Davidson, writing for The New Yorker’s online site, argues, “There is much evidence to suggest that Rodriguez and others are simply lying when they claim that the torture produced reliable intelligence.”

I’m no expert, but I’d bet a solidus she’s right.

The solidus, in case you were wondering, was a coin used by the Visigoths.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
crime and punishment ideological culture

Swinging a Dead Cat

Americans too often forget how ugly politics used to be. In the 19th century, “tarring and feathering” was just one terrible way among many of “making a point.” Drenching somebody in hot tar is painful; putting feathers on that someone and sending them running was humiliating, as well.

And a sign of horrid cruelty.

Politics, which (we should remind ourselves) is how we publicly decide who gets to use the awesome and awful powers of the state (itself known to be the cruelest of cold monsters), can’t help but conjure up hate and violence. We must remain vigilant against that tendency.

So the recent killing of a Democratic campaign manager’s cat — actually, his child’s pet — and its desecration with the word “liberal” marked on it, has a context.

But that context is no excuse. It’s an incredibly sick, deranged, hateful act. We should all hope justice prevails.

The campaign manager responded reasonably, condemning whoever did it without casting blame about blindly. Too bad I can’t say that about the comments to the article on ThinkProgress​.org. Many commenters there blame all “conservatives,” right-​wingers, Rush Limbaugh, et al.

Like racist rhetoric, this paints blame with a wide brush, holding a whole group of people responsible for what one person in that group does. Shameful. But it’s even a bit worse in this case, since the guilty person has not been caught, so we don’t even know who did it or whether that person was actually a “conservative.”

Isn’t it time to get past blind hatred of the “they”?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
crime and punishment video

Video: What George Zimmerman Really Said

J. Neil Schulman proudly notes his vindication. A CNN Audio Engineer confirms his analysis of the recorded conversations Mr. Zimmerman had with the police. It was widely ballyhooed that Zimmerman had used a racial epithet (starting with a “c”) to describe Trayvon Martin. Instead, he was complaining of the weather:

This case (though not this aspect of it) was most recently discussed here yesterday.

Categories
crime and punishment media and media people

NBC Bears False Witness

The Trayvon Martin shooting has gripped the nation for weeks now. In my Townhall column on the subject, nearly two weeks ago when we didn’t know as much of what we think we know now, I withheld judgment on the actual responsibility for the shooting:

We know too little about Mr. Zimmerman’s state of mind before or during this tragic clash. But whether his shooting of Trayvon Martin was spurred by race or an itchy trigger finger or a hero complex or something we know absolutely nothing about, or was actually somehow in self defense, is beside the point.

The point is that our justice system ought to get to the bottom of it.

And I concluded that public reaction and a free press were doing what is required in such cases, spurring government action.NBC self-besmirched

But I need to make an amendment: Not all media are equal; some have behaved in socially irresponsible ways. NBC especially. This major news source aired George Zimmerman’s call to the police, but with a drastic editorial cut — and this sound edit pre-​disposed all listeners to think Mr. Zimmerman a racist. After an “investigation,” the network apologized.

But not on air. Those poor souls relying on NBC still may think that Zimmerman was racially profiling Martin, could think nothing but.

Shame on NBC for not apologizing on air, but in a press release. And for not apologizing to Mr. Zimmerman. And for offering no explanation of what happened. The news source’s sound edit was more than a distortion, says Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center, it advanced “a falsehood.”

Poor reporting is disappointing, but the press bearing false witness is something much worse.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.