This weekend marks the 20th anniversary of Clarence Thomas's appointment to the Supreme Court. In his first two decades on the bench, Justice Thomas has established himself as the original Constitution's greatest defender against elite efforts at social engineering. His stances for limited government and individual freedom make him the left's lightning rod and the tea party's intellectual godfather. And he is only halfway through the 40 years he may sit on the high court.

Yoo's partisanship is annoying. I have great respect for Thomas although I sometimes disagree with his perspectives, he is a valuable voice on the court, particularly when it comes to the protection of the constitutional rights of adults.

Twenty Years of Justice Thomas

] Hey, George Soros! You're sending sackloads of cash to
] all sorts of groups dedicated to defeating President Bush
] this November. But by so ruthlessly exploiting one
] loophole in campaign-finance law”the one that allows
] unlimited donations to the political nonprofits known as
] 527 committees ”you're ignoring a different, equally
] large loophole. And it's one that affects a medium no one
] seems to be taking advantage of yet: the Internet.
]
] 1. The Internet is the only place where political parties can still
] spend soft money on the presidential election.
] 2. On the Internet, you can run things that look like TV ads.
] 3. There are fewer disclosure requirements.

McCain-Feingold's Internet Loophole

] The Cybercrime Convention does three major things:
]
] It includes a list of crimes that each member country
] must have on its books. The treaty requires
] criminalization of offenses such as hacking, the
] production, sale or distribution of hacking tools, and an
] expansion of criminal liability for intellectual property
] violations (Articles 2-11).
]
] It requires each participating nation to grant new powers
] of search and seizure to its law enforcement authorities.
] They include the power to force an Internet Service
] Provider (ISP) to preserve a citizens internet
] usage records or other data, and the power to monitor a
] citizens online activities in real time (Articles
] 16-22).
]
] It requires law enforcement in every participating
] country to assist police from other participating
] countries. US police would be required to cooperate
] mutual assistance requests from police in
] other participating nations to the widest extent
] possible (Articles 23-35).

The obvious intent of this treaty is good and it does some things that need to be done, however, the ACLU makes a compelling case that it is poorly crafted. The result would be worse then the disease.

In general, the problem with these UN treaties is that these are governments negotiating with eachother over their interests. Citizens, and their interests, are frequently not at the table.

American Civil Liberties Union : Seven Reasons the US Should Reject the International Cybercrime Treaty

] What is fascinating is that before filing the defence
] brief, the prosecutor, that is the general counsel's
] office at the US Defence Department, approved it. As they
] are employees of the military, the department would have
] had to approve the press conference held on Wednesday by
] Mori and the others.

The DOD is trying to be a nice guy now that it is about a month or two from getting its ass handed to it in the Supreme Court.

A legal black hole in Cuba threatens to suck in some precious rights - www.smh.com.au

] "The Bush administration is planning to propose requiring
] Internet service providers to help build a centralized
] system to enable broad monitoring of the Internet and,
] potentially, surveillance of its users."

This is the big story of the day. This is the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act 2.0... Unlike the streets, where people seem to be meek, on the net this sort of thing never flies. They have people howling all over the place and the report hasn't even been released yet! :)

Bush Administration to Propose System for Monitoring Internet

] "The Supreme Court struggled Tuesday over the
] constitutionality of a California sentencing law that put
] a man who shoplifted children's videocassettes in
] prison until 2046 and gave another man a life sentence
] for taking three golf clubs. Their sentences are due to
] California's three-strikes-you're-out law,
] which has been challenged as cruel and unusual
] punishment. The law requires tough sentences for repeat
] offenders."

Justices debate three-strikes law

"Unless you’ve been held incommunicado by U.S. military forces and missed the previews running every five minutes on television, you probably know that Steven Spielberg’s soon-to-be-released Minority Report is about a futurist police agency called “Precrime.” The agency is responsible for identifying and arresting murderers before they commit their crimes."

A good quick summary of the general truth behind the articles I recommended yesterday.

Department of Precrime