attacking a politician for his mixed feelings

Larry Sabato’s "Crystal Ball" is often a good indication

of what the hard-boiled political analysts think. Sabato writes

about Sen. John Kerry and the war. "It’s also possible that John

Kerry will reap the benefits of being Clintonian, of voting to authorize the Iraq

war while speaking up against aspects of it and calling for ‘regime change’ in

the U.S., not just Iraq." Sabato then reminds us of Clinton’s position: "In

1991 Bill Clinton uttered this marvelously ambiguous, pre-‘the meaning of is’

statement about the congressional debate for authorization of the Persian Gulf

War: ‘I guess I would have voted with the majority [for the war] if it was a close

vote. But I agree with the argument that the minority made [against the war].’

In other words, in true Clintonian fashion he managed glibly to avoid antagonizing

either side, while giving both sides hope that he was secretly one of them."

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the commons & common carriers

Some people regard the telephone network as a "commons,"

because the telephone companies have been regulated as "common carriers"

by the FCC. Today, the Commission simply defines

"common carrier" as "the term used to describe a telephone

company." But the underlying idea (which the FCC may have forgotten

in this deregulatory era) would apply just as well to railway lines or

postal services as to AT&T. A true common carrier agrees to move any

good, message, or person (depending on the medium) from anywhere in its

system to anywhere else for a price that depends only on factors that

affect its own costs, e.g., distance and weight or duration. A common

carrier may not discriminate on the basis of the content of the

message or the identity of the customer. For example, a telephone

company may not refuse to carry a phone call because of the speakers’

political views, nor may it charge different fees for different kinds

of speech. A common carrier railroad would have to carry any passenger

from any point A to any point B.

To preserve the common carrier ideal, regulations traditionally prevented

owners of communications systems from providing other services. This was

because firms that provided "content" as well as the "conduit"

would tend to discriminate in favor of their own services. For example,

if the telephone company provided 1-900 services, then it would be tempted

to give its own calls preferential treatment. For similar reasons, cable-TV

providers might give their own channels favored treatment, if they were

allowed to offer programming.

A common carrier telecommunications system is an important base for the

Internet, because it allows digital messages to be transmitted regardless

of their content, thus keeping the Internet uncensored and flexible. But

is a common carrier system a commons? We experience a classic commons

as collective property or as no one’s property—as "free."

I do not think that we view telephone lines as common property. If they

resemble a commons, it is for a combination of three reasons: (1) the

common carrier rules; (2) the very low marginal cost of each minute of

use, at least for local calls; and (3) government programs that have brought

telephones into most homes, even in rural and poor urban neighborhoods.

If any of these three conditions were missing, then the telephone system

would not feel like a commons. This is a significant conclusion because

it suggests that three types of regulations are necessary preconditions

of the Internet as we know it.

Asian-American youth

I spoke over the weekend at the National Asian Pacific American Legal

Consortium’s conference of "community partners"—mostly

local groups that litigate or organize on behalf of civil rights for

Asian and Pacific Americans. There is some concern that this population

will be overlooked by those who try to increase (or even merely to study)

youth civic engagement. After all, the total numbers are relatively small;

there is an absence of data; the "model minority" stereotype

implies that Asian youth are doing fine on their own; and the population

is very heterogeneous, making research difficult. However, Asian and Pacific

American youth are by some measures the

least likely to vote. Moreover, research on this population is inherently

interesting, since members come from many diverse countries of origin

by many routes and for many reasons. Finally, democracy would benefit

from the participation of more Asian and Pacific American youth, even

if their numbers are comparatively small.

civil liberties after 9/11

I attended a meeting of a committee of the American Bar Association today.

There was a panel on civil liberties after September 11. Civil

liberties are not a core interest of mine, although listening to professional

advocates and litigators always scares me, since their job is to tell

us about the egregious cases that do arise. The experts on the panel today

pointed out four worrying trends that I hadn’t fully understood before:

  1. The material witness statute was designed to allow the government

    to hold witnesses who might be expected to disappear, until such a time

    as they could be deposed. Since 9/11, it is being used to hold people

    indefinitely without any claim that they witnessed any specific crime,

    and without notice that they will be deposed or otherwise interviewed.

  2. Search warrants are traditionally executed in the presence of the

    person being searched. This is a safeguard, since the person can complain

    if his rights are violated, if the police are in the wrong house, etc.

    But under the Patriot Act, federal agents can execute "sneak and

    peek" warrants that are clandestine searches never disclosed to

    the person whose property is searched. This power applies to all cases,

    not just those connected to terrorism.

  3. The proposal for TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System)

    would have enlisted huge numbers of volunteers, including cable-TV installers

    and others who routinely enter our homes, as a source of tips on possible

    terrorists. This program would have promoted volunteerism; but it would

    also have undermined the fourth amendment.

  4. Just yesterday (or so I was told), legislation passed Congress that

    will require judges to notify the Attorney General whenever they use

    discretion to impose sentences lower than the minimum recommended in

    federal sentencing guidelines. The three federal judges who were in

    attendance today are certain that this will have the proverbial "chilling

    effect," since judges will be afraid of public exposure and censure

    by John Ashcroft. I would hope that federal judges would have backbones.

    We give them life tenure as well as nice salaries and high social status,

    so they should be willing to stand up to criticism from the political

    branches of government. However, hope is not a good basis for legislation.

    The judges in attendance predicted that their colleagues will fear criticism.

    They are probably right, which means that the legislation is a blow

    to judicial independence.

my name, as an oath

A person whose name sounds nothing like mine emailed me today

with this question: "My mother, long gone, would sometimes call people,

including me, her son, ‘Peter Levine’ in what seemed to me whimsical fashion.

Now, decades later, and curious about what she meant by that, I typed

in the words at Google and found no reference to such a person in literature

or history that might fit. Since your name came up at the head of the

list, I thought I would write and ask if you could shed any light on who

she may have been referring to. My mother was born in 1901 in Arkansas,

had a seventh grade education, and was not well read. I suspect she picked

up the expression through conversation or story telling."

This just goes to show you—you never can tell why someone will visit

your website.