The Muhammad/Malvo death penalty sweepstakes
John Ashcroft is discovering a federal interest in prosecuting the snipers as a case of interstate extortion, because God knows he'll get Muhammad and Malvo convicted, injected, and six feet under faster that way than anyone else can, one way or the other.

But Muhammad and Malvo should be tried for murders, not for a mere violation of the Hobbs Act. Were the two men put to death for "obstructing, delaying or affecting interstate commerce through robbery or extortion," rather than for any of the many murders attributed to the pair so far, justice in this country would rightly be the scorned laughingstock of the world. More importantly, "justice" would ought to be patently untrustworthy to anyone in this country.

There's no question the Hobbs act is applicable in some broad sense; the provable and likeliest true motive was extortion, the crimes crossed state lines. But there's every question whether this federal statute should be applied. It's likely even Ashcroft recognizes this; the true aim is quite different: by threatening to take the case out of state hands, Ashcroft and the Justice Department seek to deal Muhammad and Malvo to the state where the two can be sentenced and put to death as soon as possible.

And that, too, is a dishonorable goal. Even committed death penalty advocates should have no trouble seeing why: it cavalierly ignores the right of citizens of states or counties that administer the death penalty grudgingly or not at all, in favor of citizens where that penalty is handed out more enthusiastically. Yet there are good reasons to go slowly and carefully with a death penalty case -- assuming of course you want to get an unassailable, just, correct verdict.

Maryland death penalty policy has equal weight and standing with Virginia, Alabama*, Louisiana, or Washington death penalty policy. No matter the missteps made during the investigation, the case is Maryland's and Montgomery County's first and foremost, both because the greatest number of victims were Marylanders, and because the task force that finally arrested the (alleged) perpetrators was led by Marylanders.** That this should even need to be argued is testimony to the hypocrisy of Bush's and Ashcroft's lip service to "federalism," and perhaps to the scarcity of Republicans willing and able to hold them to that slogan.

This is not to say Virginia, Alabama, Louisiana, or Washington should not have their turn. It is to say that they should wait their turn. "Efficiency" in the pursuit of a death penalty is nowhere near the most important goal in this or any case.

There is a wider significance to the particular varieties of gamesmanship and manipulation on display around these murder cases. They are invited and encouraged by the blood lust for a death penalty, just as that lust invites bending any number of other "rules" set up to protect the innocent, the young, the retarded, the insane. My chief argument against the death penalty is that it virtually ensures the worst miscarriage of justice possible: the eventual execution of an innocent person. A secondary, but strong corollary is that it ensures that any number of guilty but "ineligible" persons will nevertheless be executed, as murderers are wrongly found just sane enough, just old enough, just mentally competent enough to suffer the death penalty.

The chief objective citizens need met in this case has been met: the likely perpetrators are behind bars, we are safe from them. The next objective will be justice. That objective emphatically does not require that Muhammad and Malvo die; the death penalty will assuredly lead to more miscarriages of justice than its absence will. If Muhammad and Malvo are found guilty, they shouldn't see another free day in their lives. That is severe punishment, and it's the most punishment citizens should allow their human, imperfect laws and legal system to threaten.

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*It will be a particular travesty if Alabama should be entrusted with the prosecution, given its incompetent, negligent investigation process in the Montgomery, Alabama slaying: fingerprints obtained in that case had not been matched to federally available Malvo prints until officials came knocking on Alabama's doors weeks later, far too late for the sniper victims in Maryland and Virginia.
**For a similar view, see "Let Montgomery Lead," a 10/31/2002 Washington Post editorial. posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:19:00 PM -- |  

 
Telemarketing: a united world fights back
Europe, naturally, relies on talk and negotiation, turning to Martijn Engelbregt's "Counterscript", which the developer suggests "redresses the balance" between the prepared, scripted telemarketer and the unprepared telemarketee. The downloadable script comes complete with boxed spaces to enter telemarketer responses. Favorite script exchanges:

[start asking immediately after first question is asked] "to whom am I speaking? could you spell your name for me please?"

[telemarketer wants to know why you are asking questions]->"I would like to know more about the person I am speaking to right now Mr/Ms ... why don't we get back to my question?"

[telemarketer keeps asking questions]->"I can't provide this information because I need unprejudiced answers"

(via Jens Scholz)

The American way, of course, is to develop a high-tech gizmo with an ominous numbered name. The Tele-Zapper TZ 900 unfortunately does not administer painful shocks to telemarketers:

When a telemarketer calls, his computer gets a "disconnected" signal from the TeleZapper as soon as your answering machine answers

Telemarketer's auto-dialer then records your number as disconnected and deletes your name from the list

Current defense budgets in Europe may put this item out of reach for many EU countries, so they'll need to stick to that script. The important thing is to fight together: together, we are strong -- together, we can win! posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:13:00 PM -- |  

 

No-fly list revisited
Late last month I wrote about a San Francisco Chronicle story ("No-Fly Blacklist Snares Political Activists") about a "no-fly" blacklist being maintained by the TSA (Transportation Security Administration, the federal agency airport screeners). The story had pretty good evidence that people are running afoul of airport screening procedures merely due to their involvement in political activism.

My wife recognized an old friend in the photo to the story: Rebecca Gordon, a seminarian at U.C. Berkeley who is also part of the anti-war "War Times" newsmonthly. I sent some questions to follow up on the story, and thought I'd share the answers with you. Be aware there aren't any major new revelations here, but some of the followup has been interesting. I've added some links to the questions and and answers.

Was the Chronicle story correct about your own experience? Did it leave out any important details?

Yup, the Chronicle story was accurate. The reporter was really dogged about getting the various government agencies to explain the provenance and content of the "No Fly" list.

Have you experienced other instances of air travel harassment? Other instances of being blacklisted or surveilled (since 9/11-Afghanistan-War Times) that you attribute to your political activities and new government policies?

We haven't flown since August, but we'll see what happens when we go to New York next month. Other than that, no harassment.

Do you know others who experienced this kind of harassment beyond those mentioned in the Chronicle story?

Interesting you should ask. We didn't really, until CBS National News did a story on the "No Fly" list, which aired this past Sunday evening.* Turns out that Bill Whitaker, the African American reporter who did the story, was hassled at JFK on his return from a reporting trip to Afghanistan. We think he had a personal interest in this story!

Did the examples cited in the Chronicle keep significant numbers of protesters away from the DC demos**, or otherwise substantively disrupt those demonstrations?

No, you couldn't say the effect on the demonstration numbers was, to use an accounting term, "material." But it doesn't take a lot of harassment to affect a lot of people. E.g., a friend of mine, Kate Rafael, is a member of the local Women in Black group. About a week after the attacks last September, she got a call from the FBI, who wanted to grill her about Women in Black. She refused to talk with them, and they threatened to treat her as "uncooperative." Nothing ever came of it, but a less experienced activist could have been quite panicked by a call from the FBI.

Have there been additional developments since the Chronicle story was published?

Only in that there's been more press coverage. The ACLU is now considering litigation for at least one of their clients, a Pakistani [ed: actually, an American citizen whose parents are Bangladeshi: Arshad Chowdhury] man who has been cleared by the TSA, but who can't get off the list.

Anticipating some predictable, stupid hoots about Berkeley activists: Ms. Gordon's politics shouldn't matter -- not that her anti-war sentiments are that unusual anyway. Ms. Gordon's and her colleagues' First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, to peaceable assembly, and to petition for redress of grievances do matter a great deal.

I had a surprisingly hard time tracking down the Bill Whitaker story Ms. Gordon mentioned. The cbsnews.com site initially showed the story on its "atomz" search site -- but the link was misspecified, leading to a completely unrelated story. E-mails to the webmaster had no effect -- but then, they never do. Within about a week, the "no-fly whitaker" search failed altogether, despite a number of other late-September-early-October stories showing up (try "no-fly" alone). Today I was able to find the story script on a Sacramento CBS station web site; this is where the CBS link above will take you. But don't wait too long! My guess is the shelf life will be short there as well.

The complete lack of accountability about how this "no-fly" list is assembled should bother you no matter what your politics are. As the CBS news piece quotes ACLU lawyer Jayashri Srikantiah:

We don't know how somebody's name gets on the list. We don't know how someone who's incorrectly on the list can get off the list. That's a lot not to know.

The Heritage Foundation's Paul Rosenzweig -- quite sensitive to the abuse of the "terrorist" excuse when it threatens, say, the chemical industry -- counters:

We don't want to publish the criteria for getting on the list because that's like a "how to list for terrorists" as to how to get on an airplane. Might as well put up a sign that says "terrorists fly free."

Interestingly, John Gilmore of the Electronic Freedom Foundation has also filed a air travel related lawsuit against John Ashcroft and two airlines for requiring that he show identification before boarding a plane. Gilmore objects on the grounds that the regulations involved restrict freedom of travel, permit intrusive searches without good cause and violate the Freedom of Information Act because they have not been published in the Federal Register (CNN, via Jeff Goldstein aka "Protein Wisdom"). As Mr. Goldstein points out, Gilmore's lawsuit objects to the lack of specific grounds for requiring a routine identification clearance of any passenger before boarding a plane, rather than complaining of excessive or inaccurate profiling as one might describe Gordon's or Chowdhury's complaint.

Of the two complaints, I'm instinctively more concerned with Gordon's or Chowdhury's complaints than with Gilmore's; striking down ID checks before boarding a plane seems crazy to me. I'd prefer effective screening that takes into account that most seminarians, Carnegie-Mellon MBA students (Chowdhury), or U.S. senators aren't likely hijacker material. I'd prefer also that a substantial amount of random testing be done, so that hijackers who believed they'd found the key to nonrandom searches would still face the strong possibility of a random search. We'll see what happens. And I'll be interested how Rebecca's latest plane trip went.

Further links:

The Progressive, April 27, 2002: Protesters Detained in Milwaukee: Are You on the No Fly List?

Aviation and Transportation Security Act

Transportation Security Administration (TSA)


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* October 6.
** Not the anti-war demonstration last weekend, but an anti-globalization demonstration at the beginning of the month.

posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:53:00 PM -- |  

 

Congratulations, Anaheim Angels
And congratulations to their longtime fans like Matt Welch, who must be on cloud nine right now.

The Angels path to the World Series win reminds me of my own longtime baseball team, the Atlanta Braves, back in 1991 -- except that the Braves lost, of course, in seven games to the Minnesota Twins. That series still stands as one of the the greatest World Series in history ... but it's not about that tonight. I'm just trying to say I can really relate to waiting a long time for a favorite team to "make it." The Angels did it, and despite being a long-time Bay Area resident before moving to DC, I must say I enjoyed watching them do it.

But you had to feel so bad for Dusty Baker's little boy, crying in the Giants' dugout. Poor kid! Lucky kid, too, to be that close to it all. It must have been something for Giant players to see, all season as far as I know, just how important they can be to their deepest believers. posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:03:00 AM -- |  

 

If they had Malvo's fingerprint in Montgomery, Alabama...
...and in an INS fingerprint file, why wasn't he already a fugitive from the law? (A loyal reader poses this question via e-mail; I spring into action! Here you go, Dad.) Malvo, of course, is the younger of the pair arrested for the DC area sniper serial murders. The answer appears to be that the Alabama Department of Public Safety has only four fingerprint examiners, and had a backlog of cases ahead of the Montgomery one, according to a Saturday report by the New York Times' David Halbfinger ("Sniper Clue Sat for Weeks in Crime Lab in Alabama"). The fingerprint Malvo left at the Montgomery murder scene reached the Alabama crime lab on September 24, but had not been processed by the time police officials in the D.C. area needed to know whose prints they were:

"Most crime happens in your own backyard," said a spokesman for the city police, Sgt. Scott Martino, explaining why detectives did not immediately send the print to the F.B.I. for comparison to a national database.

But the result of the state bureau's search showing no match to anyone in its system did not arrive for 27 days, coming only on Monday, after federal investigators had already connected the liquor store killing to the sniper shootings in the Washington area. [...]

Capt. Hugh McCall, a spokesman for the Alabama Department of Public Safety, said the state crime laboratory had only four examiners of latent fingerprints to handle crimes from all over the state, and that there was a backlog of cases ahead of the Montgomery liquor store shootings.

Nationwide, a shortage of fingerprint examiners is hobbling detectives and slowing manhunts. New technology has eliminated lower-level jobs where examiners cut their teeth, and the number of new examiners has not kept up with growing ranks of police officers and new cases. Nationally, The Baltimore Sun reported in March, there are only about 2,000 examiners. In Baltimore, the crime laboratory is 1,000 cases behind; in Phoenix, an understaffed laboratory has a 6,000-case backlog.

The Montgomery, Alabama part of the sniper story suggests two things to me:

1) The "Islamic sniper connection" currently being suggested here and there across the 'blogosphere'* is 99% bunk, barring Muhammad turning up on the Hamas payroll or something. There was little of "Islamic terror" about either the DC spree or the Montgomery crime. These were two goons who turned a nasty little dream of a bag of cash in Montgomery into a nasty big dream of $10 million score a couple of weeks later. Turning a loser thug's half-baked conversion to Black Muslimhood into "Exhibit anything" of the world Islamic terror offensive is far-fetched at best, on any evidence available so far. This was a latter day "Bonnie and Clyde" episode that was unusually extortionate and murderous, but an episode all the same.


2) Had Alabama been less tardy in attempting a match with the national fingerprint database, Malvo would already have been a wanted man by the time he and Muhammad began their D.C. area shootings. That wouldn't necessarily have stopped them, but it couldn't have hurt, given the number of times the two were pulled over during their serial murders.**

As the Times discussion indicates, fingerprint specialists aren't just overloaded in Alabama. It would be worthwhile to learn why this crucial part of police work is apparently often so underfunded that bad guys can expect fingerprint matches to take weeks if not months, especially if they have crossed states or regions before committing their crime. In the case of Alabama, it would seem like that state has three choices: (1) continue doing what it's doing now, or (2) increase funding and staff for the fingerprinting work, and/or (3) start immediately forwarding fingerprints to the FBI to rule out national database fingerprints before hunt-and-pecking their way through the Alabama files.

Option (1) seems unacceptable; from this Marylander's point of view, I should hope the great State of Alabama faces some significant liability claims for its performance in the Malvo/Muhammad case, and improved court-ordered performance should be but the cheapest of the penalties it will have to pay for. Options (2) and (3) no doubt face political hurdles of one sort or another. Those hurdles had better get cleared. On a wider level, the whole country's fingerprinting efforts are no stronger than the weakest funded or managed state link; as a matter of "homeland defense" in its original sense -- crime prevention -- this situation requires some national thinking, not just some Montgomery thinking.

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*Among others, Andrew Sullivan, Glenn Reynolds, Natalie Solent, and Jeff Jarvis are touting this notion to one degree or another. Jarvis, for example, normally the working definition of "stickler for accuracy," writes "In the name of Islam, a madman shut down our capital." Really? No more than Al Capone shut down Chicago in the name of Catholicism. It seems to me so far like Muhammad's actions were mainly in the name of $10 million.

I suppose it comes down to this: can a Black Muslim commit crimes that do not reflect on Black Muslimhood? On Islam? I say yes. I get the feeling Sullivan et al say no, at least to any practical purposes. I'll be glad to be corrected. And even if it turns out Muhammad was Bin Laden's right hand man in Antigua, I think there is some value to not jumping to that conclusion ahead of time, "PC" though that attitude may be. Read Tim Dunlop and Jim Henley, among others, for views similar to mine on this score, doubtless better expressed.

UPDATE: For what it's worth, this New York Times article, "Once Calmed by Faith, Suspect Turned Furious," describes Muhammad as a low-intensity kind of Black Muslim, whose angers seemed mainly about his family life and failures. EDITS, 10/29: "Bonnie and Clyde" sentence moved to appropriate paragraph, Halbfinger sentence corrected.

**A Saturday Washington Post article finds even more: "Police Checked Suspect's Plates At Least 10 Times." It's not clear how many of these encounters were face-to-face. Via Tony Adragna. posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:26:00 AM -- |