Friday, February 29, 2008
Google, still not evil
Google, in one of those pretty nifty, innovative type moves, is giving a free phone number with voicemail box to every homeless person in San Francisco. Now you can say, as many do, hey Google, why not give food to the starving or medicine to the dying or whatnot. But Google.org has made it clear that they are not giving money to those types of ventures -- there are plenty of reasons why that doesn't work as well as it ought to (infrastructure, corruption, lack of teaching a man to fish, etc.) One of the larger obstacles in getting out of homelessness is the lack of a phone number to put on a job application, or a way to be reached for an interview or follow-up. Google can solve this systemic problem for not a lot of money, then let the people that don't need a handout pull themselves out of the system. Which really works a lot better than just throwing more money at an unsolved problem. Go Google. Keep not being evil!
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Waterboarding
First of all, I am no fan of Mukasey's at all, that has been well-established. I am also, on matters of general principle, opposed to torture, especially as practiced by the state. On 24 and in the bedroom, it's fine.
However, I think people are being a little unfair about Mukasey's refusal to come out and say if waterboarding is torture. People seem to be under the impression that when he says that as the Attorney General it would not be responsible for him to make this determination, he means AG's should not be giving opinions on the legality of torture at all. But it seems to me pretty clear that all he is saying is, since the CIA is not officially doing waterboarding now, there is no set of instructions for him to judge. It's a vague term. In the future, the CIA might discover that the best way to get information is to gently drip some water on a guy's nose while he's on a board, to pick a mildly unlikely example. Is that waterboarding? Maybe. Is it illegal tortue? Probably not. But Mukasey would have already ruled it out, and then he would have let the terrorists win!
Seriously though, all he's saying is there's no definition for the term, and people disagree on exactly what would be torture, so it would be irresponsible for him to say. Like it or not, America engages in interrogation. There is a tolerance for certain techniques, and we're supposed to draw the line. He is supposed to draw the line. But it's a fine line, and he needs something to actually draw it between. If you think it should be out of the question all the time, you're probably some kind of crazy "human rights" supporter and that's fine. But you're missing the point. As long as some kinds of interrogation are ok, he's going to have to keep deciding on a case-by-case basis what is and is not torture, as the CIA presents him with a specific scenario and conditions for deploying it. Fun job! But he's right -- he can't make a blanket statement about it now.
However, I think people are being a little unfair about Mukasey's refusal to come out and say if waterboarding is torture. People seem to be under the impression that when he says that as the Attorney General it would not be responsible for him to make this determination, he means AG's should not be giving opinions on the legality of torture at all. But it seems to me pretty clear that all he is saying is, since the CIA is not officially doing waterboarding now, there is no set of instructions for him to judge. It's a vague term. In the future, the CIA might discover that the best way to get information is to gently drip some water on a guy's nose while he's on a board, to pick a mildly unlikely example. Is that waterboarding? Maybe. Is it illegal tortue? Probably not. But Mukasey would have already ruled it out, and then he would have let the terrorists win!
Seriously though, all he's saying is there's no definition for the term, and people disagree on exactly what would be torture, so it would be irresponsible for him to say. Like it or not, America engages in interrogation. There is a tolerance for certain techniques, and we're supposed to draw the line. He is supposed to draw the line. But it's a fine line, and he needs something to actually draw it between. If you think it should be out of the question all the time, you're probably some kind of crazy "human rights" supporter and that's fine. But you're missing the point. As long as some kinds of interrogation are ok, he's going to have to keep deciding on a case-by-case basis what is and is not torture, as the CIA presents him with a specific scenario and conditions for deploying it. Fun job! But he's right -- he can't make a blanket statement about it now.
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