Law & Justice: July 2004 Archives

Sandy Berger "inadvertantly" took home classified materials relating to terrorism, and most of the focus seems to be on the actual reports that somehow ended up in his briefcase. More interesting to me are the handwritten notes "he knowingly removed [] by placing them in his jacket, pants and socks".

His lawyer says:

Breuer said Berger was allowed to take handwritten notes but also knew that taking his own notes out of the secure reading room was a "technical violation of Archive procedures, but it is not all clear to us this represents a violation of the law."

I'm not a classified-information-handling lawyer, but I've been instructed in the procedures for handling classified equipment and data, and what Mr. Berger did is absolutely indefensible. Not only is notetaking not allowed, but just about everything that comes into contact with classified information becomes classified itself until and unless it is declassified.

For instance, if you put a floppy disk into a classified computer system the floppy disk is immediately classified. It must either go through a detailed inspection and declassificiation procedure or it must be destroyed. It's not hard to bring data into a classified perimeter, but it's designed to be hard to take it out, and a lot of disks are destroyed after use to save time and money. Likewise, bringing a notebook into a classified area will instantly classify the entire notebook at the highest level of classification the notebook may have come into contact with. The same goes for digital cameras and cell phones with cameras -- you quickly learn not to bring those things into classified areas because you generally won't get them back.

Unless you stick them in your socks.

Sandy Berger knew all this far better than I do -- he was the national security advisor for four years. He purposefully sought to circumvent the rules for handling classified information for his own benefit and to give advantage to whomever he was sharing the information with.

Berger served as Clinton's national security adviser for all of the president's second term and most recently has been informally advising Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Clinton asked Berger last year to review and select the administration documents that would be turned over to the Sept. 11 commission.

Ah.

Update:
Sandy Berger has disgraced himself.

Tony Blair in the UK is decrying a national atmosphere of social chaos, including:

... an extraordinary attack on the decline of the traditional family and the rise of "different lifestyles".

In a speech which risked a backlash from single parents' groups and Labour MPs, the Prime Minister said the culture of the "Swinging Sixties" was partly to blame for crime and social breakdown. ...

He added: "Today, people have had enough of this part of the 1960s consensus. People do not want a return to old prejudices and ugly discrimination. But they do want rules, order and proper behaviour. They want a community where the decent lawabiding majority are in charge."

Wait, I thought judges and (not-necessarily-racial-)minorities were supposed to be in charge? Indeed, Mr. Blair, we see the same things here in America, though some deny it.

Further,

The Government hopes the plans will reassure voters before figures later this week show a rise in violent offences despite an overall fall in crime.

A drop in crime with a rise in violent crime? Maybe it's time to start legalizing guns for law-abiding citizens.

The United States provides a valuable point of comparison for assessing crime rates as that country has witnessed a dramatic drop in criminal violence over the past decade – for example, the homicide rate in the US has fallen 42 percent since 1991. This is particularly significant when compared with the rest of the world – in 18 of the 25 countries surveyed by the British Home Office, violent crime increased during the 1990s.

The justice system in the U.S. differs in many ways from those in the Commonwealth but perhaps the most striking difference is that qualified citizens in the United States can carry concealed handguns for self-defence. During the past few decades, more than 25 states in the U.S. have passed laws allowing responsible citizens to carry concealed handguns. In 2003, there are 35 states where citizens can get such a permit.

Disarming the public has not reduced criminal violence in any country examined in this study. In all these cases, disarming the public has been ineffective, expensive, and often counter productive. In all cases, the effort meant setting up expensive bureaucracies that produce no noticeable improvement to public safety or have made the situation worse.

For England specifically:

Both Conservative and Labour governments have introduced restrictive firearms laws over the past 20 years; all handguns were banned in 1997.

Yet in the 1990s alone, the homicide rate jumped 50 percent, going from 10 per million in 1990 to 15 per million in 2000. While not yet as high as the US, in 2002 gun crime in England and Wales increased by 35 percent. This is the fourth consecutive year that gun crime has increased.

Police statistics show that violent crime in general has increased since the late 1980s and since 1996 has been more serious than in the United States.

It makes sense that violent crime (with and without guns) would increase when law-abiding citizens are disarmed.

Pay attention!

Although I'm still not convinced she should have been prosecuted so vigorously, Martha Stewart did break the law and should be punished. Still, which sentence do you think would have been of more benefit to society?

Martha Stewart was sentenced to five months in prison, plus five months of home detention and a $30,000 fine for lying to federal authorities investigating her sale of stock in a friend's company. ...

[U.S. District Judge Miriam] Cedarbaum, 74, rejected Stewart's bid to avoid prison at a hearing today in New York. Stewart sought to serve her sentence in community service helping underprivileged women launch their own businesses.

I'd've rather seen her do a year of community service than sit in a cell.

In general I don't think people should be sentenced to prison time for non-violent crimes. Our society over-relies on prison to punish crimes because we think it's more humane than the obvious alternatives (scourging, indentured servitude, and so forth), but in reality our prison system isn't very humane at all.

Just when I'm worried that everything judges do is stupid along comes a good decision, and from California no less. Men who women claim are the fathers of their children, but who really aren't and can prove it with a DNA test, will no longer be forced to pay child support for their non-kids. Despite protests from the National Organization of Women. Here's just a snippet of what was going on, and if the injustice doesn't make you angry just wait for the final paragraph.

A March, 2003 study prepared at the request of DCSS, "Examining Child Support Arrears in California," found that most complaints in California are delivered by substitute service, "which suggests that noncustodial parents may not know that they have been served."

"In Los Angeles County in 2000 ... 79 percent of paternity judgments were decreed by default," father's-rights advocate Glenn Sacks explains. "Most of these men had no idea they were 'fathers' until their wages were garnished."

In an article entitled "Injustice by Default: How the effort to catch 'deadbeat dads' ruins innocent men's lives," journalist Matt Welch asked California DCSS Assistant Director Leora Gerhenzon what would happen if a woman had named "Matt Welch" — a white guy between 30 and 40 years old, who maybe lives in the Los Angeles area, as the father of her child.

Gerhenzon answered, "We run our search on him; if we come back with one Matt Welch who lives in L.A., whose birthday fits that 10-year range, and we have nobody else, we presume in general we have the person."

The argument could be made that current laws encourage false-paternity claims. To receive federal funds on child-support orders, states must name the fathers of the children on assistance. Since there is no federal requirement for DNA testing for paternity, there is no state requirement.

Indeed, father's-rights advocates argue that there is an incentive for states to bypass costly testing which might rule out fatherhood. In 2002, former California Gov. Gray Davis admitted that $40 million in federal funds could be jeopardized by widespread paternity challenges.

For this reason, among others, in 2002 Davis vetoed the California Paternity Justice Act, (AB 2240), which would have extended the challenge period and vacated judgments against falsely named "fathers." Women who knowingly signed false declarations of paternity would have been liable for criminal prosecution.

(Another factor in Davis' veto was the political pressure of groups like the National Organization of Women, who successfully argued that passing the act would harm children who might lose support payments.)

Screw you, NOW. Children don't lose support payments, their lying mothers do, and they aren't entitled to support payments from a man who isn't the father. It's unbelievable to me that anyone could think differently. Then again, leftists love arbitrary wealth redistribution in other forms....

In hearing Navarro's appeal, the Second District Court acknowledged that "by strict application of the law, appellant should be denied relief ... Sometimes even more important policies than the finality of judgments are at stake, however."

The appeals court explained, "the County ... should not enforce child-support judgments it knows to be unfounded. And in particular, it should not ask the courts to assist it in doing so. Despite the Legislature's clear directive that child-support agencies not pursue mistaken child-support actions, the County persists in asking that we do so. We will not sully our hands by participating in an unjust, and factually unfounded, result. We say no to the County, and we reverse."

Good. It's about time. I can't even believe how much evil is done in the world by leftists "for the sake of the children".

Israel's Supreme Court has ruled that the security fence has to be moved because it's unfair to the Palestinians on the other side. I'm certainly not an Israeli lawyer, and I have little idea of how their court system works, but this really doesn't sound like business any judges should be involved in.

Israel's high court said the barrier could be built to keep out Palestinian attackers, but that the route caused too much hardship for Palestinians. The world court said in an advisory ruling that the barrier is illegal and must be dismantled.

While the old route was defined purely by security considerations, the new one would try to find a balance between Israel's security needs and Palestinian rights, a defense official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

In redrawing the map, planners were asked not to run the barrier next to Palestinian villages and not to separate Palestinians from their fields and schools, the official said.

As a result, the barrier would run much closer to Israel and more Israeli settlements would end up on the "Palestinian" side than originally planned.

Since when are judges qualified to determine "Israel's security needs"? Isn't that the job of the Parliament and the various ministers? Well, who knows -- maybe the Israeli Supreme Court is full of generals or ninjas or something.

Why is it that almost everything judges do that makes the news strikes me as meddling and stupid? Is it just a media selection factor? Or are these sorts of stupid things just the tip of the judicial iceberg?

Orange Country Sheriff Michael Carona (who actually is in favor of 2nd Amendment rights, by my understanding) travels with an armed entourage. Meanwhile, another Southern California Sheriff says:

"I wouldn't want to take critical personnel away from doing something else more valuable. I can drive myself," said Riverside County Sheriff Bob Doyle.

Asked how he ensures his own safety, Doyle pointed to his biceps. "Rock," he said, nodding to his left arm, "and roll," nodding to his right. "Them and my gun."

Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to carry and I can't afford bodyguards, so all I'm left with are my (admittedly impressive) biceps. Still, I'd rather have a gun.

Eugene Volokh wonders about statutory rape laws and solicits opinions and arguments for what the cutoff age should be.

So I've been thinking -- purely for academic reasons, I hasten to stress! -- about statutory rape laws. There's broad agreement that sex with people who are too young is wrong, and should be illegal, because children aren't mature enough to consent to sex.

But there's vast disagreement about what the proper cutoff age will be.

Rather than pick a certain age, I propose that everyone be required to take a "maturity test" before being granted the status of a full adult. This test will include physical and mental components that can be evaluated objectively -- not necessarily an easy test to design, but set that aside for a moment. The test should be crafted so that the vast majority (80%+) of 18-year-olds can pass.

Those who pass the maturity test will be allowed to vote, drive, drink, gamble, and have sex with anyone else who has also passed the test -- i.e., they'll be "adults". Those who have not passed the test will be considered children, regardless of their actual chronological age, and will not be allowed to marry, have sex, enter into contractual agreements, or make any of the typical adult decisions for themselves.

What results would this policy have? Society could weed out the bottom 20% (say) of older-people (can't call them "adults" anymore) and restrict their harmful activities. Particularly mature teens could try for adulthood early and take control of their destiny, to the benefit of all society. Why should mature teens be relegated to the holding pen of High School? And why should the eternally immature be given full citizenship just because they've been around a while?

Of course, there are many possible objections to this proposal, not the least of which is actually creating and administering the maturity test. Still, we test for all sorts of things (college, driving, practicing law and medicine), and the paradigm seems to work pretty well. Additionally, none of this addresses the morality of sex as it relates to age; I think extramarital sex is immoral all the time, regardless of age, but shouldn't be illegal.

So Saddam et al are finally beginning the long road to justice. I hope the legal process is cathartic for the Iraqi people, because it would have been at least as just (if not more just) to simply drag the lot of them into the street and string them up.

I'm particularly glad that former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz is in the docks. I remember seeing him jet around the world for media appearances and hating that no one had the courage to snap him up.

Aziz denied personal involvement in any of the regime's crimes, saying, "I never killed anybody by any direct act."

It's called being an "accomplice". Look it up.