- War on drugs might promote sneak searches. Well. They're going after the Fourth Amendment again. The Hacker News Network's Fight CESA Page has more information. One of the most disturbing bits is that some legislator is trying to sneak this legislation in by way of the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2000 (in H.R.833 Sec. 1791 - you'll have to click on link, and then scroll to the end, and click on the SEC.1791 link. I wish there was a better way to do this, but I can't find a permanent URL that'll work.) What, praytell, does gutting the Fourth Amendment to wage the War On Drugs have to do with bankruptcy?!? Maybe I'm being unrealistic, but why not have a law only address one thing at a time so the citizens actually have a snowball's chance in hell of figuring out what's going on in the District of Corruption? I think it's pretty handy that you can get the text of legislation from thomas.loc.gov, but it frustrates me sometimes in that there's just no good way to find the culprit in cases like this until it's too late, and there's no good way to tell who introduced which section.
- More depressing news on the attack on the Fourth Amendment: Taking cash into custody is a good rundown of the current state of asset forfeiture in the US. A good series by the Kansas City Star on a depressing topic.
- Barr pleads the Fourth has yet more infromation, including Bob Barr's surprise at the provision being included in other bills. Included is the tidbit that the insertion of the section gutting the Fourth amendment was made by Bill McCollum, R-Fla. If you're a constituent, you might wanna splain him about the importance of the constitution.
- From Tidbits: Threat Models and Domination Systems. Good reading if you're the slightest bit concerned about security or privacy, and given the previous two news-bits, you may want to be. Or maybe not.
- Serbs To Charge Western Leaders With War Crimes. Seems they think bombing civilians is something that ought to be punished. Maybe it is, but what jurisdiction does any international tribunal have? There's no provision for such a thing in international law, unless a treaty specifically sets up such a court, and none has.
- On a slightly related note, after seeing a headline saying: Panel Recommends Disbarment of Clinton (and the discussion about why) a friend of mine suggested that the right punishment for Bill Clinton is that he register as a sex offender, and be required to inform the neighbors whenever he moves into a new neighborhood. She's pretty smart, I think. If you're curious, you can read The Disbarment Letter yourself, too.
- CNET had an OS Death Match between Mac OS 9 and Corel's Linux distribution. The results surprised me a bit, but not for the reason CNET thought I'd be surprised.
- Finally, on a lighter note: Rules That Guys Wish That Girls Knew. Indeed.
- The Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie Homepage has plans.