jrtom

Last Friday and the following Tuesday, I served on a jury for the local municipal court.

( the details )

Questions welcome. It was an interesting experience; I'm glad that I was able to do it, although it would have been nice if the second day of jury duty didn't overlap with my employer-granted holiday. :P Given some of the things that some of the other jurors had said before we started deliberating, I was gratified that we came to a consensus so quickly.

This question keeps occurring to me in different contexts. This morning, I learned that some unspecified treatment of homeless people apparently constitutes a "hate crime" in Washington State: http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kplu/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1201540

This is one of those contexts in which I'd kind of like to believe that I'm missing something, so this is a genuine question to which I'd like to receive thoughtful responses.

Wikipedia states:

Hate crimes differ from conventional crime because they are not directed simply at an individual, but are meant to cause fear and intimidation in an entire group or class of people.

(The definition above sounds like it could easily have been for "terrorism", but I'll leave that alone.)

I can understand members of various minority and/or powerless groups wanting to ensure that they're not systematically oppressed, and I certainly understand that individual crimes can have very wide repercussions.

But it seems to me nevertheless that legal recognition of crimes qua hate crimes has some serious pitfalls, too.

• Prosecuting someone as a "hate criminal" (so to speak) identifies their cause and perhaps even legitimizes it. It gives their action more publicity than it would otherwise have had. Possibly even gives the actor the status of martyr.
  
• Shouldn't we prefer to focus on preventing crimes of violence and intimidation in the first place? Establishing motive is useful...but it's not clear why it should be a basis for punishment, rather than the nature of the actions themselves.
  
• Perhaps most importantly, it comes at least perilously close to legislating opinions, or at least motivations. If we protect free speech, certainly we must also afford at least that level of protection to opinion.
  

Knowing me, I'm probably missing something practical and obvious. Any thoughts?

http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/07/10/2054219.shtml
The original reference to the paper below. Also includes a link to

http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2006/05/70886
which is Bruce Schneier's take on the issue; this is less detailed (but also much shorter! :) ) than the actual paper, at

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565
Despite this paper's self-description as a "short essay", it's about 25 pages long, and I admit I haven't read the whole thing yet. But it looks like an interesting drill-down into what privacy is, what it's for, and why it's important.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070604.wkhadr0604_1/BNStory/International/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20070604.wkhadr0604_1

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10443657

What I find most encouraging about this is that the judge in charge of this tribunal made this decision, it appears, independently. I've little doubt that there will now be a flurry of hearings to reclassify some detainees as "unlawful enemy combatants" (and not simply "enemy combatants", as opposed, presumably, to "friendly combatants [against which we have nevertheless preferred charges]"). But the point is that the military at least appears to be trying to police itself.

via http://boingboing.net : Loyalty Day

Somehow, this leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I don't even think that it really has much to do with Bush--although this does feel like a political ploy. I think that it has something to do with the implication that we need to be told to be loyal...and perhaps it does have something to do with Bush, as arguably some of the worst things in his administration could not have happened but for the loyalty of various people to him (which he is now repaying in kind by stubbornly refusing to admit that they might have engaged in any wrongdoing). Plus Bush, I think, does not define "loyalty" as I do.

On a not-exactly-related note, clicking on 'Executive Orders' in the sidebar turns this gem up which makes a whole raft of changes to how military courts-martial proceed:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/04/20070418-2.html

It allows for witnesses that aren't physically present...which may be reasonable in some cases...but then moves on to permitting the accused to not be physically present...and then makes it clear that such remote connections can be audio-only (all sorts of fun possibilities there).

Then it goes on (search for "119a") to, as far as I can tell, lay the groundwork for criminalizing abortion. (Essentially, it sets things up so that if a fetus is killed or harmed in the course of some other crime, some charge with code number I don't know is added to those of which the defendant is accused. To be fair, it does explicitly exempt legal abortions...and again, maybe it's just the known biases of Bush in this regard...but it makes me nervous.)

...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6425927.stm

An encouraging sign, I think, on several levels. (This discussion must necessarily touch on several important questions, including "what is a sentient being?" and "what responsibilities do we have to our creations?", which I think are important questions for us to address as a society.)

Michael Crichton, in the NY Times, This Essay Breaks the Law

Elevated homocysteine is linked to B-12 deficiency, so doctors should test homocysteine levels to see whether the patient needs vitamins.

ACTUALLY, I can't make that last statement. A corporation has patented that fact, and demands a royalty for its use. Anyone who makes the fact public and encourages doctors to test for the condition and treat it can be sued for royalty fees. Any doctor who reads a patient's test results and even thinks of vitamin deficiency infringes the patent. A federal circuit court held that mere thinking violates the patent.

*sigh* The US Patent Office needs a reboot...badly.