Community gardens and garden communities

In an effort to momentarily suppress my frustration and dismay over yesterday's FISA amendment vote, I'm distracting myself with a far, far more positive story.

Madison has long been known as a green-leaning city, having several community garden projects and farmer's markets and other such neighborhood improvement efforts. We're not perfect, and there's always room for improvement, but perhaps because we've never been a particularly industrial city, these sorts of ideas have been around for a good long while.

That isn't really the case with Detroit. The Motor City, once a shining metropolis of industry, has, in more recent decades, been abandoned by corporate interests and left to rot away on the shores of Lake St. Clair. Personally, I've heard little else about Detroit than that huge swaths of it are rapidly decaying, that crime is rampant, and that no one seems interested in investing in its future. In short, the story seems pretty grim.

And yet, some enterprising residents have decided that they're not ready to give up on their city. They've recognized something somewhat unique and full of promise in the midst of the urban decay: green space, nature slowly taking back the factories and empty homes, even pheasants wandering through inner city fields.

What they've decided to do with all that abandoned space is, plainly put, inspiring.

I watched this short doc about Detroit's citizen's efforts to help neighbors start their own gardens, all in an effort to alleviate what has become a "food dessert" in their neighborhoods--that is, there are no major grocery chains in the entire city, only fast food joints and expanded liquor stores, and it's extremely difficult for people to get fresh produce and other good-for-you food.

It led me to the Garden Resource Program Collaborative (a group that includes the Detroit Agriculture Network, Earthworks Garden/Capuchin Soup Kitchen, The Greening of Detroit and Michigan State University), which provides very affordable seeds, starter plants, information and tutorials to any interested person or group within the city. Slowly but surely, organizations like these are helping to reclaim the empty spaces for productive, green, sustainable purposes, breathing life back into a city all but declared dead by the rest of the country.

No doubt it will be a long, uphill battle - all good causes are - but the important thing is that they're doing it, and making it work. They're helping to empower residents long neglected by the big corporations and corrupt or inept governments. And just as importantly, they're helping to provide a healthy, sustainable food source. That's something we should all be working toward.

Any city, large or small, could stand to take a cue from these groups in Detroit. Urban infill as an idea has been around for some time now, and frankly, I think its proponents are on to something. In order to cut down on sprawl, the depletion of natural resources, waste run-off and the paving over of wetlands, etc., we need to focus on making our cities better, leaving the countryside for agriculture that can support surrounding areas, and open space simply to support nature. This also cuts down on transportation costs and the associated pollution, as our food sources become increasingly more localized. Gas ain't getting any cheaper, after all.

I'm both encouraged and impressed by the efforts in Detroit. I have family that live in the area, and I've seen first-hand just how devastated and neglected the city has become. It's good to know that there are still people out there who care, and who are working hard to make real, long-term improvements. Outside help would, of course, be useful, but this strikes me as a good example of locals taking the initiative to improve their lives and their communities. Ultimately, that's what it's all about.

You can read more about the Detroit community garden and sustainability programs here and here.

Mr. Feingold goes to Washington, and owns it

There is one facet of being a progressive in Wisconsin that is pretty much always good: having Russ Feingold as our representative in the Senate. Today, regardless of the outcome of the FISA vote, I couldn't be more proud of him. Here is a citizen, an elected official with many and varied constituents to whom he must answer, standing up against powerful interests to fight for what is right.

I'll let his statement speak for itself:

Mr. FEINGOLD: Mr. President, I strongly support Senator Dodd’s amendment to strike the immunity provision from this bill, and I want to thank the Senator from Connecticut for his leadership on this issue. Both earlier this year when the Senate first considered FISA legislation and again this time around, he has demonstrated tremendous resolve on this issue, and I have been proud to work with him.

Now, Mr. President, some have tried to suggest that the bill before us will leave it up to the courts to decide whether or not to give retroactive immunity to the companies that allegedly participated in the President’s illegal wiretapping program. Make no mistake – this bill will result in immunity being granted, because it sets up a rigged process with only one possible outcome.

Under the terms of this bill, a federal district court would evaluate whether there is substantial evidence that a company received “a written request or directive … from the Attorney General or the head of an element of the intelligence community … indicating that the activity was authorized by the President and determined to be lawful.”

But, Mr. President, we already know from the report of the Senate Intelligence Committee that was issued last fall that the companies received exactly such a request or directive. That is already public information. So under the terms of this proposal, the court’s decision would be predetermined.

As a practical matter, that means that regardless of how much information the court is permitted to review, what standard of review is employed, how open the proceedings are, and what role the plaintiffs are permitted to play, the court will essentially be required to grant immunity under this bill.

Now, proponents will argue that the plaintiffs in the lawsuits against the companies can participate in briefing to the court. This is true, but they are not allowed access to any classified information. Talk about fighting with both hands tied behind your back. Mr. President, the administration has restricted information about this illegal wiretapping program so much that roughly 70 members of this chamber don’t even have access to the basic facts about what happened. So let’s not pretend that the plaintiffs will be able to participate in any meaningful way in these proceedings — in which Congress has made sure that their claims will be dismissed.

This result is extremely disappointing. It is entirely unnecessary and unjustified, and it will profoundly undermine the rule of law in this country. I cannot comprehend why Congress would take this action in the waning months of an administration that has consistently shown contempt for the rule of law – perhaps most notably in the illegal warrantless wiretapping program it set up in secret.

Mr. President, we hear people argue that telecom companies should not be penalized for allegedly taking part in this illegal program. What you don’t hear is that current law already provides immunity from lawsuits for companies that cooperate with the government’s request for assistance, as long as they receive either a court order or a certification from the Attorney General that no court order is needed and the request meets all statutory requirements. But if requests are not properly documented, FISA instructs the telephone companies to refuse the government’s request, and subjects them to liability if they instead decide to cooperate.

When Congress passed FISA three decades ago, in the wake of the extensive, well-documented wiretapping abuses of the 1960s and 1970s, it decided that, in the future, telephone companies should not simply assume that any government request for assistance to conduct electronic surveillance was appropriate. It was clear that some checks needed to be in place to prevent future abuses of this incredibly intrusive power – the power to listen in on people’s personal conversations.

At the same time, however, Congress did not want to saddle telephone companies with the responsibility of determining whether the government’s request for assistance was legitimate or not.

So Congress devised a system that would take the guesswork out of it completely. Under that system, which is still in place today, the companies’ legal obligations and liability depend entirely on whether the government has presented the company with a court order or a certification stating that certain basic requirements have been met. If the proper documentation is submitted, the company must cooperate with the request and is immune from liability. If the proper documentation has not been submitted, the company must refuse the government’s request, or be subject to possible liability in the courts.

This framework, which has been in place for 30 years, protects companies that comply with legitimate government requests while also protecting the privacy of Americans’ communications from illegitimate snooping.

Granting companies that allegedly cooperated with an illegal program the new form of retroactive immunity that is in this bill undermines the law that has been on the books for decades – a law that was designed to prevent exactly the type of abuses that allegedly occurred here.

Even worse, granting retroactive immunity under these circumstances will undermine any new laws that we pass regarding government surveillance. If we want companies to follow the law in the future, it sends a terrible message, and sets a terrible precedent, to give them a “get out of jail free” card for allegedly ignoring the law in the past.

Mr. President, just last week a key court decision on FISA undercut one of the most popular arguments in support of immunity — that we need to let the companies off the hook because the state secrets privilege prevents them from defending themselves in court. A federal court has now held that the state secrets privilege does not apply to claims brought under FISA. Rather, more specific evidentiary rules in FISA govern. Shouldn’t we at least let these cases proceed to see how this plays out, rather than trying to solve a problem that may not even exist?

And that’s not all. Mr. President, this immunity provision doesn’t just allow telephone companies off the hook. It also will make it that much harder to get to the core issue that I’ve been raising since December 2005, which is that the President broke the law and should be held accountable. When these lawsuits are dismissed, we will be that much further away from an independent judicial review of this illegal program.

On top of all this, we are considering granting immunity when roughly 70 members of the Senate still have not been briefed on the President’s wiretapping program. The vast majority of this body still does not even know what we are being asked to grant immunity for. Frankly, I have a hard time understanding how any Senator can vote against this amendment without this information.

I urge my colleagues to support the amendment to strike the immunity provision from the bill.

We need to hold our elected officials, and anyone who goes along with their illegal programs, accountable. Else how can we claim any moral authority in our own country, let alone the rest of the world? This is not some fringe pet project. This is a test of whether or not we, as United States citizens, really hold our constitution in any sort of regard.

You can still call to urge your own senators to support the immunity-stripping amendment. This handy tool, provided by Blue America, can help.


h/t: Listics

UPDATE: The votes have been counted on the Dodd-Feingold amendment to strip telecom immunity from the new FISA bill - 32 yay, 66 nay. That's 66 senators in serious need of a basic class in civics. And a sound voting out of office.

I don't like that I'm used to being disappointed by politics these days.

Good Point

Once again, I'm not surprised, but still I wanted to share the good point made by the UK's Daily Mail:

"[G8] Summit that's hard to swallow - world leaders enjoy 18-course banquet as they discuss how to solve global food crisis."

Same old hypocrisy, same old shit pile. It's like history never happens, and no one ever learns anything. Now, where's my fiddle....

Bizarre old laws and the homophobes who love them

Oh Julaine Appling, you are Wisconsin's biggest homophobe. You are so crazy about the gays, in fact, that I have seriously begun to suspect that some cute girl once broke your heart, and/or that your family life was terribly repressive, and you've never quite been able to recover. I think we could all sympathize with that more if, as a result, you hadn't become such a massive tool.

Last week, newspapers began reporting on an old, seldom-enforced Wisconsin law that says residents of this state cannot obtain marriages in other states that are illegal here. The penalty for breaking this law is a fine of $10,000 and up to 9 months in jail.

Yeah, it's pretty crazy.

I can only assume that the law was originally intended to be used in cases of incest and/or polygamy, but rabid anti-gay activists like Appling have a hard-on for seeing it applied to any Wisconsin couple that goes to California to get hitched and then returns.

While it's (thankfully) unlikely that any attorney would take up the issue to prosecute some unsuspecting gay couple, Appling and her ilk still seem intent on pressing it: ""If [the law] were challenged and the courts decided to basically wink at it, and refused to enforce the law, we have a problem."

Because 1) gay people getting married at all will destroy the world! and 2) Wisconsinsites getting married in California will destroy the world! Yeah, OK, whatever.

Hopefully, this particular chapter of the gay marriage debate in this state will turn out to be a relative non-issue. Unfortunately, however, there still remains a great deal of work to do to educate about and advance the cause of true equality for all. One of the biggest, craziest enemies of this cause is Appling and groups like the Wisconsin "Family" Council. Fingers pressed firmly into their ears and over their eyes, they seem hell-bent on conducting a self-righteous crusade against something that harms no one. All this while all manner of real problems are currently being faced by their friends and neighbors. A world of shame on them.

Please, would someone do us all a favor and tell Ms. Appling that those tingly feelings she has about other women are not wrong? This has gone on long enough.

(Case and point)


h/t: Illusory Tenant

The green fairy

Happy holiday weekend everyone! I hope yours was fun, safe, and not too stressful. And hey, it's always good to remember why we're celebrating.

Me? I had a lovely weekend, full of bike rides and seeing good friends and, as fate would have it, learning how to drink absinthe.

Since absinthe (minus the thujone) has legally come back to the United States, all the "cool kids" have been scrambling to get their hands on some. This, apparently, included some friends of mine, who busted out their evil green bottle at a gathering this weekend. I was implored to document the occasion with my camera, and you can see the results here.

Basically, absinthe tastes a bit like ouzo, but it depends on what part of the glass you get: the first few sips filled my throat with burning, but the bits at the bottom were nice and sweet. Overall, it tastes like black liquorice. More importantly, though, it prompted several of my friends to make hilarious faces, which I made sure to capture.

Ode to the Madison police blotter

Most of the time, the incident reports put out by the Madison Police Department are dry and straight-forward affairs. Sometimes, however, whether it be due to a different author filling in or just the usual writer feeling a little extra saucy, the good citizen's of Madison are gifted with gems like this:

Also present in the PDQ at the time of the gun drop were three Town of Madison Police Officers. They were not near the cash register, but over near the area where one would glean a cup of coffee, and as such did not see the gun drop.

That's pure, blotter poetry right there.

On extra special days, though the report itself is pretty dry, we also get ridiculousness like screaming, naked men.

Mostly, however, I have to admit that I'm glad the blotter exists and is relatively easy to access. Beyond being a source of some entertainment, it's a valuable tool for keeping up with what's happening in our community. I can only hope that its various authors continue to take stabs into the literary dark from time to time, so that we might all glean a bit more from the story.

Private Parts

Is there a reasonable expectation of privacy when you're consensually gettin' down with your partner, in that they should then still have to ask for your permission to film or photograph you? That's the question being put to the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, after a (now former) Waunakee High School chemistry teacher was convicted last year of filming his girlfriend, both alone and with him, in her own home but without her knowledge or consent.

His original trial brought a felony conviction, which in this case I suspect may be a bit too harsh, but certainly he deserved some form of punishment. To me, this seems like a pretty open-and-shut case: how on Earth are you going to argue, as this guy and his lawyers are, that a person has no reasonable expectation of privacy against recording simply because they agreed to have sex with you? It seems ridiculous, and yet here we are:

...in the only previously published case testing the law, the Court of Appeals defined "reasonable expectation of privacy" as meaning a circumstance in which the person depicted nude had a reasonable assumption that he or she was "secluded from the presence of others."

Because his girlfriend was knowingly nude in his presence, she did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy as the court itself has defined it, Jahnke argued.

The law to which the article refers is the "Video Voyuer" law, passed in 2001 as a response to the state supreme court declaring an earlier version unconstitutional. Again, while I'm not entirely sure this guy's case should be classified as a felony, I do strongly believe that what he did was wrong, and that there should be strict penalties associated with it. Furthermore, I'm having a hard time believing that anyone would defend his appeal here (or that a lawyer would take the case in the first place--but I guess getting paid is getting paid). Leave it to the comments section after the CT article to prove me wrong:

"What did she expect? IF it had been published, that would be another story."

"Say he has a photographic memory and has perfect recall of what she looks like without clothing. Alternatively say he has taped her surreptitiously in the raw, and watches it, but does not publish it or share with anyone else. One is illegal one is not?"

Oh humanity, sometimes you fail so spectacularly. Thankfully, however, most of the comments seem to fall along the same lines as my own: this is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Certainly, though, this whole thing brings up the larger issue of when and where we all have a "reasonable expectation of privacy." In this day and age of ultra small and portable recording devices, the all-seeing internet, surveillance cameras, and the good ol' paparazzi, how far is legally too far? It's a question I think we'll be wrestling with, sometimes quite dramatically, for a long time to come. In the meantime, if you're not a fan of being filmed without consent, stay out of London.