John Menick Blog | Archive for ‘"War on Terror"’

Via markthornhill.

As a commenter on the Gothamist points out: “Imagine what would happen if this space-age surveillance and hardline police resources were put to use against actual terrorists, rather than bike-riding college kids.”

Got to love the little greenscreen demo in the article’s photo. I guess those two lamps behind the talking head help matte in the background. It also looks as if here background is not a physical place at all, but an info-graphic.

One of the things that is interesting about the article, at least from a US perspective, is that most of the cameras-in-the-courtroom anxieties rehash what was debated about Court TV years ago. For example: ” And in California, a judge said on Friday that he would allow full television coverage of the rock producer Phil Spector’s murder trial, declaring that it was time to discard ‘fear of cameras in the courtroom.’”

Unconsciously mimicking Court TV Primetime’s “Seriously Entertaining” tagline a representative from Datadiar, the tech company hosting the video, claims: “It may be difficult to understand why we do this for free,” she said. “We are objective. We are in the middle. We are only lawyers and professionals, and offering information. It’s not like television.”

Granted, Datadiar is online, and may be able to claim it is literally not television. (Even though the rep is making a qualitative claim as well.) But can this coverage ever be objective? Will it devolve into entertainment? Sure, it may not literally be TV, but is it worse, i.e. … YouTube?

I’m elated that the Dems won back the Congress, but I’m skeptical whether it will help close or even reform places like Guantánamo. As the Miami Herald writes, perhaps Rumsfeld’s departure will help even more. Then again, can it get any worse than US officials denying access to their clients? From AP:

“If attorneys were kept from visiting Guantanamo, the only information regarding conditions there would be provided by the government,” said Joshua Colangelo-Bryan, a New York lawyer whose Bahraini client tried to commit suicide at Guantánamo last year as Colangelo-Bryan was visiting him.

(Also see Amnesty’s page on the detention center, and their new project, Make Some Noise.)

OK. I still think this is a hoax. I’ve read Kevin Poulsen’s post about a leaked Homeland Security war game involving so-called cyber-terrorism, and I still think this is the work of some insanely gifted parodist. In the Homeland Security scenario, who is going to mess with the FAA no-fly list and control system? Who will spoof the Red Cross’ email? Al Qaeda? White supremacist militias? No! Hippies and anti-globalization leftists!