See Bush? You aren’t above the law!

A few months ago Thomas Hawk wrote an article describing Jill Greenberg’s photography as the worst kind of child pornography Well he followed it up with this piece What Jill Greenberg does is manipulates children (under age 3) to get the shot she wants. You can see some of them here, but we warned they present children in states of anguish and despair.

If one looks at the photos and knows that these kids were intentionally manipulated it does give your stomach a bit of a jolt. Now, Thomas Hawk is very opinionated and uncensored, which is exactly what a blog should be, but I feel he was and continues to be slightly too harsh. I was all for his rant until I read the response from Jill’s husband.

Jill did not “abuse” the children, nor abuse them. they were given lollipops, and then those were removed from the kids. Jill didn’t speak to them–the parents were there monitoring the whole time. this is the EXACT technique used in ads and movies and TV. I’m a producer in two of those mediums and have been through this before, so i know whereof i speak.

The images are so powerful that you want someone to blame. Also, as is true in all images of this type, art is in the eye of the beholder. In this case, Jill is trying to make a political point. Does the fact that she is selling these prints at, sit down, $4,500 a pop dilute this message. I think so. To be fair here is her message:

The most dangerous fundamentalists aren’t just waging war in Iraq; they’re attacking evolution, blocking medical research and ignoring the environment. It’s as if they believe the apocalyptic End Time is near, therefore protecting the earth and future of our children is futile. As a parent I have to reckon with the knowledge that our children will suffer for the mistakes our government is making. Their pain is a precursor of what is to come.”

Art or abuse? It is up to you to decide.

Two follow ups to stories I have been following. The NSA wiretapping case started and here is an article about it at Wired entitled Watergate Echoes in NSA Courtroom. A good quote:

Without confirming the allegations, AT&T said if it is cooperating with the NSA, it can’t be held responsible, because — as in the Nixon case — it’s serving as a “passive instrument or passive agent of the government,” said Berenson.

“AT&T could refuse, could it not, to provide access to its facilities?” countered U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker.

Berenson replied that AT&T would refuse any clearly illegal request, and a courtroom overflowing with EFF supporters broke into murmured, sardonic laughter. In the back, late-coming observers unable to win a seat pressed their faces against the windows of the courtroom door.

And some commentary from the guy that helped in to invent the web

When I invented the Web, I didn’t have to ask anyone’s permission. Now, hundreds of millions of people are using it freely. I am worried that that is going end in the USA.

Because Google has enough bandwidth to do pretty much everything it was only a matter of time before they decided to go after the likes of Flickr. Although not as full featured, the new Picasa Web Albums makes it incredibly easy to share photos online. I signed up when they launched a few weeks ago and got my invitation today. So I thought I would put up my pictures from Grand Old Days.

First, net neutrality is really a misnomer. It’s really just special interest legislation, dressed up to sound less self-serving. Did you know Microsoft, Google and Yahoo are lobbying for net neutrality? If they’re successful, they’ll get a special, low-government-set price for the bandwidth they use, while everyone else — consumers, businesses and government — will have to pay a competitive price for bandwidth. [It] doesn’t sound very neutral to me.

Via slashdot

Even though most of the media has forgotten about it, the Electronic Frontier Foundation still is fighting the good fight and going after AT&T for the NSA wiretapping. There is a big court date coming up on Friday where the Government is invoking the state secrets privilege. This basically means there is a high chance the whole case will get dismissed. Below are some of the questions that the judge has asked the parties to come prepared to answer, via Ars Technica.

3. How can the court minimize the conflict between plaintiffs’ right to litigate this case and the government’s duty to protect state secrets? See Ellsberg v Mitchell, 709 F2d 51, 57 (DC Cir 1983) (“[T]he [state secret] privilege may not be used to shield any material not strictly necessary to prevent injury to national security; and, whenever possible, sensitive information must be disentangled from nonsensitive information to allow for the release of the latter.”).

4. If the court does not dismiss this case, which of plaintiffs’ claims is least likely to require discovery of classified evidence?

5. If a warrant is not required for the government via AT&T to intercept plaintiffs’ communications, how can the Fourth Amendment’s reasonableness requirement be adjudicated without implicating state secrets?

6. How can confirming or denying the existence of the alleged surveillance program at issue here, or AT&T’s alleged participation in that program, constitute disclosure of a state secret when the program has been so widely reported in the public sphere?

Full court document

More information from EFF on its suit against AT&T

I ‘ve been meaning to post a collection of things I have marked down in the past month or so, but I never seem to have gotten around to it. For 3 of the weeks I was working on my law review application and it paid off becuase I got in. In theory that makes my life easier come fall hiring season. Anyway, I took a bunch of pictures a few weeks back and forgot to upload them. So here one is (click to make it bigger).
The rest are here.