On Monday, the Supremes ruled that not only did Yaser Hamdi — an American captured in Afghanistan — have most of the rights afforded accused criminals, but that the Gitmo detainees must also be afforded the opportunity to challenge their status. (The Jose Padilla case, in which an American citizen was arrested in the US on suspician of working on a dirty bomb plot, was handed back down on a technicality, but it seems clear from their Hamdi ruling that Padilla would enjoy at least the rights afforded Hamdi.)

No one was more surprised than I that the Court was willing to slap the Executive so hard; this is an astoundingly good thing for our Republic. As Justice O’Connor, writing for the majority, said:

We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the NationÕs citizens. […] Whatever power the United States Constitution envisions for the Executive in its exchanges with other nations or with enemy organizations in times of conflict, it most assuredly envisions a role for all three branches when individual liberties are at stake. […] Likewise, we have made clear that, unless Congress acts to suspend it, the Great Writ of habeas corpus allows the Judicial Branch to play a necessary role in maintaining this delicate balance of governance, serving as an important judicial check on the Executive’s discretion in the realm of detentions. […] Thus, while we do not question that our due process assessment must pay keen attention to the particular burdens faced by the Executive in the context of military action, it would turn our system of checks and balances on its head to suggest that a citizen could not make his way to court with a challenge to the factual basis for his detention by his government, simply because the Executive opposes making available such a challenge. [emph. added] Absent suspension of the writ by Congress, a citizen detained as an enemy combatant is entitled to this process. Because we conclude that due process demands some system for a citizen detainee to refute his classification, the proposed “some evidence” standard is inadequate. Any process in which the Executive’s factual assertions go wholly unchallenged or are simply presumed correct without any opportunity for the alleged combatant to demonstrate otherwise falls constitutionally short. Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, elipses denotes elided citation

The Court makes it very, very clear that what the Executive has done — detain people on their say-so and refuse to allow any sort of judicial review or access to counsel — is wholly inappropriate and definitely unconstitutional. Thank God someone’s paying attention; even a Bush-friendly court couldn’t give ’em a pass on this bullshit.

Ashcroft, apparently unfamiliar with or contemptuous of the portions of the Constitution inconvenient to him, has had a predictable reaction, insisting that the Court has “given more rights to terrorists.” We submit that the only rights being withdrawn or granted here are those enshrined in our most basic law, and the only granting happening here is a restoration of rights illegally abrogated by an overzealous Executive. The Court says you may not imprison people indefinitely with no counsel or right of judicial review; it has NOT said you may not investigate and arrest terrorists. (That the Court had to even rule on this is a bit shocking, and is emblematic of the sort of power grab apparently acceptble to the ruling party; Ashcroft’s reaction makes it clear that HE thinks he ought to be able to lock anybody up he wants with no review, and I think that’s more than a bit scary.) Recall that none of these people have had any opportunity to challenge their status, not even U.S. citizens Padilla and Hamdi.

Some will insist that our Constitution ought not apply to “terrorists,” though we wonder how we can tell the terrorists from the rest without some judicial review. Simply trusting the executive branch doesn’t seem like a terribly wise move; there’s a reason we have three branches of government, and if you wondered why before, perhaps this sequence of events will remind you.

The US Justice Department, apparently tired of fielding lawful Freedom of Information Act queries, has denied a request seeking access to their database on foreign lobbyists on the grounds that copying the information would crash the system housing the data, which is wrong on so many levels as to defy description. This response basically says “making backups will make it crash,” which implies they have no backups, which implies widespread negligence in DOJ’s IT halls.

Of course, they could just be liars who don’t want to share information with the public about what they do. But I’m sure our government would NEVER lie to us, right?

We’re going for a drink now.

Or, rather, the Army — which is preparing to call up retired and discharged troops for duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In a delightful feature, Engadget’s Phillip Torrone walks us through something we geeks have known for a long time: Windows defaults to allowing any inserted CD to run whatever it wants when inserted. This is an enormous security hole, and in fact will be disabled in the next version/patch of XP. This article will allow you to get ahead of the game and disable the behavior — called “autorun” — for yourself. Everyone using a Windows computer should do this.

That disabling autorun also disables most kinds of CD copy protection is not a coincidence; for those DRM tools to work, they have to install software on your computer that explicitly prevents you from, say, copying the CD to your hard drive to listen to at work. Such software is always installed on the sly, of course, because few of us would allow the installation if they were honest with us. Because such DRM programs are unwelcome payloads installing and executing without our permission, they fall into exactly the same category as all sorts of other spy programs and malware, and consequently are blocked by precisely the same security measure. Remember, it’s your computer, and your CD.

(“But wait!” you must be thinking. “Aren’t the DRM folks and record labels smarter than this? Surely, Mr Heathen, they’re not this stupid.” I’m afraid they are, gentle reader; in fact, the author of one DRM system — the one used on the aforementioned Velvet Revolver disc — were going to sue a Princeton student for $10 million when he wrote a paper noting that pressing the shift key at the right time (which temporarily disables autorun) bypassed their system.

Florida, which purged many eligable voters from its rolls in 2000’s overzealous felon-zapping process, is doing it again, and refusing to let anyone see or verify the list first.

Yeah, nothing to worry about there, I’m sure. Christ.

No, really. The INDUCE act is pretty broad in language, and I think we’ve learned at this point to NEVER believe bill authors who say “but we’ll only use this in special context XYZ, so you don’t have to worry! Of course, there’s no need to codify that in the bill! Trust us!”

There’s more coverage of Congress’ coddling of the RIAA/MPAA cabal at Wired. Not all these proposed laws are scary, but many are way out there. The PIRATE act will open the door for the Justice Department to file copyright infringement lawsuits, theoretically freeing the RIAA from the time and expense of suing all those 12-year-olds and grandmothers. Pay attention!

Update: there’s also an obsessively annotated version of the INDUCE act online, natch.

There is now an Internet Explorer based virus that is so dangerous and virulent that the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), a division (since 9/11) of the Department of Homeland Security, is formally suggesting that “Explorer users consider other browsers that are not affected by the attack, such as Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox, Netscape and Opera.”

You can easily download Mozilla, or its browser-only sibling, Firefox, from Mozilla.org. Do so. They’re free.

A: When what you can and can’t do is explicitly controlled by another power.

A coalition of tech heavyweights — including Intel, Sun, Verizon, SBC, BellSouth, and others — are supporting a proposal by Virgina Representative Rick Boucher to substantially defang the anti-circumvention provisions of the much-maligned, anti-Fair-Use Digital Millenium Copyright Act. The DMCA is the law that makes it illegal to bypass copy protection for any reason, even if the goal is something traditionally protected by the doctrine of Fair Use, such as copying a CD for use on your computer (or, in an earlier era, dubbing CDs to tape for use in the car). The anti-circumvention provisions are the sort of thing that give Jack Valenti wood, but they’re terrible for consumers — and for innovation.

CNET’s coverage is well worth reading.

Pentagon seeks domestic spying powers. Sigh.

The case of Dudley Hiibel, discussed here back in February, has been decided by the SCOTUS.

The justices ruled 5-4 (interestingly, precisely the same 5-4 that gave us GWB) that citizens must identify themselves to law enforcement. So much for that “right to remain silent” stuff, I reckon.

The 9/11 commission has confirmed precisely what most seasoned intelligence analysts have been saying for nearly three years: there is no credible evidence connecting Iraq and the 9/11 plot. (More NYT coverage here.)

Of course, Cheney still insists he was right. Can this administration simply not admit an error?

Maybe this is an example of what Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change are talking about, eh?

Judge rebukes government in ACLU no fly list litigation.