ARTS & FARCES internet

Section 505 of the USA PATRIOT ACT allows U.S. law enforcement agencies to issue National Security Letters—documents that demand sensitive information on “suspects” with no judicial oversight—on just about anyone. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has challenged this provision on First and Fourth Amendment grounds.

Of course we’re only now finding out about this because the ACLU filed the lawsuit under seal to avoid penalties associated with violating the National Security Letters gag provision. The ACLU lawsuit was filed on 6 April 2004 and it’s taken three weeks to negotiate the release of any information about the case. While the juicy bits are still under seal, a redacted version of the complaint is now available.

The ACLU has also obtained, through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation a list of National Security Letters issued between 26 October 2001 and 21 January 2003.

“It is remarkable that a gag provision in the Patriot Act kept the public in the dark about the mere fact that a constitutional challenge had been filed in court,” said Ann Beeson, ACLU associate legal director.

Of the myriad complications of my end-stage renal disease, my severely compromised immune system is the one that keeps me up at night. Couple that with dialysis treatments in a facility that is basically a Petri dish with doors, and news of a new super staph bug sets my teeth on edge.

The bacterium, methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), has been around for more than 30 years in hospitals and is only now starting to show up in the general population: fully one third of the population carries the bacteria in their nasal passages or on their skin. Resistant to most antibiotics—including the super-antibiotics like vancomycin—this particularly nasty staph germ can be fatal if it gets in the blood stream, heart, or lungs.

Simon Harper conducted an interview with Douglas Engelbart earlier this month and the transcript is now available.

“Simon: Is the state of technology, hypertext, and the web in 2004 as you envisioned earlier in your career, with regard to augmenting human intellect?

“Doug: Actually, NO! Not nearly the progress toward Augmenting our Collective IQ; and perhaps worse, not nearly the perception of size and importance of the potential gain that’s there to pursue—nor, I might add, not nearly the concern about how critical to civilization’s survival and enrichment such gains would be.”

Better yet, it appears that most of Engelbart’s papers are available on the Bootstrap Institute site.

Jeffrey Skilling, former CEO of Enron, has apparently gone ‘round the bend according to Donna De La Cruz’s Associated Press report picked up by the Guardian. New York City police picked up Skilling at 4:00AM at Park and 73rd after several people reported Skilling was “pulling on their clothes and accusing them of being FBI agents.”

An unnamed police source told De La Cruz that Skilling had been at two Manhattan watering holes, American Trash and The Voodoo Lounge, where he “allegedly ran up to patrons and pulled open their clothes. He was shouting at them ‘You’re an FBI agent and you’re following me.’”

Skilling has been charged with35 counts of conspiracy, securities fraud, and insider trading. According to the Guardian account, he posted his US$5 million bond with a cashier’s check.

Fodor’s (scroll down a bit) says the American Trash “name refers to the decor, not necessarily to the clientele.”

Bob Dylan, Minnesota’s favorite son, rarely gives interviews. Los Angeles Times staff writer Robert Hilburn got a good one that was published last Sunday but managed to evade me until today. Kicking off a series exploring the art of songwriting, who better to profile than the master of at least three generations? Hilburn got what seems to be unprecedented access to Dylan—probably because he approached Dylan about his work rather than his persona—and it shows in the carefully crafted piece.

“‘There are so many ways you can go at something in a song,’ he says. ‘One thing is to give life to inanimate objects. Johnny Cash is good at that. He’s got the line that goes, ‘A freighter said, ‘She’s been here, but she’s gone, boy, she’s gone.’ That’s great. ‘A freighter says’ ‘She’s been here.’ ‘That’s high art. If you do that once in a song, you usually turn it on its head right then and there.’”

“The process he describes is more workaday than capturing lightning in a bottle. In working on Like A Rolling Stone,’ he says, ‘I’m not thinking about what I want to say, I’m just thinking ‘Is this OK for the meter?’”

“But there’s an undeniable element of mystery too. ‘It’s like a ghost is writing a song like that. It gives you the song and it goes away, it goes away. You don’t know what it means. Except the ghost picked me to write the song.’”