Peter’s Blog

The NY Times story on the CIA tapes had this interesting note:

The CIA has said that the Justice Department and other elements of the executive branch reviewed and approved the use of a set of harsh techniques before they were used on any prisoners, and that the Justice Department issued a classified legal opinion in August 2002 that provided explicit authorization for their use.

Since when do Justice Departments issue secret rulings? I thought the whole point of the rule of law, from the Code of Hammurabi on down, is that the laws are public. But I guess that’s pre-9/11 thinking for you.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has a very interesting op/ed piece about African-American poverty called “Forty acres and a gap in wealth”.

Interesting review of Blacksite: Area 51 on Wired. It looks like Harvey Smith, of Deus Ex fame, has put together another politically compelling game.

Death Penalty Focus is a group I’ve been following for a while on their email list and I really admire their work. Mostly (completely?) based in California, they work to end the death penalty. They sponsor lectures, protests, letter writing campaigns and more. I highly encourage you to join the group and support their work to end the death penalty in California.

Last night I watched Larry Lessig’s corruption lecture and I just finished Tim Wu’s interesting piece on how laws stop being enforced. The latter directly ties into the first as my immediate response from Wu’s piece was to wonder why Congress doesn’t change laws that most people actually no longer support, something which Lessig answers.