With friends (and MPs) like these…

There’s a big furore here over the potential bugging of a conversation between an MP and his friend and constituent. This MP happens to be my MP. This constituent lives within easy walking distance from my house. That is he lives there when he’s not in jail – on terror charges.

Sadiq Khan is at the center of a controversy about whether his jailhouse conversation with Babar Ahmad should have been taped without his knowledge. Doubtless, all of Mr Ahmad’s conversations are bugged (except probably privileged conversations with his lawyer) – given that he is, in fact, a terror suspect awaiting extradition to America. It’s all so very complicated why he’s to stand trial in the US and not in the UK. But what appears to not be in dispute is that the man helped raise money for the Taliban.

He raised money for them, but this wasn’t a crime in the UK at the time he was doing it because the Taliban wasn’t a proscribed organisation at the time. Not that we didn’t know they were nasty pre-9/11, just that they weren’t outlawed.

From the Washington Post:

In late 1996, while a 22-year-o.ld undergraduate at Imperial College in London, Ahmad launched a Web site dedicated to promoting Islamic fighters in Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan, according to U.S. federal prosecutors. Dubbed Azzam.com, in honor of Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian who served as bin Laden’s spiritual mentor, the Web site rapidly became a prominent and influential English-language platform for Islamic militants.

…snip…

“It was the very first real al Qaeda Web site,” said Evan Kohlmann, a New York-based terrorism researcher who has tracked Azzam.com since the late 1990s. “It taught an entire generation about jihad. Even in its nascency, it was professional. It wasn’t technically sophisticated, but it was professional looking, definitely more professional than any other jihadi Web sites out there.”

…snip…

According to a U.S. indictment filed in October, Ahmad used Azzam.com to
solicit donations for Chechen rebels and the Taliban, and arranged for the
training and transportation of Islamic fighters. Among the specific charges is
one alleging that Azzam.com posted messages in early 2001 containing specific
instructions for supporters to deliver cash payments of up to $20,000 to
Taliban officials in Pakistan

And I blogged about this two and a half years ago (post has links to US extradition request).

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Now, Sadiq Khan, MP feels aggrieved because there is an established convention that MPs’ conversations won’t be bugged. I guess I can understand that, though it was Mr Ahmad and not Mr Khan who was the explicit subject of surveillance.

But in news story after news story Babar Ahmad is listed as both a constituent and a friend. They did grow up in the same area, so childhood friends they may be – and I’m sure we all had playmates who turned out not as well as might be hoped. But Mr Khan should consider whether he really wants friends like Mr Ahmad. And Tooting constituents should consider whether we want an MP with friends like that.

Low-grade phobias and serial killers

I’m afraid of heights and that’s pretty normal, though I wish I weren’t. But I also have some weird low-grade phobias. By low-grade I mean I’m very afraid of it, irrationally so. But I also understand that the likelihood of encountering my trigger is pretty low – so it doesn’t exactly rule my every day life.

I did have a low-grade phobia of being sued. And I was sued. And it was pretty awful.

Currently, there’s a story in the UK press which has aroused my sense of fear relating to another low-grade phobia I have.

Here’s how the scenario plays out.

There’s a knock on the door. It’s the police. It’s probably a plainclothes officer. He has a warrant. But it’s not because of anything I did. It’s because some psychopathic nutcase who used to live in my house is suspected of hiding human remains on what’s now my property. And now the police want to dig up my garden. My beautiful garden, with its perennials and shrubs and layers of bulbs and small but perfectly formed magnolia.

You know you can’t refuse, because the police have a warrant or will get a warrant. And you also know that no matter how careful they are, all your horticultural effort will be gone in a couple of days.

So what brings this up? Police are currently digging up the garden of someone in Kent, because Peter Tobin used to live there. Human remains have been found, but not the ones they were looking for.

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Peter Tobin was convicted for the slaying of a young Polish woman, Angelika Kluk. Her body was found in a church and I remember the story because during the investigation it was revealed that she had had an affair with the priest. Although it had broken off, and he was entirely innocent of her slaying.

I don’t think any of the former owners or occupiers of our home were sex killers, but you never know. I know a lot of them were odd, because of their post that we’re still receiving. Psychics and scientology mainly.

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There may be some illegal remains in our garden though. Our cat is buried there, and I think, technically, we’re not supposed to dispose of animal remains that way. But we were careful, we buried her deep.

If they freed me from this prison

I love cable. I’m watching Johnny Cash singing from the Tennessee State Prison 30 years ago. He’s doing a train song medley. Everybody’s hair looks horribly dated except, oddly enough, for the styles of about 90% of the prisoners.

It wasn’t just Johnny playing. but also Linda Ronstadt and Roy Clark and a comedian called Foster Brooks. Anybody remember Foster Brooks? I don’t. Is that what passed for funny back in the 70s?

Do folks play prisons anymore? Do prisoners have cable now and watch Johnny playing to inmates of three decades ago? (I guess some of those guys are still in prison.)

Wasn’t there a song about a guy who wanted to see Johnny Cash and he got into all kinds of scrapes and so forth and ended up in prison where he got to see Cash. Heh.

A good year for dope?

Regular readers will know I do like to garden. I’m pleased to say my fingers (UK) and thumb (US) are pretty green – I have a nice depth and breadth of knowledge for an amateur gardener. My parents, though, will probably be pleased to note that I know almost nothing about growing marijuana.

I don’t know what kind of growing conditions marijuana needs. But just looking at it – and knowing where it grows, I’d guess it needs heat, more light than you’d find in an average basement, and a fair bit of moisture. But maybe not. Despite a bad growing season for most things in Tennessee this year, maybe Cannabis is more drought tolerant than I thought – cause it’s been a bumper year for dope in Cocke County.

Tennessee Highway Patrol helicopter pilot, working with the Governor’s Task Force for Marijuana Eradication, spotted marijuana plants in a Cocke County cornfield Monday valued at half a million dollars.

…

It is the largest harvest in Cocke County this year and perhaps the largest marijuana eradication in Tennessee this summer. The more than 45-hundred plants, ranging in height from eight to 15 feet tall, were collected and taken to the Cocke County Highway Department, where they were destroyed Monday evening.

William at Nashville is Talking wonders about the consequences of the Cocke County crackdown:

in a year of unprecedented drought where traditional crops have failed, how many rural farmers in Cocke Co., one of the poorest counties in TN, will not be able to feed their families?

…or indeed keep their families pacified.

Wild speculation

American readers may not be aware of the story, but you had to have been hiding under a rock for the past four months to not know a little girl named Madeleine McCann is missing.

She and her family were vacationing in Portugal when she disappeared one night, while her twin siblings slept on and while her parents were dining in a tapas restaurant within their resort complex.

In an effort to find Madeleine, her parents have mounted a well orchestrated media campaign. Posters, print and broadcast interviews, web sites, even advertisements in the cinema. They traveled all over Europe, David Beckham did an ad for them and they even met the Pope.

But time went on and no little girl. I suppose some might have given up hope, but the McCanns kept up the media pressure. But apparently folks in Portugal were beginning to get tired of them. The McCann case couldn’t have been good for the local tourist economy and the pressure on the police must have been getting pretty hot.

And now the McCanns themselves are suspects according to the Portugese police. The McCanns imply they are being fitted up, and I would tend to believe them.

I’ve never been a supporter of the McCanns. Obviously, I hoped their little girl would be found – alive and unharmed. At worst, I wished that they might have closure. But I think they behaved terribly (leaving three very small children alone in a hotel room). I don’t for a second believe that anyone could have foreseen that a child would be taken. But surely they could have reckoned that their children might wake up, alone in a strange place, scared or might just inflict some kind of injury on themselves. (They claim they were checking on them every 20 minutes, but this consisted of one or another adult listening at the door.) I understand that they wanted some time away from their kids – and that they’d rather not be trapped in their holiday apartment while the kids slept scanning the Portugese television for something to watch – but the resort did offer a baby sitting service. I’ve never understood why they got such an easy ride in the press for behaving so irresponsibly. Perhaps it’s because they’re doctors, professional middle class types, and very good looking.

All that being said, I really don’t think that they murdered their daughter. There’s little available information, but the evidence seems spurious – it kind of doesn’t make sense.

• Portugese police say they’ve found Madeleine’s blood in a rental car that her parents rented 25 days after her disappearance. That means they would have had to disappear her – and then get her out of hiding (a cell or a grave) and transport her between media interviews.
• It’s been suggested that Portugese police wanted the mother to confess to over-sedating her daughter (plausible), but that doesn’t fit with the supposed blood evidence in the holiday apartment or hire car.

Now here’s the wild speculation bit. I reckon the police and the town were getting absolutely fed up with them. They had vowed not to leave Portugal without their daughter. I think they were offered a deal. Leave – and we won’t frame you. Within days of the mother being named as a suspect, they’re back home in England.

Unstoppable vs immovable

“What would happen if Perry Mason defended one of Columbo’s suspects?”

I think I’ve been watching too much daytime tv.

Safer sex work?

Over at Nashville is Talking, the question has been posed: Why isn’t prostitution legal? prompted by this post which speculates that sex workers might be safer if it was. Would that solve all kinds of problems? e.g. lower levels of disease and crimes against the women who engage in prostitution?

Despite the fact that I’m generally in favor of the free market – including the selling of personal services, I’m very dubious indeed about the legalisation of prostitution. Is it for moral reasons? Yes, it is. But it’s not about sex. It’s about the way that we treat workers on the bottom rung of the economic ladder.

Those who favor the legalistation of prostitution and the heavy regulation of the sex workers and their places of work probably have the right idea in principle, but not in practice. Prostitutes are the lowest of the low – they always have been. Legalising the trade has never made that different. I mean how many women who’ve managed to get out of the sex biz now have their time as prostitutes proudly displayed on their resume*? Even in countries where prostitution is legal. (Despite the fact that engaging in this kind of work successfully demands a whole array of marketable skills – flexibility, customer service and a sharp judge of human nature). Sure, a few whores manage to attain some sort of social standing and they’re called courtesans or heterae or geisha and offer companionship as well as sexual services. But these are a rare breed indeed – how many of us could charge just for the pleasure of our company and maybe a little singing or tea pouring?

In countries where prostitution is legal and regulated (e.g. the Netherlands) the sex work force isn’t overwhelmingly happy hookers. No, it’s the foreign sex workers who may or may not be there willingly, the drug addicted and the grossly misfortunate. Regular blood tests don’t change this and the people who manage these workers (pimps, if you will) don’t care about the personal development of their employees. This is a dead end job which usually results in that dead end quite early. And these are workers in a highly regulated, partly socialised economy where there are well-established mechanisms for investigating work place safety. The sex trades in London and Amsterdam and other big cities in Europe are well stocked with sex slaves from Eastern Europe and South East Asia and Africa. Do you really think that people who would enslave young women and boys are into complying with red tape and regulation? These folks are criminal scum and they’ll find ways to get around regulation just as they find ways to get around the existing legislation against prostitution, pimping and slavery.

What about the US? Do you think America is geared up to regulate the sex trade? Under the Bush administration work place safety and regulation has been gutted. And that’s for respectable trades like mining or utility ditch digging or meat packing – not for the morally dubious business of sex for sale. Can you really see the religious right prioritising the physical and mental welfare of prostitutes when the Republican party has resisted supporting workers and maintaining an objective, adult attitude to sex?

No. My reasons for objecting to legalisation of prositution is that I don’t think it will make much, if any, difference to the safety of sex workers and may make it more difficult to pursue the criminals behind the worst practices in the trade.

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*update: – well, here’s one example – but I reckon that’s pretty unusual.

How wrong is that?

Via Nashville’s Tiny Cat Pants – I learn that all but four counties in my home state charges rape victims for the evidence collecting rape kit:

Also, just now, the governor is going to sign a bill that would have the state cover the cost of the rape exam. Yes, America, you heard that right. Until Thursday, June 21st, 2007, unless you were “lucky” enough to be raped in one of four counties that provide free rape kits here in Tennessee, you had to foot the bill–anywhere from $600-1,000–for the collection of evidence of a crime committed against you.

Sick.

for honor

Anglofille has been writing about the death of a young woman in Kurdish Iraq. It’s all pretty horrific. She was killed, savagely beaten to death, for being a gal who cut her own path. Her death and post-mortem kicking were filmed. How ’bout those cell phone cameras.

And while some of us find such a thing shocking – apparently the clip of her death and her bloody corpse being dragged off the streets have inspired more “honor killings”.

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These things don’t just happen in Iraq or Afghanistan or Jordan or Egypt. No, they happen here, too.

While researching this issue of honor killings in Britain, I found a BBC news article from last September. According to their poll, 1 in 10 British Asians believe that honor killings are acceptable. The government estimates that 13 women in the UK die each year as a result of honor killings, but support groups say this number is way too low.

Scandalous.

Hate crimes

When I visiting friends in Austin years ago, George Bush was the Governor. We drove down past the state house and they told me about how pissed they were that he was about to veto a hate crimes bill.

Plus ca change

My friends were pretty pissed. They were, perhaps not coincidentally, lesbians. When asked for my opinion, I had to say that I don’t support hate crimes legislation either.

Do I find it somehow more deplorable that a person is attacked or killed because they’re different (black, gay, female, male, of a different religion) rather than because they were involved in a drug deal gone wrong? Yes. I guess I do. It offends my sensibilities. It seems somehow more meaningless.

But I do think they should be punished more for it? Not necessarily. Although I think we as a society should have discretion to punish more harshly for truly disgusting and particularly heinous crimes like the murder of James Byrd, Jr – which did happen to be racially motivated. But I don’t think we should necessarily slap more time on if the assailant and the victim come from two different religions, races, ethnicities or sexual orientations.

Basically, I believe that there ought to be equal protection under the law. And when that equal protection doesn’t manage to actually protect someone, then I believe that their life is worth the same as the the next person’s and that and the nature of the crime itself – as proven by discernable facts – should determine the punishment. I don’t think that speculation as to prejudice in an assailant’s mind should figure.

But we do have to acknowledge that there is inequality in sentencing. For example, people who commit crimes against black people in the US are punished less harshly (generally) than people who commit crimes against whites. Does this mean we need hate crimes legislation? Nope. Because this discrimination, this undervaluation of black life, limb and property applies whether the perpetrator is black or white.

In particular, victim characteristics are important determinants of sentencing among vehicular homicides, in which victims are basically random and in which the optimal punishment model predicts that victim characteristics should be ignored. Among vehicular homicides, drivers who kill women get 59 percent longer sentences. Drivers who kill blacks get 60 percent shorter sentences. (from an Abstract in The Journal of Legal Studies)

Normal vehicular homicide is not a hate crime, but yet killing a black person (or a man) leads to shorter sentences. Let’s deal with this before we start trying to look inside people’s heads and hearts.

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On the other hand, I don’t see why if we are going to pass hate crime legislation we should exclude sexual orientation. Though I’d prefer we stopped with the me-too-ism of victimhood and just dealt fairly with crime and punishment. Let’s have some research and peer review of sentencing judiciary rather than an inadequate legal patch.