Leah's Law Library Weblog

Links for Law of Armed Conflict Materials

Wed, 19 Mar 2003 16:51:06 GMT

Back in the 80s I taught a lot of Law of Armed Conflict classes to Air Force personnel in Japan. Things have gotten increasingly more complicated since then, although the law itself hasn't changed much. For those of you interested in such things, JURIST's Paper Chase has a good post with some links:

The law of war. Military action against Iraq will set the stage for a variety of legal problems and issues relating not so much to the overall legality of the operation but to its implementation consistent with the so-called "law of war" or "law of armed conflict". Review a brief backgrounder on possible legal problem areas for an invasion of Iraq - including human shields, targetting, collateral damage, and weapons of mass destruction - from the Washington DC-based Center for Defense Information. For a comprehensive recent survey of the law of armed conflict, see The Law of War Workshop Deskbook [PDF], published in 2000 by the the International and Operational Law Department of the US Army's Judge Advocate General's School.

Fascinating Online Chat with Attorney who argued CIPA Case

Wed, 05 Mar 2003 23:32:58 GMT

I had to link to this fascinating transcript from the Washington Post of an online chat with Paul M. Smith, the attorney who argued today's Web filtering case in the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the American Library Association. Mr Smith answers questions from the public about CIPA, filtering, and today's arguments. I hope the Justices "get" the problems with filters, but I have to say that I'm worried they won't. [Via How Appealing]

Bad Day to Start Blogging Again?

Thu, 16 Jan 2003 02:07:49 GMT

Well, I’m back. Not that I really went anywhere, but I needed a break and the last two months have provided that. I guess today’s as good as any to return to the blog world: first day of classes here, and the Supreme Court ruled against Eric Eldred. I’m so bummed about the later that I haven’t been able to read any of the opinions yet. There’s tons of commentary out in the blog world, however. Donna Wentworth at Copyfight has a great collection of links to folks commenting about the decision.

Proposed FAR on Government Printing Officially Published

Thu, 14 Nov 2002 20:57:18 GMT

An update to my last post: The proposed rule to implement the May OMB initiative on government printing has now been published in the Federal Register. The official site is 67 F.R. 68914 (Nov. 13, 2002). The proposed rule contains a lengthy summary at the beginning discussing the separation of powers issue. I haven't had a chance to read the whole thing yet, but I understand that while there's language bemoaning "fugitive documents" and encouraging agencies to submit documents to the Superintendent of Documents, but with no express mechanism for how agencies should do this and, apparently, no penalty if they don't.

Comments must be sent in by Dec. 13, 2002. The address is General Services Administration, FAR Secretariat (MVA), 1800 F Street, NW., Room 4035, ATTN: Laurie Duarte, Washington, DC 20405. You can e-mail comments to farcase.2002-011@gsa.gov. If you do send comments, refer to FAR case 2002-011. Please read this rule and send in comments if you think it's important that citizens continue to have access to government documents through the Federal Depository Library Program.

OMB/GPO Contflict Continues

Tue, 12 Nov 2002 21:30:55 GMT

Lots of you may have already read the LA Times editorial entitled Chokehold on Knowledge (the LA Times requires registration, so this may or may not work). I first read about it through an excellent blog written by law professor Jeff Cooper, Cooped Up. His post quotes from the editorial and also mentions an incident this fall where OMB "changed" the record.

Bibliolatry mentioned the conflict today as well. She referred to this article about OMB's draft regulation. A PDF version of the draft regulation is here. The article mentions that it will be posted to the Federal Register soon, so folks should send in their comments within 30 days after publication. I'll try to post when it's official in the FR.

Lawyers for Libraries

Tue, 12 Nov 2002 20:59:38 GMT

I spotted this last week in a link from Library Juice: Apparently ALA has a program called Lawyers for Libraries that sponsors training for lawyers who want to to get involved in First Amendment issue and specifically in defending libraries. They have training sessions scheduled in February in Washington, D.C. and in Chicago in May. Five hundred dollars plus airfare and hotel seems a bit much for an evening and one day of training, but then I'm just a poor librarian. Unfortunately, there might be some public interest lawyers who can't afford that much either. Librarians can only attend if they are accompanied by an attorney because of space limitations. ALA plans to schedule more training next year.

I'm still here

Tue, 12 Nov 2002 20:46:10 GMT

I don't know if anyone's missed me or not (thanks, Morgan, for the e-mail today), but I've just not had much I wanted to comment on lately. However, a few things have accumulated over the past few weeks that I'm going to try to post today. Thanks for your patience.

Fascinating Article Concerning How the USA PATRIOT Act was Passed

Mon, 28 Oct 2002 22:34:23 GMT

Via How Appealing:

Patriot Act: Will it defeat terror, diminish freedom, or both?. Patriot Act: Will it defeat terror, diminish freedom, or both? See the cover story of tomorrow's Washington Post Magazine.

Great story written by Robert O'Harrow Jr., with assistance from the Center for Investigative Reporting. It covers how the Act was passed from the points of view of an Assistant AG, folks from the Center for Democracy and Technology, and Senator Leahy, as well as others. Recommended reading.

Non-terrorism Information Removed from Federal Websites

Mon, 28 Oct 2002 22:17:28 GMT

Via TVC Alert:

HEALTH DATA REMOVED FROM GOV'T WEB SITES. Representative Henry A. Waxman and several of his colleagues demand that the Department of Health and Human Services respond to allegations that it has removed health information from its Web sites for political reasons. The Memory Hole located some of the data at the Internet Archive and now makes it available via its Web site.

SEE: Bush Administration Removes Health Info from Federal Websites [The Memory Hole page with links to copies of the missing web sites.]

The removed information included information on the effectiveness of condoms and abortion and breast cancer studies. I'm glad someone is keeping watch over this type of removal of information. The missing information wasn't related to security, but possibly was related to politics. So who gets to say how long and what type of information should remain on government websites? It seems reasonable that some stuff be removed over time and that certainly policy related information can be removed with a change in policy. But what about "facts?" Shouldn't there at least be an appropriate notice when this happens and an archive of information kept? What's NARA's role in this? I have more questions than answers.

DoD Response to ABA's Task Force Preliminary Report on Treatment of Enemy Combatants

Thu, 24 Oct 2002 02:46:16 GMT

Enemy combatants: I haven't posted anything lately about enemy combatants, but I saw this today and thought it was worth a post.

U.S. Department of Defense responds to American Bar Association's report on the detention of enemy combatants. The United States Department of Defense has, through its general counsel, issued a letter responding to the American Bar Association's report that criticized the federal government's policies on the detention of enemy combatants. [via How Appealing]

The letter is dated exactly a month ago, Sept. 23, but I hadn't heard about it. DoD issued a news release with most of the text of the letter on Oct. 2. The ABA has added links to the letter and the news release to its page on the report, perhaps in an attempt to respond to General Counsel William J. Haynes II's request that the response be publicized in the same manner as the preliminary report. I don't think adding links to the press release page is quite what Mr Haynes had in mind, but it is better than nothing. I can't really address the substance of the response, other than to note that it relies on repeated assertions of the President's power in this area to do pretty much what he wants.