The Freedom Bulletin

Guess who managed to send in an update to the Harvard alumni directory? None other than convicted mail bomber, triple murderer, and 1962 Harvard grad Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski. The Unabomber’s brief profile appeared in the “Harvard and Radcliffe Classes of 1962 – Fiftieth Anniversary Report,” a book given out to alumni at their 50th reunion this week, and his name was listed under his state in the back of the book.

His profile reads as follows:

Theodore John Kaczynski

Home Address: No. 04475-046, US Penitentiary-Max, P.O. Box 8500, Florence, CO 8126-8500.

Occupation: Prisoner.

House/Dorm: Eliot.

Degrees: AB ’62; MA, Univ. of Michigan ’65; PhD, ibid. ’67.

Publications: Technological Slavery (Feral House, 2010).

Awards: Eight life sentences, issued by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, 1998

Although I personally find this to be slightly amusing (in a strange way), as did Alex Taussig, who first broke the news via Twitter, I understand that it is a serious matter to those killed and injured by Kaczynski’s mail bombs, as well as their friends and relatives.

But this is not a reason to forbid Kaczynski from being listed in the directory. Susan Mosser, the widow of Unabomber victim Thomas Mosser, said she was “disappointed in Harvard” for publishing Kaczynski’s information. And according to AP, Harvard issued a statement saying that they “regret publishing Kaczynski’s references to his convictions and apologize for any distress that it may have caused others.”

With all due respect, I would have been disappointed in Harvard (which, for purposes of full disclosure, happens to be my alma mater as well)  if they had received Kaczynski’s information and not printed it. First of all, he did not write anything offensive or inflammatory in his profile, but simply stated basic biographical facts about himself. According to the Boston Globe, a Harvard Alumni Association spokesman confirmed that the profile Kaczynski sent was within the guidelines for the directory. Second of all, although some people are offended by the mere existence of Kaczynski’s listing, the job of the Alumni Association is not to eliminate anything that people might find offensive, but to compile a comprehensive listing of the information sent in by alumni. No matter what he did and no matter how notorious he is, Theodore Kaczynski is a graduate of Harvard, and he should be listed as such.

It seems like there have been a lot of cases in the news lately where the government arrests and prosecutes someone not for actually carrying out a crime, but merely planning or plotting to carry out a crime.

The suspect in the airplane “underwear bomb” plot that was foiled by the CIA turned out to be a CIA informant himself, and it’s unclear whether charges will end up being filed against anyone involved in the plot.

But last week, on May Day, five self-described anarchists were arrested for participating in a plot to blow up a bridge in Ohio. The FBI had been watching and working with them for months, and an undercover agent provided them with defective bombs which they placed on the bridge and punched in the code to detonate. To their surprise, nothing happened, and the FBI assured the public that no one was ever in danger.

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The Internet is a great thing. It allows people to find information about almost anything without having to go to a library or bookstore, and allows people (like me!) to express their views who otherwise would not be able to. But that can actually be a bad thing, as many recent tweets about George Zimmerman illustrate.

Unsurprisingly, when Zimmerman was released on bail last night, hordes of angry, often not very intelligent people took to Twitter to proclaim things like, “Ima kill zimmerman myself,” and “I WOULD KILL DA SHYT OUTTA DAT ZIMMERMAN DUDE IF I SAW HIS ASSS,” and “Start Writing Your Will! Justices Has Not Been Served.” *

And those are among the milder ones.

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Photo by Paul Weiskel

There has been something of a brouhaha, in the Boston area at least, about the above picture, showing a confrontation between a police officer and an Occupy Boston member who was protesting against the Massachusetts Tea Party Coalition‘s tax day rally. For a cop to grab someone by the neck seems extreme at first. But when you think about what the protesters were doing, it actually doesn’t seem too unreasonable.

There is a difference between voicing your views and preventing anyone who disagrees with you from voicing theirs. I am all for protesting – holding up signs, chanting, circulating petitions, holding sit-ins, etc. But I am not in favor of protests that are so disruptive that they effectively take away the freedom of speech of the people they are protesting. I admit that I did not attend this year’s Tea Party rally. And I admit that this is a fine distinction. But judging by photos, videos, and news reports, I think the anti-tea-party protesters were on the wrong side of it. They certainly were last year, when they pushed their way between the audience and the stage and held up signs and banners to deliberately block our view of the speakers that we had gathered to watch. Contrast this with a protest that I was a part of, against President Obama’s visit to Northeastern University to support Martha Coakley’s senate campaign in 2010. We lined the streets, held up signs, chanted, and marched around, but we did not, for example, burst into the hall where Obama was speaking, drown out his words, or hold up signs blocking his face.

This is not just about keeping order, it is about protecting the freedom of speech of minorities against a majority who would drown them out. And in Boston, conservatives are certainly a minority. It is heartening that the Boston Police acted to protect the rights of Tea Party activists to hold a rally in a political climate where their views are unpopular among the majority of people.

Back in December, Tarek Mehanna was convicted in federal court of supporting Al Qaeda and conspiring to murder U.S. troops in Iraq. He had posted numerous writings and videos on the Internet that the government characterized as pro-Al Qaeda and pro-jihad. In 2004, he traveled to Yemen, allegedly looking to attend a terrorist training camp (which he never attended).

On Thursday, he was sentenced to 17 years in prison for these actions. He also gave a long, defiant speech in which he described his upbringing, the books and historical figures that influenced him, and his dedication to defending people who are being oppressed, which he says is happening to Muslims at the hands of the U.S. Here are some excerpts:

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If a military board gets its way, Sgt. Gary Stein will receive an “other-than-honorable” discharge from the Marine Corps just months before his enlistment is set to end. He will lose all of his military benefits, will be banned from re-enlisting or even entering a military base, and his reputation will be forever tainted. What did he do to deserve this? He criticized President Obama on Facebook. According to the New American:

Stein attracted the scrutiny of his superiors after he created an “Armed Forces Tea Party” group on Facebook in 2010. According to prosecutors, he used the group to post “contemptuous” comments and images of Obama — including a picture of the President superimposed on the “Jackass” movie poster…

Stein also used his Facebook account to blast Obama as a “coward” and an “economic and religious enemy” of America, according to the prosecutor. He allegedly sold “Nobama” bumper stickers from a personal website, too.

Military policy bans soldiers from publicly making partisan political comments or expressing contempt for the Commander-in-Chief. But Sgt. Stein’s lawyers argued that his comments were protected by the First Amendment because they were made in his personal capacity as opposed to him speaking on behalf of the military. He posted while off duty, and the Facebook page contained a disclaimer stating that the Armed Forces Tea Party is not affiliated with the military.

“Think about how dangerous this could be if the U.S. government can prosecute you for something you say on your private Facebook page,” said his lawyer, Capt. James Baehr. “How can we expect Marines to participate in citizenship if they cannot join political discussions?”

He makes a good point. I believe that people should be able to work at the job that they choose without having to sacrifice their First Amendment rights. Of course there can be some limits to what employers allow their employees to post via social media. It is justifiable for an employee to be fired for divulging confidential information or publicly criticizing their co-workers or bosses. If Sgt. Stein had used Facebook to criticize the soldiers he worked with, then it would make sense for him to be dishonorably discharged. Similarly, it would make sense for him to be fired if he was working as a personal advisor to Obama, or for his re-election campaign, and made the anti-Obama comments that he made. But with the exception of people who work in an explicitly political job, everyone should be able to express their political views without retribution from their employer. What a person does on their own personal time is not their employer’s business. This definitely includes the soldiers who help to defend the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment.

Photo via International Monetary Fund

This has been a busy week for Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and not in a good way.

On Monday, he was put under preliminary investigation (basically the same as being charged) for “aggravated pimping in an organized gang.” DSK never made money off of prostitutes, as the word pimp would suggest, but he did attend “libertine soirees” where he enjoyed their company. These soirees were paid for by two businessmen who were friends of DSK, allegedly out of company funds. The big dispute in this case is just how involved DSK was with planning and organizing these parties, and how much he knew about their financing. He says he didn’t even know that any of the women were prostitutes, but investigators theorize that he was involved enough to be considered part of the conspiracy.  The good news is that he was not (knock on wood) charged with receiving embezzled funds.

His lawyer, Richard Malka, criticized the decision, saying:

“No one could understand the application of the notion of pimping in his situation…On the basis of his behavior alone, which should concern only himself and those close to him, Monsieur Strauss-Kahn finds himself here in large part due to his renown, thrown on the pyre. Colossal police and judicial means were deployed to crack and dissect his private life to an infinite degree, with the only goal being to invent and then castigate what can be considered a crime of lust.”

Another lawyer for DSK, Henri Leclerc, added:

“Certainly Dominique Strauss-Kahn has attended a certain number of parties with women, libertine parties with female friends and women who were friends of his friends…They are trying to ban a sort of crime of lust. He’s being attacked over his libertine behaviour.”

And Club DSK, a (semi-official?) group of Strauss-Kahn supporters, made a great point in their press release:

“We are worried about the dangerous drift for public liberty of the unbelievable decision to want at any cost to inculpate a man on the sole grounds of having practiced free trade without asking for prior authorization from a judge. Since there is no shadow of a criminal infraction in the behavior of Dominique Strauss-Kahn in a private soiree between free and consenting adults, one can be astonished at the willingness of the judge to want to institute a police of morals and to advocate a return of the moral order which constitutes a dangerous slide in the protection of public liberties for each citizen! Liberties of morals and religion constitute one of the pillars of our secular and republican society.“

Yesterday, DSK was supposed to give a speech at the European Parliament in Belgium, but he was forced to cancel it. At first I thought he had caved in to lawmakers who demanded that he be barred from speaking. But it turns out that he actually couldn’t go, as under his bail conditions, he is not allowed to leave France. I suspect DSK knew significantly in advance that the decision about whether to charge him was going to be announced Monday, and he probably had an inkling of what the decision was going to be.

Today, a motion hearing took place in DSK’s civil case in New York. As you may remember, hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo accused him of sexual assault last May, but the criminal case was dismissed because she lied numerous times and there wasn’t enough evidence. She is now suing him for damages. His legal team argued today that the case should be thrown out because, as the director of the International Monetary Fund at the time, he has diplomatic immunity. Unfortunately for him, according to news reports, the judge sounded skeptical of this argument, but he did not make a ruling yet. DSK’s lawyer, William Taylor, said that he was “in good spirits.” I hope that’s true, as he still has a long legal road ahead of him, and I hope he can emerge from it with some sort of vindication.

While his two legal cases wind through the courts, the media is being as merciless as ever to Strauss-Kahn. Le Monde released a transcript of DSK’s interrogation in the prostitution case last month, which purportedly show his “disrespect” for women. The transcripts also show that he and his legal team have a consistent defense to the charges, but the media, naturally, doesn’t devote too many lines to that. He is filing a complaint against Le Monde for selectively quoting him.

Also on the topic of media, a special mention must go to Beatrice Legrain and Dominique Alderweireld, the reputed bosses of a prostitution ring that DSK is accused of patronizing. They recently gave one of the trashiest interviews I have ever seen or read (which I am not going to dignify by linking to it) in which they disparaged DSK and shared intimate details of his sex life. Shame on them for gratuitously insulting and invading the privacy of a man whose reputation is already in tatters.

My take on DSK’s latest legal developments:

First of all, the laws about prostitution in France are confusing and conflicted. Prostitution itself is legal, as is being a customer, but soliciting, directing prostitutes in an organized enterprise, and making money off of prostitutes are all illegal. It seems that by banning so many prostitution-related activities, the legal system is trying to get rid of prostitution, but without criminalizing it per se. Personally, I support legalizing all of these activities, as long as they are consensual, but in any case, the laws as they are now seem to be too unclear, to have too many gray areas, and to make it  too difficult to tell whether a given action is legal or not. It certainly seems to be a stretch to call DSK a “pimp” when he was nothing more than a client, and possibly an unknowing one at that.

Ultimately, it seems that DSK is being persecuted for his sexuality by the media, by protesters at Cambridge University and the European Parliament who have tried to use intimidation to prevent him from speaking, by former allies who turned their backs, and by the legal systems of both the United States and France. There is no evidence that DSK sexually coerced anyone into doing anything they did not want to do – the New York case was (correctly) thrown out, and a separate case in France was thrown out due to the statute of limitations (although as I explained in an earlier post, there was really no evidence in that case either). He hasn’t been charged with corruption or embezzlement. So all that he has done is engaged in various consensual sexual encounters (some possibly paid, some not) with various women. And because of that, the majority of people seem to consider him unfit for any type of political, economic, or public speaking career.

That is un-libertarian. As long as no acts of aggression are committed, a person’s private sexual life is not anyone’s business. It’s wrong to discriminate against gay people for their sexual orientation, so why is it considered any better to discriminate against a person who chooses a libertine lifestyle instead of being monogamous? DSK’s critics are also anti-feminist. Those who condemn the practice of “slut-shaming” are often the very same people who actively condemn DSK for being…well…a slut. (Or whatever the male equivalent of that is.) Feminism is about equal treatment of men and women, and this double standard is the opposite of feminism. If you want to help the cause of women’s rights, it would make a lot more sense to actually advocate against sexist policies than to bully men whose sexual behavior you happen to disapprove of.

It saddens me that, if his legal woes had ended with the New York criminal case, DSK’s story could have been the perfect victory for defendants’ rights, and the perfect example of a wrongful conviction in the court of public opinion. But alas, his trials and tribulations go on. Good luck, DSK; I have a feeling you’re going to need it.