The Trouble With Drones

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/08/opinion/the-trouble-with-drones.html?_r=0

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 9:03 AM
Subject: re: The Trouble With Drones
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the  Editor:

   The troubles with drones are  many; it may take years to learn how to use this technology wisely. But what is already established is who can use deadly force in a theater of war.  When the U.S. signed and ratified the Geneva Conventions, we agreed that anyone outside a nation's uniformed military using deadly force was an "unlawful combatant" and as such, potentially a war criminal.

     If our Executive branch is hellbent on operating outside established law, in no wise should our Judiciary extend a figleaf of respectability. A FISA-like court would only taint our Judiciary. It could not make legal what is not.

Barry Haskell Levine

How We’ve Wasted Our Timeout

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/opinion/sunday/friedman-weve-wasted-our-timeout.html?_r=0

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 8:01 PM
Subject: re: How We’ve Wasted Our Timeout
To: "letters@nytimes.com" <letters@nytimes.com>

To the Editor:

  To sustain his argument for a "geopolitical timeout", Thomas L. Friedman has to dismiss (at least) the Arab Spring. One wonders if the people marching, fighting and dying for their freedom from Tunisia to Aleppo would have registered with him if they looked more like him. If Mohamed Bouazizi had been whiter, would mr. Friedman find that the crises in Egypt and Syria were part of an historical process, and not surprises?

Barry Haskell Levine

Military Sees Broader Role for Special Operations Forces, in Peace and War

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/03/world/military-plans-broader-role-for-special-operations.html?_r=0

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 9:04 AM
Subject: re: Military Sees Broader Role for Special Operations Forces, in Peace and War
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

    Our history of using special forces outside of declared warzones goes back way before Iraq and Afghanistan. When president Kennedy was inaugurated in 1961, he found that "we" had plans for an invasion of Cuba well advanced and soldiers already in Vietnam. We didn't yet call them "special forces; in the language of the day they were "military advisers".  In each case, what Ike had started as a low-budget exploratory sideshow exploded into a bloody debacle with the change of administrations.  

   No doubt there are other examples that remain classified. But what we know of the history argues strongly that these peacetime deployments of Special Forces lead us not toward stability but into war.

Barry Haskell Levine

Taliban Spread Terror in Karachi as the New Gang in Town

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/world/asia/taliban-extending-reach-across-pakistan.html?ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 10:54 AM
Subject: re: Taliban Spread Terror in Karachi as the New Gang in Town
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

     When he was head of Pakistan's ISI, general Ashfaq Kayani cultivated ties to elements of the Taliban both for gathering intelligence and as proxies against India.  When he became head of Pakistan's armed forces, he maintained these ties both for the old reasons and additionally to keep his own head of ISI in check. Now, general Kayani is running Pakistan while mr. Zardari has been relegated to a purely ceremonial role of head of state, and his pet jackals are spreading domestic mayhem.  Does he still hold the leash? Do they need him to feed them anymore?

  Pakistanis have tolerated military meddling in their democracy again and again because the military promised order. Now that the military's pets are amok spreading chaos, the Pakistani people will have to judge again where their allegiances lie.

Barry Haskell Levine

For Obama, Tricky Balancing Act in Enforcing Defense of Marriage Act

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/us/politics/for-obama-tricky-balancing-act-in-enforcing-defense-of-marriage-act.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

To the Editor:

    The United States ratified the Convention against Torture in October 1994, and the Convention entered into force for the United States on 20 November 1994. On that day, it became the supreme law of the land. Yet president Obama's department of Justice--while acknowledging that men were waterboarded while in U.S. custody, and that waterboarding is torture--has prosecuted no one and extradited no one.  This exercise in Executive discretion is the more remarkable because now that same department of justice whines that it finds a constitutional duty to comply with laws even if it thinks them unconstitutional.

   If mr. Holder doesn't have the spine to hold our CIA accountable to law on the one hand or to not enforce a law he holds to be unconstitutional on the other, he should get out of the way and let someone do his job.

Barry Haskell Levine

Justices Cast Doubt on Benefits Ban in U.S. Marriage Law

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/28/us/supreme-court-defense-of-marriage-act.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 7:55 AM
Subject: re: Justices Cast Doubt on Benefits Ban in U.S. Marriage Law
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

     It is sensible that our president should "enforce laws that are on the books" as president Obama's spokesperson has said. Alas, it is a deception. It is long established e.g. that men were waterboarded while U.S. custody, that waterboarding is torture and that torture is a crime. Yet this administration has made no move to prosecute or extradite torturers.

       The present danger is not only that this administration will create "two kinds of marriage" as justice Ginsburg warns. It is also that this administration has created two kinds of citizen: those who are answerable to the law, and then the C.I.A..

Barry Haskell Levine

Current Laws May Offer Little Shield Against Drones, Senators Are Told

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/21/us/politics/senate-panel-weighs-privacy-concerns-over-use-of-drones.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 10:08 AM
Subject: re: Current Laws May Offer Little Shield Against Drones, Senators Are Told
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    The exact definition of "unreasonable search" will occupy our Supreme Court for the foreseeable future. As technology advances, so must we get more sophisticated in setting borders. To the authors of our Fourth Amendment, what was visible to a passerby in the street was a public matter, but what happened behind a wall or drawn curtains enjoyed the presumption of privacy. One who climbed my garden wall to peer in was invading my privacy. But what of the drone that was passing by on an unrelated investigation? Even if that investigation was under court warrant, does what the drone sees in my backyard in passing enjoy the presumption of privacy? Or could the drone's video feed constitute probable cause for a new warrant to search my premises? Current jurisprudence is silent.

    The future is with us, day by day. We cannot hold it back. But we must enact laws that preserve our constitutional rights in a changing technological era.

Barry Haskell Levine