Tools for web activism

Adina left SXSW thinking about web activist tools, the ones she uses, and ones that are still naught but twinkles in their developers' eyes.

UPDATE: Jon Lebkowsky has linked to Nancy White's blog posts on SXSW's activist technology segments. I mentioned Kathy moderated this segment.

NUTHER UPDATE: Adina has more good stuff on web activism.

Happy Sunshine Week from the Texas Attorney General

Wanting to compare the number of prison deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan (108, total, out of ~65,000 prisoners) to Texas (death total unknown, ~155,000 prisoners), I contacted the Texas Attorney General, which must compile annual reports regarding deaths in custody submitted to the federal government. I got the contact information for the "state deaths in custody reporting coordinator," Renee Gray, off of this federal form from DoJ (pdf), and reached her office voice mail. I was called back, though, by someone from the public information office, who informed me that they couldn't give me that information unless I filed an open records request! But I only wanted the topline number that they report to the feds, I protested! No matter. "You're asking for public information," she said, and you can't have even that topline data without a written request.

Wow! Those are some scared bureaucrats when they're afraid to release even that level of information without creating a paper trail. Ten years ago you'd have gotten that information with a phone call, easy -- now everybody's clammed up. I filed the request by email for five years of data -- more damn work for both of us than if they'd just answered the fool question!

So Happy Sunshine Week, everybody, from the state agency in charge of enforcing the Texas Public Information Act.

By the way, I found a dated answer to my question via Google, though there's not enough specificity on dates for the military numbers to allow apples-to-apples comparisons to overseas prisons. In 2002, all of Texas law enforcement experienced 316 custodial deaths, but only 98 were in the prisons. Another 118 died in municipal or county jails, and 100 more died in peace officer custody outside of the jailhouse.

UPDATE: After a snarky comment in my OR request to the effect that I was asking for more information because they made me file a written request, wasting both our time, I got a call back from Karen Rabon, public information coordinator for the AG's PR division. I doubt she'd seen the blog post, and she certainly didn't say so. She was polite, but at first insisted that her office had no way of knowing whether the federally designated "state deaths in custody reporting coordinator" would have aggregate information in her possession regarding how many people die in Texas prisons. We got past that hump, but in the process I suppose I didn't hold back my opinion that, as the state agency charged with enforcing the Open Records Act, it's a shame the folks who work there feel like the most mundane request for information needs a paper trail to cover their behind. When I likened it to requesting information from State Health Services, Ms. Rabon got her dander up: "I don't appreciate that," she said, "that's why I'm calling you now, to resolve it." (Hmmmm, wonder what's her beef with the health department?)

Anyhow, bottom line, after going round a bit she offered to get Ms. Gray on the phone to give me the information I'd first requested, but since I'd already found the 2002 data, I decided to just let them process my longer request. Naturally, Grits readers will be first to know the results.

ACLU on women in prison

I happened to have enjoyed (and suffered) the happy (and occasionally, completely miserable) experience of raising a child whose mother was incarcerated. The depth of the impact on my goddaughter, who was twelve when she came to us, was profound, long lasting, and something I couldn't have understood without having lived through the experience. So I was glad to see this AP article about a report from ACLU national on a seldom-discussed topic of prisons' impact on women and children. Here's some choice parts:

"Drug convictions have caused the number of women behind bars to explode, leaving in the rubble displaced children and overburdened families," the document says.

The number of imprisoned women is increasing at a much faster rate than the number of men, mostly because of tougher drug laws. There were 101,000 women in state and federal prisons in 2003, an eight-fold increase since 1980; roughly one-third were drug offenders, compared to about one-fifth of male inmates.

"Many of the drug conspiracy and accomplice laws were created to go after the kingpins," said the ACLU women's rights project director, Lenora Lapidus, a lead author of the report. "But women who may simply be a girlfriend or wife are getting caught in the web as well, and sent to prison for very long times when all they may have done is answer the telephone."

Lapidus acknowledged that legislation addressing the situation would probably need to be gender-neutral. But she and her fellow authors — from New York University Law School's Brennan Center for Justice and the advocacy group Break the Chains — make a detailed case that existing drug laws "have had specific, devastating and disparate effects on women."

Among their contentions:

—Many women are ensnared in drug investigations despite peripheral involvement, sometimes solely because they failed to turn in their partners to police. Sentencing laws fail to consider factors such as physical abuse or economic dependence that may draw women into drug abuse or deter them from notifying authorities of a partner's drug activity.

—Treatment programs, to the extent they exist, often are tailored for men and prove relatively ineffective for women.

—Black and Hispanic women are imprisoned for drug offenses at higher rates than white women even though their rates of illegal drug use are comparable. Factors include prosecutors' decisions, policing tactics and selective testing of pregnant minority women for drug use.

—Most imprisoned women, and relatively few imprisoned men, leave behind children for whom they were the sole primary caretaker. The separation can be shattering for mothers, who may lose parental rights, and for children, thousands of whom are placed in foster care at state expense.

The report makes an economic case for change, contending that the combined annual cost of imprisoning a mother and placing a child in foster care is seven times the cost of an intensive one-year drug treatment program.

See ACLU's press release issued today and go here to get a copy of the report.

More high-stakes forensics where accuracy is optional

While the Governor plans to study what's wrong with the justice system, the already-obvious flaws are screaming out at Texans from the daily headlines. The Houston Chronicle this week reports that "death sentences of at least three Texas inmates could have been based on faulty work by HPD's ballistics division."

The potentially wrongfully convicted death row inmates are Martin Darughon (granted a new trial in September), Willie T. Washington and Nanon Williams. All three cases involved the same HPD ballistics expert. In the latter two cases, he not only misidentified the bullet markings but got the caliber of the weapon wrong. More examples of how Texas justice views accuracy as optional when it comes to forensic science.

Anyone paying cursory attention to this topic knows what's really needed: the state must allow more complete discovery for criminal defendants, and pay for timely, independent scientific testing of evidence by defendants. Said Jeff Keyes, Draughon's appellate attorney:

"When we came into the case in 1993, we tried on numerous occasions to get the bullet and the gun to have them examined, and we were denied that by the state courts," said Keyes, who is based in Minnesota. "You take a look at the evidence many years later, and it just gives you a lump in the throat to think that this is the way the system operates."

No kidding. Hmmmmm. We'll have to study that. For more suggestions on fixing Texas forensic science crisis, see my testimony on behalf of ACLU of Texas to the Senate Criminal Justice Committee.

Execution of possible innocent stayed

The scheduled execution of Pablo Melendez, Jr. was stayed last night, but I can't find any information on why or by whom. He was convicted based on the testimony of a jailhouse snitch. Many people, including the mother of the victim, believe Melendez is innocent.

In other death penalty news, Sen. Eddie Lucio's bill creating an offense of Life Without Parole (LWOP) passed out of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee this week. It needs 21 votes to reach the Senate floor, but Lucio thinks he has them. The terms of debate on LWOP shifted after the U.S. Supreme Court abolished the death penalth for juveniles and the mentally retarded. Prosecutors want the no-parole option for use with those offenders, which is why the bill has legs, now.

Melendez was 18 at the time of the murder for which he was convicted, so the Supreme Courts recent ruling on juveniles did not affect him.

SXSW artists free for download

Speaking of podcasting, go here to download 750 songs from artists at Austin's South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival onto your computer or IPOD (2.6 Gigs total). Cool.

UPDATE: Apple has a pay-per variation on the theme.

My baby rocks, y'all

Okay, folks, my sweetie's hit the big time. I've written before about Kathy's cool web organizing project mixing animation, podcasting and e-activism to promote prescription drug reform for Consumers Union. Here's a fun frame:

Titled, The Drugs I Need, the project features terrific Austin artists: the Austin Lounge Lizards and the Animation Farm. On Friday morning the Today Show ran the entire song and animation. On Sunday, the New York Times ran their second story in a week about the project. Then on Monday she moderated a panel at SXSW on e-activism with a bunch of national hotshots. Now this comes from the 3-15 London Financial Times (via email, no link) with a great update on the campaign, and an analysis that it may have catapulted prescription-drug-reform politics into a whole new level. I especially like the story's lead:

In any fall from grace in American life, the descent towards ignominy is marked first by criticism, then ridicule, writes Christopher Bowe. Just ask Bill Clinton. Or the French.

Now the pharmaceuticals industry appears to have entered that ring of hell. An internet cartoon called The Drugs I Need, which mocks the companies' feel-good television advertising and blasts their high prices, has caught the public imagination. Produced for Consumers Union, a watchdog, the campaign has triggered 60,000 letters to Congress in little over a week. In the process, It has been picked up by internet political cartoonists Jibjab.com, where it is the first external animation to appear on its site.

The advert features a paisley-pattern pill character strutting through a sunflower-filled landscape, singing: "They've spent billions to convince me, so now I realise Progenitorivox beats diet and exercise... But I want Progenitorivox, because I saw it on TV. Those families look so functional,
that paisley pill's for me."

That's pretty good for a bunch of Texas yokels, huh?

School's dumb parental re-education policy hurts kids

Speaking of Big Government Conservatism, this seems awfully paternalistic: A school district in South Lake, TX, is requiring PARENTS to undergo drug education classes before their kids can participate in extracurricular activities. Apparently the district thinks parents are basically clueless. KLTV News reported that the policy was motivated by:

A survey of parents last fall [which] found that 80 percent believed their children didn't drink beer, wine or liquor, while 95 percent thought their children didn't use marijuana. A survey of students, however, showed that 68 percent of juniors and 77 percent of seniors drank alcohol, while a third of juniors had tried marijuana.

So since when are privately held delusions any of the government's business? I remember for a while 70 percent of the American public thought Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11, but I don't recall the Bush Administration proposing any mass re-education program to address it. The irony is, where parents might resent such a course or be too inattentive to their children's welfare to attend one, extracurricular activities could offer their children role models and avenues for staying off drugs. If they're barred from the band, or sports, or the debate club, after all, teenagers are just that much more likely to spend their afternoons hanging out smoking pot.

No opposition to marijuana restructuring in committee!

So far, so good.

The law enforcement and prosecutor lobbyists were all in the back row watching, but nobody signed up to oppose HB 254 by Houston state Rep. Harold Dutton, which would restructure sentences for low-level marijuana possession, in Tuesday's House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee hearing. ACLU, NORML, and a handful of well-coifed members of the public spoke in support, telling the committee the legislation would free up much-needed jail space and provide taxpayer relief. A judges' representative testified "on" the bill, meaning they didn't take a position for or against. Rep. Dutton cited FBI statistics indicating each marijuana arrest currently costs local government around $10,000, which would work out to around half a billion dollars or so annually, statewide.

There were two significant changes in the committee substitute (new language given to the committee under the same bill number) from the filed bill: People ticketed would have their drivers license suspended for six months, as per federal law, and be required to attend a drug education class. Dutton said the class would reinforce the seriousness of the offense, but that making it a Class C misdemeanor would keep the offense off most job applications and cause fewer young people to enter the probation system.

A resource witness from the Texas Department of Transportation explained the license suspension provision. Citing a federal statute I was unaware of, she told the committee that when a person is convicted of a drug offense, Texas must suspend the person's driver's license for six months in order to meet the federal highway funds requirements. So as originally drafted, the bill would have jeopardized about 10 percent of federal highway funds coming to Texas. Dutton's substitute, she said, complied with this federal law.

Anyone like Rep. Elvira Reyna, R-Mesquite, who feared supporting the bill might look soft on crime to her constituents, should be much-comforted by the result: Once she explains that small-time pot smokers will receive a stiff fine and lose their driver's license, most folks will think that's plenty of punishment, particularly since her home county doesn't have space in the jail to incarcerate them right now, anyway. Hell, make me Philosopher King and I'd say that sounds like piling on. But bound by the constraints of federal law and slowly shifting attitudes among Texans about incarceration, Dutton's bill makes a lot of sense.

As is common practice, the bill was left pending in committee and may be voted on any time.

Prison jobs outsourced to Mexico?

For years Texas has viewed its prison system as a jobs program, with rural areas actively competing for new prison units to be built in their region to counter job losses to the cities.

Now that the drive for more prison pork - and the draconian laws designed to fill them up -- have spurred an overincarceration crisis, state Sen. Craig Estes, R-Wichita Falls, wants to outsource those jobs to Mexico, the Statesman's Mike Ward reports, with his SB 1119. Apparently hoping to free up space to house meth addicts, Estes would have Texas build three to five new facilities in Mexico and pay a private prison firm to run them. Like so many bad ideas, this one isn't original:

more than a decade ago ... another state senator named John Leedom proposed building prisons in foreign countries to house Texas prisoners as a way to save money for Texans. Cheaper to build, cheaper to operate, Leedom argued.

State and federal officials had another word for it at the time: Illegal.

That idea was quickly drop-kicked out of the Capitol. Legislative leaders today predicted Estes’ new great idea may face a similar fate.

State and Mexican laws, the U.S. Constitution, and the fact that Mexico wants nothing to do with the idea, will likely combine to doom the plan, Ward predicts.

Do conservatives want less government? Not all

Big Government Conservatism sometimes crops up in the oddest places.

When he was Mayor of Tyler, my hometown, Sen. Kevin Eltife, R-Tyler, developed a reputation as a small-government tax-cutter. But he told the Paris News last month he preferred spending billions more to build new prisons instead of probation reforms backed by the Governor and legislative leadership.

“I would really want to see any details of any change in probation before I would commit,” Eltife said. “I am more concerned in making sure we keep criminals off the street.”

Eltife leaned more toward imprisonment.

“If it looks like we need additional prison space, we need to build the jails,” Eltife said.

Maybe Bas could take him on a tour of a Texas prison so Eltife can see the failed strategies we're financing. It's hard to believe anyone fancying themselves a small-government conservative could really want more of the same.

An East Texas judge quoted in the same article was much more positive about the proposed changes:

Sixth District Judge Jim Lovett said he welcomes stronger probation programs.

“I have predicted for several years that the legislature would appropriate more money and place more responsibilities on local probation offices,” he said. “It is the only sensible solution when compared to the outrageous cost of more prison beds.”

Estimates indicate that it costs more than $40 a day to house a prisoner and about $2 a day for probation programs.

The ultimate goal of probation is to reduce criminal recidivism, Lovett said of repeat offenders.

“Locally we have been preparing several years for this time and are confident that the studies that are now in the planning stages will prove the programs adopted by the 6th District Community Supervisions and Corrections Department are reducing recidivism at a higher rate than elsewhere,” Lovett said.

Lovett spoke of several experimental programs introduced during his eight years in office, including horticultural therapy, a stepped up community service program, a sex offender therapy program, a drug and alcohol program and a recently added Paris Junior College educational program.

“These programs all are at no cost to the local taxpayer,” Lovett emphasized, adding that work probationers do in the community saves hundreds of thousands of dollars yearly.

That view is more typical of folks who work with the probation system closely -- it can work to reduce crime if it's properly structured and funded.

Missouri law shows Texas' HB 254 can work

As the Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Commttee today considers postponed legislation to restructure sentences for low-level marijuana possession, news comes via Libby that a similar initiative in Columbia, MO is doing a great job of enhancing enforcement while freeing up space in the county jail.

Columbia police have ticketed more people per month for misdemeanor possession of marijuana since voters approved Proposition 2 in November, but most are not being prosecuted. First-time offenders are given a second chance as part of the municipal court’s marijuana deferral program. ...

More than 200 defendants have been put on the deferral list and been kept out of the courtroom since November.

Though law enforcement interests offered doomsday predictions, the change in Columbia's law has actually led to a doubling of enforcement efforts on pot -- twice as many in Columbia received tickets as had previously been arrested.

Today many Texas jails, espcially in the bigger counties, face an overcrowding problem similar to what's happening at the state level. The Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee this afternoon will consider HB 254 by Dutton. That bill is stronger than Columbia's law, since it would would extract stiff fines from small-time pot smokers on the first offense. But it still has the benefit of saving taxpayer money instead of spending ever-greater sums on failed incarceration strategies.

See the fact sheet reformers are using to promote HB 254, plus prior Grits coverage.

Why surveillance cameras don't reduce crime

Dennis Bailey at the Open Society Paradox calls me out on yesterday's Grits post about surveillance cameras, and offers up examples of surveillance "sucess stories." To me, the wisdom of proliferating security cameras should be evaluated based on the empirical results of a three-way tradeoff between security, liberty, and measurable, real-world effectiveness. So I'm happy to see his set of success stories. Taken together, the two posts supply readers with a pretty good range of cases documenting both risks and benefits, pros and cons of camera surveillance.

Some of his examples are private surveillance, not government, which is a different matter, though when enacted on a large scale, it too deserves scrutiny. I don't know anybody, though, who thinks there shouldn't be a camera behind the counter at the convenience store. Still, even in his other examples, serious crimes were committed in the cameras' presence, though perhaps it was easier to prosecute crooks (unless, I suppose, they operated at night or wore a hat).

Earlier I'd cited longitudinal research showing widespread use surveillance cameras doesn't reduce crime. They've been used long enough in Britain now to allow extensive analysis of the resulting crime data.

So Dennis' post got me wondering why, despite its internal logical consistency, the idea of camera surveillance reducing crime never played out that way in the real world in Britain where it's much more widespread (except in a few specific places like parking facilities).

A hypothesis:

1. Human beings are creative and criminals actively try to get around or disable surveillance.

2. Police have limited resources.

3. If cameras are being monitored, police resources are being directed wherever the cameras are being focused. I'm not just talking about time spent by the video-monitor watchers, but where patrol units are sent to respond. By definition, that excludes every other portion of the world where they aren't looking, which is inevitably SOMEWHERE (or if cameras are everywhere, then you get lapses like in the Atlanta case), so because of (1) above, criminals are inevitably able to adjust to the new environment.

For example, take a look at this typical quote from one of Dennis' examples from a Washington state police chief: "I can have one person watch 11 monitors, whereas I would have to have 11 officers patrolling to see the same things." But that's not true, because what that officer is doing is DIRECTING the other officers, who must respond if the first one sees anything. More to the point, over time officers will be more likely to be directed there, so cameras represent an unplanned overallocation of the state's limited policing resources.

If that's true, then the reason camera surveillance doesn't reduce crime might be that the theory of cameras as a crime preventive fundamentally misunderstands both crime, and the way cameras usurp human police management decisions by overallocating scarce officer resources. If I'm right, in the end, at best, cameras target only the most stupid criminals, for a while.

Perry's blue-ribbon panel shouldn't stop reforms now

The Statesman's Mike Ward brings the news that Governor Perry will appoint a nine-member panel this summer to review criminal procedures in Texas "from the police investigation to the last court appeal."

The new Criminal Justice Advisory Council will probably have nine members, including judges, prosecutors, lawmakers, victims' advocates, defense attorneys and legal scholars, to be appointed this summer. Perry said he anticipates that all meetings of the council will be open to the public.

Perry said he created the council in response to a series of recent court rulings raising questions about the fairness of Texas justice. The questions concerned death penalty decisions involving juveniles, people with mental retardation and foreigners; the adequacy of the appeals process; and continuing issues related to DNA testing and evidence testing at a Houston crime lab.

This is significant, I suppose, because it represents a very public recognition that the Texas criminal justice system faces major problems. But I'm no fan of the Blue Ribbon Commission approach. Don't get me wrong, the stated aim of the proposed commission merits praise:

[Perry] said the council will "study and make recommendations regarding changes in legal procedures that might be needed to keep pace with advances in forensic science, major developing legal issues that could affect our criminal justice system and changes in law that may be necessary to better protect the rights of both victims and the accused." ...

Such a council has been advocated by an array of lawmakers who question the fairness of various elements of the current prosecution and appeals system, and was recently recommended by Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson and members of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

That's all well and good, but there's no denying Perry is passing the buck. There's no great secret about what's wrong with the Texas justice system: What's missing is the political will to fix it. Given the negative reputation earned under his watch, a cynic might wonder whether the commission is designed to take potential negative campaign topics off the table for the 2006 elections. "We're taking that very seriously and I'm confident the commission will get to the bottom of it," it would be easy to say in response to any criticism. Problem is, the 2006 election is the last time voters will get a chance to hold this Governor accountable. By the time the next election rolls around Perry will have been governor for six years. It's time for him to do something about these problems; merely acknowledging them isn't enough.

The worst outcome would be if the proposed commission becomes an excuse to stop reforms proposed during the current legislative session. For example, Houston Sen. Rodney Ellis filed SB 659 which would require prosecutors to disclose key information about their snitches before trial, including:

• Whether they received pay or immunity in exchange for testimony.

• Whether witnesses ever recanted or changed their testimony.

• A list of other cases where the snitch provided information.

• The criminal history of the witness.

SB 659 would require all that information to be disclosed about snitch's testimony, then tell the judge to issue a ruling based on said information to determine whether the witness is reliable.

That's exactly the kind of missing checks and balances that could have prevented some of the highest-profile false convictions, such as the Dallas sheetrock scandal. We don't need any commission recommendations to tell us Ellis' bill is needed, or that the crime labs need to be held accountable, or drug task forces should be abolished, or that Texas police are using their discretion to search minorities more often at traffic stops. We know all that already.

The question is whether the Governor and the Legislature intend to do anything about it.

Drunk Austin cops

are common as dirt, says the Statesman. "It's one of those macho things you do as a police officer."

What a tease!

Our good friends at the Texas Observer (where I worked as an associate editor at my first job out of college, btw) have set up a new space in the blogosphere devoted to the Texas Legislature: The Texas Legislature Observed.

But the damn thing won't launch until April 15th, they announce. You guys know the 79th Legislature ends six weeks later, right?

I guess they'll be observing in retrospect!

Slew of sentencing reform bills in play at the Texas Lege

Ann at Solutions for Texas was hard at work this weekend sorting through the barrage of legislation filed last week. She's compiled a comprehensive list of bills to support related to strengthening Texas' probation system, modernizing criminal punishment ranges, how to pay for reforms, plus some bad bills that call for more jail and prison time.

Safer with camera surveillance, or just more exposed?

Security mavens tout camera surveillance as a preventive safety measure, but they didn't protect anyone in the recent courthouse killings in Atlanta. It turns out that surveillance cameras supposedly monitored by two security guards captured the suspect overpowering a sheriff's deputy and taking her gun, but "no one in the control room noticed the assault and sent help."

That's lamentable, if understandable. If your job was to stare at several dozen video screens all day, every day, when by definition nothing of import typically happens from moment to moment, you'd have a hard time staying focused, too. That doesn't mean the security personnel were especially sub-par; they're probably pretty typical. In Oakland recently a jail inmate hung himself on video, but jailers watching the monitors didn't notice until it was too late. More evidence that the upsides of camera surveillance are overhyped. These two incidents highlight why surveillance cameras rarely if ever prevent crime, or allow law enforcement to react to crime in a timely manner -- they're typically not rigorously monitored and only allow reaction after the fact.

But they can be abused. The downsides to proliferating camera surveillance are just starting to become apparent. The New York Times reported recently about a case in Tennessee that should give every parent pause:

ACCORDING TO the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Nashville, members of a girls' basketball team visiting Livingston Middle School in Tennessee spotted the camera right away. "It was high up in a corner, near a ceiling tile in the visitors' locker room," said the girls' lawyer, Mark Chalos. "It seemed to look out over the changing area."

The girls were wary at first, Chalos said. But ultimately didn't believe the camera would be recording them, so they continued changing their clothes. Later, one girl mentioned the camera to her coach, who confronted Livingston's principal. The coach was told that the camera was not positioned to observe dressing and undressing, the court papers contend. But after parents pressed the point, a district official reviewed the video and reported that it showed the girls in "bras and panties."

That was enough to enrage the parents. But what they learned as they questioned school authorities outraged them even more. Logs from the server holding the school's video show that the images were available, unsecured, over the Internet, Chalos said, and indicate several instances of access by unknown outsiders.

If that had occurred in Texas, the girls' coach could never have found out the team was being watched by voyeurs while they undressed, because of a bad law passed by Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, in 2003 making all information about surveillance cameras -- where they are, who has access, what's done with the information, etc. -- a secret. If girls' locker rooms are being monitored with cameras in Texas, Wentworth's law lets school officials conceal that information from the parents.

This wasn't an isolated abuse incident, but really just the tip of the iceberg. At the University of Nevada at Reno, hidden cameras were used to spy on a whistleblower who sued the school, according to the 3-12-05 Reno Gazette-Journal:

University of Nevada, Reno officials acknowledge that a network of about 80 “homeland security” surveillance cameras is operating throughout the campus, and UNR faculty members and state lawmakers say new policies and perhaps laws may be needed to prevent the system from becoming a “big brother” surveillance system.

Those concerns have been triggered in part because a homeland security camera in the College of Agriculture was redirected to monitor the doorways of a UNR associate professor who is suing the university and has filed federal animal abuse complaints against UNR.

The camera was focused on the doorways of Associate Professor Hussein S. Hussein after private investigators hired by Hussein found a university police camera hidden in a smoke detector outside the teacher’s office and police removed the device.

Secrecy surrounding government surveillance opens the doors wide for abuse. In Scotland recently, employees discovered a secret camera hidden in the smoke detector in an elevator and cried "foul." But they actually have laws to protect them. According to the Scotsman:

Using secret filming could contravene the Human Rights Act, which guarantees a right to privacy, and the Data Protection Act.

And footage from a hidden camera cannot be used as evidence in prosecuting a crime.

By contrast, neither U.S. nor Texas law affords such protections, even for government cameras. Thanks to Wentworth's Folly, in Texas, government cameras can be placed anywhere, for any reason, and no one can do anything about it, or even know if they're being watched, whether in the girls locker room, the elevator, or anywhere else.

Don't you feel safer?

Cornyn: FOIA should mimic Texas open records law

U.S. Senators John Cornyn, R-Texas and Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, have proposed much needed reforms to the federal Freedom of Information Act according to this Cox News article, which includes a good little history of how the Sharpstown bank scandal spawned Texas' open records laws in 1973.

Cornyn promised when he first ran to alter the FOIA to make it operate more along the lines of Texas' law, which includes pro-requestor enforcement provisions not found in most other states. FOIAs can take years to fulfill, and if the government turns you down, you have no recourse. Texas has strict time requirements government agencies must abide by. That appears to be the main problem the good senators are trying to fix, according to this piece in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, which had another story with examples of how their reporters use open records laws..

There are other parts of Texas' law, though, that Cornyn would do well to emulate. Federal agencies can exempt a document from review merely by labeling it secret. In Texas, documents are public unless closed by statute, whether or not the word "Secret" or "Confidential" is stamped on the file. In 1995, the Star-Telegram reports, the feds labeled 3.6 million items secret. Now, they label more than 14 million different items secret every year, an almost 400% increase. From the press coverage, it doesn't appear Cornyn's bill would address that problem. It's a big 'un, though

For a long time, Texas' law was among the strongest in the country, but in recent years the Texas Legislature has enacted exemption after exemption that have degraded the law, until a 2002 study ranked Texas' open records statute 18th strongest among the states.

Company bidding on TX drivers license contract has data stolen from Nevada DMV

Digimarc, one of two companies that have bid on Texas' drivers license re-engineering project, was responsible for failing to encrypt data on thousands of drivers that was stolen from the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles last week, according to an Associated Press story.

Personal information from more than 8,900 people was stolen when thieves broke into a Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles office, officials said Friday.

A computer taken during the break-in contained names, ages, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, photographs and signatures of southern Nevada residents who obtained driver's licenses between Nov. 25 and March 4 at the North Las Vegas office, state DMV chief Ginny Lewis said.

The DMV had previously maintained that the information on the computer stolen in Monday's break-in was encrypted, making it virtually useless to thieves.

But Lewis said Friday that Digimarc Corp., the Beaverton, Ore.,-based company that provides digital driver's licenses in Nevada, told her Thursday the information was not encrypted, and was readily accessible.

Miz Nakajima, Digimarc spokeswoman, said Friday she could not comment on specifics about state DMV customers or the Nevada theft. The publicly traded company provides a service Nakajima called "digital watermarking" to motor vehicle departments in 34 states and the District of Columbia.

All 21 Nevada DMV licensing stations were ordered by the end of the day Friday to remove personal information from computers to prevent a recurrence, Lewis said.

That's bad enough. Imagine if thieves also were able to steal people's biometric data. After all, to a computer, that information is just ones and zeros, no different from somebody's social security number. With biometrics now used for everything from computer passwords to restricting entry to top-secret government facilities, a similar theft involving biometrics could have profound, long-term consequences. After all, even people with government security clearances also have state drivers licenses.

We're going to hear a lot about how secure these systems are and how we should trust the companies to protect Texans' data. Nevadans trusted them, and look where it got them.

Texas consent search ban legislation monitored overseas

Demonstrating that people the world over are watching Texas' efforts to reform our criminal justice system, yesterday an Indian newspaper, New Kerala, ran the UPI coverage about Texas legislation filed to ban consent searches at Texas traffic stops. The piece also ran in the Washington Times. Reported UPI: "A bipartisan group of three lawmakers introduced bills supported by a coalition of civil rights groups that sponsored the study reported to be the most exhaustive racial-profiling study ever done in the United States."

The article by Phil Magers gave some good background on how the issue of consent searches plays out in Texas and elsewhere:

"Law enforcement time and resources should be spent investigating real crimes, not searching law abiding citizens without any justification or reasonable suspicion," said Will Harrell, director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas. ...

Consent searches have come under scrutiny in recent years, largely in the courts.The practice has been banned in Hawaii, Minnesota, New Jersey and Rhode Island.The California Highway Patrol imposed a temporary moratorium on the practice after a civil rights lawsuit.

Consent searches come into play every day in traffic stops across the nation when an officer doesn't have probable cause for a search.If he has a hunch, he asks the driver for consent to search the vehicle.The driver can legally refuse.

Harrell said that doesn't happen very often though because the average driver feels intimidated by the officer.In some cases the driver may not know his legal rights and submit to the search to avoid a confrontation, he said.

Sen.Juan Hinojosa, a sponsor of the legislation, said as a state senator and an attorney he knows his rights to decline the search of his vehicle if there is no probable cause.

"I am concerned that others in my community, however, are subjected to undue harassment because they are unaware they have the right to say no to an invasion of their privacy," said the Democrat from McAllen in South Texas.

In the House of Representatives, legislation banning consent searches is being co-authored by Democrat Harold Dutton of Houston and Republican Suzanna Hupp of Lampassas. The arguments put forward against the ban so far have been laughably facile:

A spokesman for a coalition of Texas law-enforcement agencies said the consent search is a way for the average citizen to cooperate in preventing crime.

"The consensual search is saying, 'OK I want to participate actively in helping you stop crime in the neighborhood and community,'" said Charley Wilkison, political director of the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas.

Wilkison said most people in the United States know they have a right to refuse an officer's request for a search.He said in Texas there's a long history of cooperation between the police and law enforcement.

Well, yes, Charley, police and law enforcement do cooperate (?!?), but I doubt ANYONE'S motive for acquiescing to a consent search is to reduce crime in their neighborhood, after all, the driver of the car is the only person the officer could possibly accuse if anything is found. How many drivers, really, think there's a need to protect their neighborhood from themselves? CLEAT's arguments are pretty much a joke - I'm surprised their position is really that weak.

A consent search ban would go a long way toward reducing disparities in how often minorities are searched, to judge by a report in the Dallas News today about the Richardson PD, but that's not the only reason it should be considered. It's not very politically correct to say so, but to me the consent search ban isn't really a racial issue. I'm a white redneck, and I sure as hell don't like it when police demand to search my car (I always say "no"). It's not a purely racial issue, though minorities certainly endure consent searches more often. Reported the News:

In Plano, the 2003 data showed that blacks were 2.5 times and Hispanics were more than three times as likely to be searched than whites.

Dallas was more than two times as likely to search blacks and three times more likely to search Hispanics than whites. ...

These so-called "consent searches" contributed significantly to the disparity between whites and minorities and should be banned, the coalition's report concluded.

A bipartisan bill introduced last week in the Texas Legislature would outlaw consent searches during traffic stops without probable cause or other legal justification.

"Individuals have a right to be left alone unless there's a probability they're committing a crime," said Will Harrell, executive director of the ACLU of Texas, which along with the NAACP and the League of United Latin American Citizens commissioned the study.

While Richardson's overall search rate for minorities was relatively low, the rate for consent searches of Hispanics was high. The rate of consent searches of Hispanics was more than twice that of whites. The consent search rates for blacks and whites were about the same.

In related news, legislation filed this week would create a central repository for racial profiling data gathered by local Texas law enforcement agencies at the University of North Texas at Dallas. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram today reports that SB 1503 by Royce West, D-Dallas (and its companion bill HB 3106 by Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston) would add $.25 to some traffic tickets to pay for the repository, and authorize the new Institute on Race Crime and Justice to create a standardized, mandatory statewide data collection and reporting protocol.

Presently, agencies decide for themselves how to collect and report data, so often numbers can't be meaningfully compared from agency to agency. The West/Thompson legislation would let future researchers parse the data more closely to analyze how officers use their discretion.

How I celebrated bill filing deadline

To celebrate the end of bill filing at the Lege, Kathy and I went to see George Carlin in San Antonio last night. He opened with a brilliant diatribe that's apparently the opening passage from his new book, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?, which definitely goes on the pleasure reading list for when I find some down time. The monologue will also be the opening segment of his next HBO special, he announced, which will be his 13th since 1979 -- it will air in November.

Best argument against a full-time Legislature

Today is bill filing deadline at the Texas Legislature. As I write this, more than 1,500 bills have been filed in the Senate and more than 3,000 in the House. We'll see a rush of bills filed by the end of the day, likely with a crush of staffers dropping a few hundred off around 4:45 this afternoon.

Grits' estimated over-under on total bills filed is 5,000. Take a moment to consider the implications of debating and voting on 5,000 bills in a 140-day session that's nearly half over already!

That's downright insane. It's unimaginable to think these guys understand, much less read, all the garbage they're voting on. Thank God they only meet once every two years.

UPDATE: Grand total was 5,253 separate bills filed in both houses, excluding resolutions and other such claptrap - completely out of hand, IMO. Personally I think we should add a constitutional requirement, at this point, that every bill adding new language to the law must simultaneously delete an equal number of words elsewhere in the statutes. A lot of people say they want to reduce government intrusiveness into people's lives, but the crush of new laws every two years belies all the big talk about "small government."

Texas Senate Boosts Big Brother

The Houston Chronicle reports that special interests are holding up the bill to ban red light cameras in the Texas Senate. That's not surprising. While the Texas House is quite concerned with issues of privacy and opposing the expansion of Big Brother-style police tactics, in the Senate, big-government liberals combine with big-government conservatives to shamelessly promote them.

I've argued previously that there are three "legs" to the surveillance "stool" that, once established, will create a set of tools to track Texas citizens in a near-totalitarian fashion reminiscent of George Orwell's famous novel, 1984. The three legs are: making government surveillance technology secret, the proliferation of cameras and surveillance technology in the public sphere, and, creating a comprehensive database of biometric facial recognition information.

In all three instances, the Texas Senate is pushing for Big Brother solutions, while the Texas House is resisting them.

The first item, making surveillance technology secret, the Senate accomplished in 2003. In response to 9/11, the House passed an agreed bill that made secret certain critical information necessary to keep Texans safe, but which did not overreach or indulge in sweeping records exemptions. In the Senate, though, Sen. Jeff Wentworth attached an amendment making all information about surveillance cameras secret -- where they are, who can access them, what can be done with the information, how long it will be kept, policies against abuse, etc. By the time the bill came back at the end of the session, the House had no choice but to accept the amendment or shoot down the whole state homeland security bill (HB 9).

Ironically, the Senators only allowed one class of individuals to know whether, when and where they were being surveilled -- legislators, and government officials working in private offices. (For real - I couldn't make this stuff up.)

Red light cameras are a primary vehicle for the second leg of the surveillance stool -- the proliferation of surveillance cameras throughout public life. That trend is already well underway, but it's estimated that legislative approval of red-light cameras could result in cameras installed at up to 20,000 Texas intersections. Those cameras don't just look at license plates but can be used for any police function, including general surveillance. Most can zoom in and out, rotate to view folks on the sidewalk, or even look inside neighboring buildings. Some cities like Austin put cameras at intersections even when they aren't giving tickets.

What's wrong with that? To take the worst case scenario: In China after the Tiennanman Square massacre, the government used cameras installed by an American company for traffic control purposes to undertake a witch hunt rounding up youthful dissidents. Indeed, with Sen. Wentworth's secrecy law in place, there's really no telling what will happen with surveillance data. In Dallas, surveillance video in Deep Ellum is shared with private businesses who can do what they want with the footage.

The House shot down red light cameras in 1999, 2001, 2003, and again this year by an even greater margin.

If the article in the Chronicle today is accurate, the Senate harbors significant support for using surveillance cameras for traffic enforcement, with liberals like Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, teaming up with big-government conservatives in the majority to keep the bill from getting to the floor for a vote. (If they're successful, BTW, I'd expect the red light camera ban to be attached as an amendment to every single transportation bill that comes over to the House from the Senate.)

The third leg -- the creation of a facial recognition database to allow law enforcement to identify and track individuals on video -- would complete the Orwellian trifecta. Combined with secret government cameras, proliferating everywhere, about which the public can know nothing, facial recognition databases would put an end to an individual's anonymity in public. The combination would mark the death knell of personal privacy. The authorities could know who you are and watch what you're doing, wherever you go, without showing probable cause to a judge or even letting anyone, anywhere, ever, know what they're doing.

Again, facial recognition is the Senate's baby -- SB 945 creating the biometrics facial-recognition database passed unanimously in the Senate in 2003, but in the House only 26 out of 150 members supported it. Indeed, no one in the Senate ever bothered the vet the bill at all, or raised the smallest question about the obvious privacy concerns. The House, by contrast, enjoyed a vigorous debate before rejecting the proposal.

A lot of attention is paid, for obvious reasons, to partisan differences as they play out on issues like education and healthcare. On privacy, though, the most important split in Texas isn't between Democrats and Republicans - it's between the House and the Senate.

More good legislation to watch

While folks working on education issues this week must endure a litany of shame, several positive pieces of criminal justice legislation to watch were filed at the Texas Legislature.

Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, yesterday filed HB 2418, which would ban consent searches at Texas traffic stops. According to a press release by the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, Rep. Suzanna Hupp, R-Lampassas will be a co-author.

Also yesterday, Sen. Juan Hinojosa, D-McAllen, filed SB 1125, which abolishes any drug task force not funded by the Governor's office in 2004, and mandates that half of all drug task force asset forfeiture funds be deposited in a special county-level fund to pay for drug treatment and drug-abuse prevention. (In the House, Rep. Terry Hodge last month filed HB 1239 that would abolish all Texas drug task forces.)

On Wednesday, Rep. Aaron Peña filed HB 2277 that voids any employment agreement that requires an employee to waive the right to a jury trial as a condition of employment. I've never heard of such an agreement, but no employer should be able to require that you give up your constitutional rights. That's a good bill

I also failed to mention earlier HB 1916, filed by my friend and former campaign client Rep. Ray Allen, R-Grand Prairie, that would restore key citizenship rights to probationers who successfully complete two years on probation (and a newly created "citizenship" class): the right to vote, the right to serve on a jury, and the right to serve as an executor of an estate. The idea is to give ex-felons a vehicle for earning re-entry into community life if they prove they can stay out of trouble while on probation.

Ann has compiled a list of all the bills filed related to probation reform, sentence restructuring, and proposals to pay for the improvements, including HB 2098 by Dutton that would lower penalties for the lowest level drug possession cases to a Class A misdemeanor.

Lois Kolkhorst vs. Big Brother in schools

Spring ISD north of Houston made national news last year by placing radio frequency identification devices, known as RFIDs, in their students' ID cards so they could track their movements throughout the schoolday. Most parents acquiesced in the school's decision, but privacy advocates cried foul.

This afternoon Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, attached floor amendment 95 to House Bill 2, which states that "a school district may not require a student to use an identification device that uses radio frequency identification technology to identify the student, transmit information regarding the student, or track information about the student."

Schools can adopt "voluntary" programs, and parents can opt out. It's unclear from the amendment language whether RFID use would be voluntary for schoolkids if their parents didn't object. The New York Times quoted a 15-year old Spring ISD freshman saying, "It's too Big Brother for me," so clearly some students don't like it.

Kudos to Rep. Kolkhorst, though, for sticking up for students' privacy.

For more on RFIDs, check out Wikipedia's RFID page.

TXDPS thumbs nose at legislative will

Some bureaucrats just won't take "no" for an answer.

The Texas Department of Public Safety in November issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) that envisions gathering biometric "facial recognition" data from Texas drivers license applicants, despite an overwhelming 111-26 vote in the House of Representatives in 2003 rejecting the idea.

Back then, legislators criticized the proposal as smacking of Big Brother, and the bipartisan House vote against the idea enjoyed the largest vote margin of any bill defeated in the 78th Texas Legislature.

But DPS ignored that stated legislative will, demanding in its November RFP that vendors' applications for its drivers license re-engineering project include the technology. DPS called facial recognition systems a "future business requirement," and required vendors to, "Propose facial recognition solutions to include functions for one-to-one and one-to-many image comparisons."

Ironic that DPS considers facial recognition technology a "requirement," since the Texas House told them they couldn't have that authority in no uncertain terms! Who is requiring it, one wonders? Elsewhere DPS said facial recognition would not be included in the initial work order, but the vendor must ensure the system "is expandable to accomodate facial recognition technology."

So obviously, DPS has its own plans regardless of what the Legislature wants. In the Q&A accompanying the RFP, DPS elaborated on this "requirement":

The one-to-one comparison of portrait images will be performed by comparing an applicant's portrait image collected at the time of issuance to the most recent portrait image on file. A one-to-many comparison of portrait images will be performed by comparing an applicant's portrait image collected at the time of issuance to the most recent portrait image collected for each applicant in the database. (Question 55)

Oh it WILL, will it? That's exactly what the House of Representatives DIDN'T want DPS doing. Really, issuing that RFP required an awful lot of chutzpah.

Somewhat inexplicably, given the spectacular way this legislation was defeated in 2003, DPS is obviously counting on the Lege to change its mind. They've still got a few die-hard champions. Rep. Frank Corte, R-San Antonio, who carried this legislation last session, today filed HB 2337, which is essentially similar to the 2003 legislation in all important respects. Last time he could only convince 25 of his 150 House colleagues to support him, but apparently hope springs eternal.

Not only does the bill create a database of facial recognition information on Texas drivers, it would remove all restrictions on how law enforcement could use the data. This is part of an increasing trend toward the criminalization of civil life, where every citizen interaction with government is viewed by the latter as an opportunity to pursue a criminal investigation.

Law enforcement can already access DPS thumbprint information with a court order, but not without a judge's consent. This legislation removes that requirement, allowing the information to be used for either "establishing a person's identity" or "conducting an investigation of criminal conduct." That opens the database up for any conceivable application. Establishing a person's identity is a DESCRIPTION of what the technology does, not a restriction on its use.

Of course, fears about Big Brother assume the technology actually works well. In fact, facial recognition data is a poor biometric. The thumbprint DPS already gathers is more accurate than facial images as an identifier because it doesn't change. A person might grow facial hair, wear glasses or heavy makeup, gain or lose weight, suffer disfigurement in an accident, or otherwise change their appearance to make it difficult to match them. By contrast, thumbprints are much more reliable. A study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology found that digital comparisons of posed photos of the same person taken 18 months apart triggered false rejection by computers 43% of the time. Drivers license renewals take place once every six years, so arguably the match rate would be even worse.

The technology is just not ready for primetime, plus the Lege didn't experience near enough turnover to think they'll improve their vote margin in 2005. DPS should have listened to the Legislature last time around and left facial recognition systems out of their RFP.

See detailed Grits coverage of DPS' biometrics proposals here, here, and here.

Bill postponed restructuring sentences for pot

Thanks to the school finance debate, the Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee did not hear HB 254 yesterday, as Grits previously predicted. That legislation, filed by Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, would restructure sentences for the lowest-level marijuana possession offenses to mandate fines instead of incarceration. The proposal would generate new revenue and free up much-needed space in county jails across the state.

The delay doesn't say anything about the relative chances for the bill's passage -- the committee just never got to meet.

See the fact sheet reformers are using to promote the bill, plus prior Grits coverage.

Austin political song and animation taking off

I mentioned not long ago how proud I am of Kathy for a new song and animation she ramrodded for Consumers Union to promote prescription drug reform in Congress. It's a truly cutting edge project combining podcasting, flash animation, and Consumers Unions e-action system to promote a reform message with an outrageously funny twist. (The above shot depicts "male lactation" as a possible side effect.) Called "The Drugs I Need," the song was written and performed by the Austin Lounge Lizards, with the video done by Austin's Animation Farm. It blasts big drug companies for pawning off products with deleterious side effects without making all their test results public.

Well, yesterday the New York Times covered it in their Science section, and they quoted Kathy! I'm glad she's getting some credit, because she deserves it. She tells me it's been plugged on over 50 blogs now, and is being promoted by Jib Jab.

Check out the song and animation (both are downloadable) at www.prescriptionforchange.org.

Civil rights groups' "claims" supported in Panhandle

According to the Amarillo Globe News, Canyon Police Chief Bobby Griffin thinks civil rights groups are telling lies about Texas police departments.

He said groups such as American Civil Liberties Union have publicized claims of racial profiling so tirelessly that a large segment of the public assumes all departments are guilty.

"At some point, perception becomes reality," Griffin said. "We've been tried and convicted through the media. There's no point in even arguing it any more."

And just what untruths are civil rights groups spreading?

He's referring to the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition's statewide racial profiling "study [which] claims that in the Amarillo area, blacks and Hispanics were involved in consent searches' at a higher rate than whites."

The study "claims" that, they announce. You gotta love the loaded language reporters chose. Usually one says a study "finds" something.

Meanwhile, the same article examined Amarillo-area departments' 2004 racial profiling reports. (The TCJC study examined reports statewide from 2003.) So what are the paper's findings on the question of consent searches?

Blacks make up 6 percent of Amarillo's population but were the subjects of 21 percent of searches in which consent to search was given. Hispanics, comprising about 22 percent of the city's populace, were involved in more than 41 percent of the searches in which police claimed probable cause.

That was really some questionable "claim," huh?

For additional "claims" from the TCJC study about Amarillo-area law enforcement agencies, see the regional fact sheet compiled from its findings here (pdf). The full TCJC study and other regional fact sheets are linked here.

Fort Bend 'special sanctions court' shows probation can work

I neglected to mention that Michael Ward had a good article in Sunday's Austin Statesman on a "Special Sanctions Court" in Fort Bend County that's been successful at reducing probation revocation rates. If you want to know more about how much-touted drug courts work, it's a good read. Said District Judge Bradley Smith,

in order for this program to work, you have to have an open mind to trying something different — because this program is different. I've worked inside the box (as a judge) for a long time, and I can tell you a lot of my time has been wasted because the probation system as we have been doing it for years doesn't work. . . . We need to lock up (in prison) the people we're afraid of and treat the ones we're just mad at, like most all these I deal with.

Between 1994 and 2003 [Rep. Sylvester Turner told Ward], the number of technical violators sent to prison jumped by 95 percent — a statistic that prison officials cite as a key reason that their cells are nearly full, even though the crime rate in Texas is down.

Also see the fact sheet from Solutions for Texas supporting probation reform, and prior Grits coverage of the current proposals.

At the end of the article, Ward includes an interesting set of stats about proposed Texas probation reforms.

By the numbers

$40.06: Average daily cost to taxpayers to house an offender in a state prison

$2.27: Average daily cost to supervise an offender on probation

$88 million: Additional funding for probation and prison-diversion programs proposed by the House Appropriations Committee

$85 million: Approximate cost of a new prison [ed. note: I've seen WIDELY varying estimates on costs for new prison units]

6: Number of new prisons needed in three years, at current incarceration rates

12: Number of new prisons officials say will be needed in five years

150,800: Current prison population

150,834: Maximum operating capacity of prison system

45,060: Offenders sent to prison in 2004

The article notes that about 30% of those entering prison last year, or around 14,000 out of 45,060 offenders, were revoked probationers.

Blog Bashing at the Statesman

Gardner Selby, the Austin Statesman's newest political reporter, mentioned Grits in today's paper as part of the current statewide trend of MSM blog-bashing. In a hilarious pot-calling-the-kettle-black moment, Selby has Rick Perry's spokesman portray blogs as inaccurate or prone to misstatements, picking especially on Eileen Smith's recent post about the Governor. (She gave her side here.)

What a joke! The Statesman is like the Red Queen of Texas journalism: They're routinely wrong three times before breakfast!

And speaking of breakfast, while Selby wants to pick on one disputable statement of Smith's, he ignores the fact that his own paper can't keep up in the new environment. Grits and other blogs routinely scoop the Statesman and the MSM on important stuff. If you're a Grits reader, for example, you knew about proposals for probation reform to stem the overincarceration crisis weeks before Statesman readers. Bloggers broke the story about legislation promoted by Southwestern Bell to ban free municipal wireless.

Indeed, there are a lot of stories on Grits that you've never seen in the Statesman:

• DPS/House Defense Affairs Committee proposals to gather biometric data on drivers
• LBB culpability in underestimating prison costs.
• House Criminal Jurisprudence committee recommendation to abolish drug task forces.
• Racial profiling by Palestine drug task force.
• Needle exchange legislation filed in Senate and House.
• Bill restructuring pot sentences up today.

The whole article shows a grave misunderstanding of the new media and dynamics they create. Are bloggers really amateurs and know-nothings, as Selby and the Governor's spokesman would have it? Hardly. Here's an example of the real-world relationship between the MSM and blogging that tells a different story.

About ten days ago, civil right groups released a statewide report on racial profiling data, and I M.C.'d the press conference at the capital. I was quoted widely in the media, but it was impossible to discuss the complicated issue in any detail in the sound-bite form the MSM demands. So I provided more detailed analysis on the blog. Similarly, the following week Austin PD released its new 2004 racial profiling data, and I was again quoted in the Statesman story, but just a few lines, and they didn't quote all the points I thought needed making. So again, I authored a blog post with a more detailed analysis than I was able to provide in a sound bite.

That's why it's a cheap shot to say all blogs are unreliable sources. I'm who the Statesman went to for their analysis! So why are my comments there somehow reputable, and my comments on the blog somehow tainted? In reality, the blog just allows me more room for nuance and detail. MSM reporters aren't magicians; they use the same sources as everyone else. In many Grits postings, at least those with original material, I'm analyzing government reports and public records that are available for the MSM, too. But they're not as focused on criminal justice stuff as I am, so Grits routinely looks at such documents earlier, and more thoroughly, than any daily newspaper reporter.

Blogs can't replace the MSM, and I doubt most bloggers would want to. We supplement mainstream media instead of usurping it, providing space to address topics that the self-appointed gatekeepers of public opinion don't think are important, or drawing out implications from the news. The best blogs are as reliable and accurate as the best of the MSM -- but that means that we're all wrong, some of the time.