Day: June 24, 2002

Almost forgot…

I had a brief but rewarding lunch with my friend and former roommate Greg yesterday. He’s on his way up to Maine (for the first time) to do some legal consulting work for a group up there. It’s funny—it’s been at least two years, maybe more, since I last saw Greg, but we hadn’t changed a bit. Politics, music, edging around talking about life.

I’ve often said Greg needs to get a blog. It looks like he’s come close over the years, with stints at ePinions and various other media, but he’s never bitten the bullet. Now would be the time, Greg.
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Batching it

Lisa is on her way to sign the papers for the house closing. I stay in Boston this week and wait for the packers and movers to come, and run any miscellaneous errands we’ve forgotten about. Yes, I’m batching it. (I follow Martin Amis’s spelling, from The Information, here, because baching it looks too much like I’ll be playing fugues. But then again, you never know.)

Score one for due process

New York Times: Case Against Seven Tied to Group Labeled Terrorist Is Dismissed. The judge ruled that the Justice Department’s case against seven people accused of sending charitable donations to an Iranian military group that the State Department labels “terrorist” is “unconstitutional on its face.” This is a major repudiation of a 1996 antiterrorism law that criminalizes providing “material support” to “any foreign organization that the State Department deems a threat to national security.” Judge Robert M. Takasugi cites erosion of due process as the reason for the ruling:

…the law gives these groups “no notice and no opportunity” to contest their designation as a terrorist organization, a violation of due process, Judge Takasugi ruled.

“I will not abdicate my responsibilities as a district judge and turn a blind eye to the constitutional infirmities” of the law, Judge Takasugi wrote.

Because the government made its list of terrorist organizations in secret, without giving foreign groups a chance to defend themselves, the defendants “are deprived of their liberty based on an unconstitutional designation that they could never challenge,” he said.

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