Justin McLachlan

Storm

2009-07-10T00:03:15Z

Justin McLachlan http://justinmclachlan.com

NYO's abuse of the anonymous source

2009-07-09T20:57:25Z

Shenanigans.

The New York Observer published a vitally important, word-changing, watchdog-like public service story today on how some iPhone users don't like to clutter their phone with apps. The information in this story was so so soooooo important that the reporter, Alex Tefat, had no choice but to use an anonymous source.

This source, identified as a "babyboomer" who for reasons undisclosed, "wished to remain anonymous," provides us with such striking bits of wisdom as "There are too many apps to choose from" and "(t)he iPhone is a communicator for phone, text and email...".

Clearly this information was vital to the public. Wow. The days of Woodward and Bernstein, replaying themselves right there in the New York Observer.

No, what this really is was pure and utter laziness on the reporter's part and lax standards on the Observer's part. We all deserve a little better. I mean, really.

Prop. 8 leader: It's not what it looks like

2009-07-09T04:38:35Z

Tonight, Ron Prentice, leader of Protectmarriage.com, clarified that what looked like the ballot measure committee's legally questionable endorsement of Andrew Pugno as a State Assembly candidate wasn't really an endorsement from the committee. In an email to proposition 8 supporters, he said the endorsement -- despite the use of Protectmarriage.com's email lists an logo -- was meant as a personal recommendation from him.

Regrettably, the communications may have prompted confusion. The ProtectMarriage.com coalition does not, and never will, officially endorse candidates for office. However, the communications - despite the disclaimer that the use of the Yes on 8 logo was for identification purposes only - were not as clear as they should have been in distinguishing between my personal endorsement and a position of the Protect Marriage organization. ProtectMarriage.com does not engage in partisan politics and neither endorses nor opposes candidates for political office.

Last week, I noted that Pugno was using Protectmarriage.com's email list (some, if not all of its addresses, anyway) and that it was identified in the campaign's email system as "Andy Pugno -- Protecmarriage.com List 6." The name has since be changed to remove the word "Protectmarriage.com."

Night light

2009-07-09T00:30:52Z

Justin McLachlan http://justinmclachlan.com

Honest Abe

2009-07-08T23:19:10Z

Justin McLachlan http://justinmclachlan.com

Richard Posner, still a little nuts

2009-07-06T17:42:16Z

My brother, future lawyer, likes Richard Posner. I think he's nuts -- but mostly because he advocates that we outlaw hyperlinks and give newspapers special copyright protections over, well -- facts.

Today, my brother, future lawyer, points me to his thoughts on the Senate. He's nostalgic for the glory days before 1787, when Senators, all 26 of them, were appointed and not elected. It was envisioned as a check on the house of representatives, who were not only elected but numbered based on the populations of our states.

Not a bad idea, in theory. Except that legislation must be passed by both houses to become law and that giving what amounts to filibuster power over the house to a group of officials not directly responsible to an electorate is just, well, okay it is a bad idea.

Apparently, Mr. Posner is reading too many local newspapers and hasn't had enough info on the Blagojevich affair. If he did, he'd remember what it was like when one man had the power to appoint just one Senator. Imagine what would happen if we had 50 states appointing 100 senators every six years. Chaos, I predict.

UPDATE

On Facebook, my brother, future lawyer, clarifies:

Oh, I don't like the pre-17th amendment version either. I'd get rid of the damned thing altogether. Plenty of countries have unicameral legislatures, and have yet to sink beneath the waves.

But the idea that the Senate is bad is surprisingly unpopular. The bottom line is that if it was invented by a bunch of centuries-dead rich old white guys who thought that slavery was just peachy, then it's sacrosanct.

Light

2009-07-06T06:57:31Z

Martial law in the food safety bill! Ahhh!

2009-07-05T17:01:08Z

No, actually, there isn't.

I've seen a lot of blog posts this weekend over a new food safety bill in the House, because it contains a provision that gives the Agriculture Secretary power to quarantine "geographic locations" to prevent the spread of food he or she feels is killing people or animals or poses "serious adverse health consequences." That includes the power to restrict the movement of vehicles suspected of carrying that food (or have carried it in the past), but, it appears in this version not the power to restrict the movement of people otherwise.

People's heads are exploding over this here, here and here.

Here's the specific section they're talking about (emphasis added):

i) Quarantine of Geographic Location- '(1) AUTHORITY TO QUARANTINE- If the Secretary determines that there is credible evidence or information that an article of food presents a threat of serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals, the Secretary may quarantine any geographic area within the United States where the Secretary reasonably believes such food is located or from which such food originated. The authority to quarantine includes prohibiting or restricting the movement of food or of any vehicle being used or that has been used to transport or hold such food within the geographic area.

Of course, this been interpreted by all kinds of non-lawyers and copied ad naseum across the internet. Here's one extreme interpretation:

[This - that has been used to transport or hold such food - would mean all cars that have ever brought groceries home so this means ALL TRANSPORTATION can be shut down under this. This is using food as a cover for martial law.] Under this provision, farmers markets and local food sources could be shut down, even if they are not the source of the contamination. The agency can halt all movement of all food in a geographic area. [This is also a means of total control over the population under the cover of food, and at any time.]

Like I said, that's an extreme interpretation and doesn't match the language of the bill or the obvious legislative intent. I'm not saying this section is written well -- it obviously isn't if someone can come up with an interpretation like that. But I doubt any action taken in that light would stand up to judicial scrutiny. This isn't martial law. A quarantine is a legal act and our officials have had much greater quarantine powers in the US for years.

For example, the Federal Public Health and Welfare code has provisions concerning quarantines of people -- not cars, but actually restricting the movement of people -- with certain communicable diseases as defined by executive order. The current order, signed by President Bush, is here. The first executive order listing communicable diseases that could provoke a quarantine was signed in 1946.

But again, quarantines are not martial law. They may implicate civil rights questions, but quarantines actions taken by the executive branch in this country can always be challenged in the judicial branch. It's called habeas corpus, a fundamental right to challenge the legality of one's detention.

What martial law does, presumably, is suspend this kind of judicial review -- and our Constitution contains a clause that outlines when that suspension can occur and the Supreme Court in Ex parte Milligan in 1866, said that as long as judicial branch is operational, habeas corpus can't be suspended.

In otherwords, what a few alarmist bloggers are suggesting can only happen when there's a national or world-wide calamity so big, so disaterous that it effectively cripples entire governments. The 9/11 attacks didn't do it, so think even bigger in terms of scale.

And then stop worrying. Complain about how poorly written the bill is (it lacks the oversight of the public health codes, for example), but don't spread alarm were there's no need for it.

Afternoon nap

2009-07-04T22:47:28Z

Justin McLachlan http://justinmclachlan.com

A total poser

2009-07-04T22:21:17Z

Justin McLachlan http://justinmclachlan.com

That's what I call love

2009-07-04T21:51:55Z

Justin McLachlan http://justinmclachlan.com

San Diego city hall spars with the Union-Tribune over public data access

2009-07-04T18:35:34Z

According to letters published at VoiceofSanDiego.org, this series in the Union-Tribune has sparked a lot of outrage. Series like this always do -- a lot government workers, despite being paid with tax dollars, generally feel they have a right to keep their salaries a secret from the public.

They don't. But that's not the point.

While a lot of people take issue with what they call the UT's "flawed" analysis of city employee salary data, and I don't dispute either side's accounts of the data -- I don't have enough details to see who's right and who's not, what I think we should be concerned with is this:

The database the city provided in response to the newspaper's request included salaries and overtime paid to each employee by name, but not details of pay categories, such as merit increases or bonuses. The city said it would charge the newspaper at least $1,900 to provide more specifics.

Critics dismissed that as snarky; others said it lacked context. So here's that context, from a former city comptroller in a letter to the VoiceofSanDiego.org:

The City didn't want to devote approximately 40 hours of taxpayer funded programming time to your article when they were in the middle of a major system conversion. They asked you to pay for it. Cry me a river. You have to be kidding me, you didn't see it relevant to disclose the truth behind what you asked; but, you still saw it relevant to disclose the $1,900 payment request. Couching the narrative by saying the system is complex is not integrity, I don't know what it is, but integrity it is not. You were given a quote to perform services that were non-essential to the operation of the city.

I think anyone with any knowledge of databases or say, a brain, would understand that the city's estimates of 40 hours of work and $1900 to program a database expert is, let's be judicious, an over estimate. It's more likely an attempt to stall or block public access, a common tactic used by public agencies nationwide to avoid disclosure. It's happened to me before.

What's more is that the California Open Government Guide says that an agency "cannot deny access to public information under the guise that the information would require it to "compile data, write programming language or a computer program, or to construct a computer report to extract data" as these grounds merely allow the agency to extend the time necessary to comply with a CPRA request, not deny access altogether. See Cal. Gov't Code § 6253(c)(4)."

what the city said the UT would have to pay for is the creation of a database that would give them the data broken down as the UT wanted it. They chose not to spend that money to reimburse the taxpayers for the significant amount of time it would take to do that. Had they spent the money, they would have had a database that was accurate. Instead, they posted the data that the were warned, repeatedly, had flaws as a database of pay.

What I'm still not getting is if the UT had access to the raw data, as they suggest in their stories, they'd need the city to create another database "broken down" as they wanted it, as the spokeswoman suggests? I don't think we're getting the whole story from either side, but it seems, that it least when it comes to accessing the data under the public records act, the city is trying to pull a fast one over on the public.

Facebook Connect!

2009-07-02T21:03:12Z

Okay -- you can now make comments here using your Facebook login. It all works, though I'm still waiting for Facebook to approve the way my blog will publish stories on Facebook news feeds. You can also use Open ID, Google, Wordpress, Yahoo, Live Journal and a number of options to leave comments. Try it out!

Did Protectmarriage.com and Andrew Pugno violate California's laws?

2009-06-29T16:09:16Z

I write about proposition 8 on this blog a lot and because of that, am on the email list of Protectmarriage.com -- the ballot measure committee that raised funds to get it passed. A little while back, Ron Prentice, the committee's chairman, announced that their legal counsel and author of the the text of proposition 8 was set to run for a General Assembly seat in the 5th district of California.

Today, though, I got a mass email from Mr. Pugno updating me on fund raising efforts for his campaign "war chest." I'd never signed up on Mr. Pugno's site and based on his calling me "hostile" in an email last fall, I dodn't assume that he plucked my email address and added it to his list.

What actually happened is that Protectmarriage.com created a new list for Mr. Pugno -- it's called "Andy Pugno -- Protecmarriage.com List 6" in their system that has, at least, some, if not all of Protectmarriage.com's email addresses. That appears to violate Protectmarriage.com's stated privacy policy, which says that they only collect personal information and use it to "send ... updates and the latest news from ProtectMarriage.com."

Ultimately, it could all lead to a violation of California's Online Privacy Protection Act -- which requires that all the ways a Web site uses information to be disclosed to users. That is, if Protecmarriage.com is actually captured under California's privacy laws. More likely is that they'll slip by on the argument that California's law only applies to commercial sites -- though the statute doesn't define "commercial."

But maybe, Protectmarriage.com gave this list to Mr. Pugno's campaign? Is that then a gift? If so, and if otherwise would've had to purchase such a targeted list, would its market value far exceed the Fair Political Practices Act's $250 limit on gifts? I don't know. Maybe they're looking at it as a campaign contribution, the value of which Mr. Pugno will surely report?

Or maybe he purchased the list from Protectmarriage.com. That brings us back to when, exactly, did Protectmarriage.com say in its privacy policies that it might some day do so? It didn't.

10 things you need to understand to save journalism

2009-06-28T23:35:24Z

Get over the "paper" part. I'm serious. If you can't, then there's no reason to read on. Scores of us younger people -- many who've never had reason to hold a newspaper let alone subscribe to one -- are growing up and slowly taking over the world.
But the ad revenue? What about the money? Look -- people place ads in your paper because, even without accurate metrics to guide them, they think they're reaching an audience they can't get elsewhere. That reach is probably exaggerated, but as your audience migrates online, your ad dollars will too. Besides, think of the production costs you'll save.
Stop talking about the internet like you're surprised by its reach and power. If the idea of your newspaper Web site's success is so surprising to you that you're thinking about running a front page story on the trend, you show us your age, your naivete and your irrelevance. The generations after you all caught on about a decade ago. Time to catch up.
Realize that you probably don't get it. I've watched people, only slightly older than me, take much much longer than I and those younger to adapt changes in the information technology. I had the benefit of growing up with a computer connected to the internet my entire life and I realize that most even a bit older, and that includes those running the news business, didn't. Maybe it's time you step aside and tap the collective wisdom of those who've come after you.
Believe that what you have is what we want. News. Information. That's your business and it shouldn't matter to you how you deliver it to us. The problem is you insist on delivering it to us in a medium we've already, rightfully, decided is inferior. Besides, if you don't give it to us how we want it, someone else will -- and for less money than it costs you to buy newsprint.
Stop thinking of your Web site as the online newspaper. It is it's own, an entity with more power to engage and retain your readers than any medium in history. By the time I've visited your site a second time, it should already know what stories I like to read and it should be serving those up to me -- without my asking. Make what I want not easy to find, but impossible to miss. The internet can do that, you know.
Understand that video alone does not a multimedia site make. We've had video at our fingertips for years. It's called TV. If Google can't monetize it, your chances -- based on the current state of the industry you've had a part in guiding -- aren't much better. Your content is your money and it should be delivered to your readers in a way that serves the story. If that's video, so be it. If that's just text, then so be it too.
It's not always about the numbers. Well, maybe not the numbers you're thinking. Social networking sites enjoy pageviews / visit that are well into the double-digits. I bet your newspaper is lucky to average 2. If you're reader's not engaged -- it's your fault. You have a powerful medium at your disposal that you're not using to its potential. No one to blame but yourself.
Paywall or no paywall, do it for the right reason. If you only motivation in creating a paywall is to drive readers to your print product, you will fail. We're not going back to ink printed on dead trees. The era of the paper is dead. If you think you can generate revenue to keep your newsroom thriving, then do it. You just better have a product worth my money -- both in content and form.
Know that Google isn't stealing your money. Without Google, most of us would never find you. They're sending traffic your way, traffic that feeds your coffers with money from advertisers. What you should be asking yourself about Google, as the self-appointed source of information is why the news industry didn't invent it in the first place. After you figure that out (see above re: not getting it), ask yourself what the next "Google" is and build that.