Law And More

The Big Freakout - James Comey's Talk at Boston College Cybersecurity Conference

As you see in this video, at the Boston College conference on cybersecurity, FBI director James Comey said he didn't want to freak us out. But he did exactly that.

He hammered that there is no such entity as "absolute privacy."

Even the contents of our memories of conversations with spouses, clergy and attorneys are not off-bounds. In certain circumstances we could be mandated to disclose all that in court. As Comey put it "there is no place outside judicial reach."

In addition, of course, Comey brought up how in this era of WikiLeaks and other kinds of digital hacking, just about any communication can be retrieved. Then it could be made public.

Although Comey freaked out many, there will also be many who don't believe him. They will have to learn the hard way.

Several years ago, when I was covering the lead paint state lawsuits I'd frequently email a Jones Day attorney for updates. Today I'd probably be texting him.

In the communications I sometimes joked around. Mistake.

When I got caught in crossfire between the defendant and plaintiff, I was deposed.

Spread out on the table were myriad emails. Over and over again the attorney representing the plaintiff grilled me about the "meaning" of what I had considered humor. The ordeal went on for hours.

After that, I simply assumed every kind of communication, including intimate ones, could go public.

Prediction: Come 2018, Edelman's annual trust barometer will probably plunge to unprecedented lows.

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Neil Gorsuch - Youth Makes Him Conservative Wild Card

At first glance, federal appeals judge Neil Gorsuch seems to be a Scalia clone. The president nominated him for the U.S. Supreme Court. Here is the analysis in Politico.

Like the legal thinkers on the far right he believes in an originalist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. That is, he wants to stick with what the founding fathers intended. (As if that even can be reconstructed. Never mind if it's relevant centuries later.)

He is a strong defender of the right to religious beliefs. For example, he ruled that companies, based on their religion, could withhold medical coverage for contraceptive devices.

And he is committed to the courts deciding legal issues, not regulatory bodies.  The alt-right wants to blow up many existing regulatory entities.

However, what makes him a wild card in terms of his conservatism is his youth. He is only 49 years old.

A big job like being on SCOTUS can change one, especially someone just entering middle age. There is no predicting how having all the responsibility could influence his legal ideology.

It is well known that John Roberts has not proved out to be the chief justice he was "supposed to be." For example, he defended Obamacare. Roberts took on the job in 2005 when he was 50 years old. That's only one year older than Gorsuch. Neither conservatives nor liberals had the right take on what his legal decision-making would be.

The reality is that professionals change and times change. Already, conservatism seems to be fragmenting as a result of Trumpism. Today, at 21st Century Fox, leaders Lachlan and James Murdoch opposed Trump's immigration order. Historically, the company's Fox News unit had been a bastion of far-right ideology.

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Partners/Associates Knocked Out of the Box - Of Course, "Manchester By the Sea" Resonates

Law partners and associates knocked out of the box will experience the pain of recognition in watching the film "Manchester By the Sea."

At the core at the movie "Manchester By the Sea" is a catastrophe.

A drunk young father whose name is Lee fails to put a screen in front of the logs in the fireplace. He makes a run on foot to the convenience store for more beer. As he returns he bears witness to fire consuming his house. Outside, his wife is being restrained from going back inside to save the two toddlers and infant. 

The father is forever changed. As Lee observes years later when he returns to Manchester, "he can't shake it." When the film ends, we see small signs of healing. But, obviously, Lee has been transformed, for better or for worse, by the unthinkable.

During the summer of 2014, St. Philip's Church in Tucson, Arizona, conducted a weekly seminar on all aspects of catastrophe. Those ranged from the scientific definition of the phenomenon to how traditional religions recommend managing it.

Catastrophe, of course, is not new.  The "Book of Job" is an early template of extreme seemingly unmerited suffering.

What is different about catastrophe in the 21st century is that it's, well, become commonplace. So many lost loved ones in 9/11. Check LinkedIn and there it is: Colleagues position themselves as looking for a new opportunity. Plan dinner with an old friend. Oh no, there are signs of memory issues.

As a society, can we become socialized to not dish the platitudes or heap blame on those who have become contemporary versions of biblical Job? Probably not.

At the end of the St. Philip's seminar, we who had experienced catastrophe agreed that afterward we had to leave most of the relationships of the past behind. It would take time, probably lots of it, to find our way back to trust.

In an ebook which had a million downloads - "Geezer Guts" - I recounted how darkness fell in 2003. 

The 14 years which have followed have been a period of stop and start in letting go. I mourn what had been. And my former self.

Likely those most full of platitudes about what occurred and the source of blame are ourselves. Managing catastrophe might be the most formidable rite of passage for adults.

If Don Draper from "Mad Men" were still creating Kodak Carousels, he might be putting together one on how humans fail to bond emotionally, socially and professionally with catastrophe.

The rooms of recovery are full of displaced lawyers who can't or won't look into the face of their catastrophe.

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Drudge Report - Prayer Is Platform for Starting Day Two of Trump Administration

The conservative Drudge Report is providing a "journal" of the first days of the Trump Administration.

Yesterday it headlined with the description of how the new president leveraged Day One for work. It was not all pomp, circumstance and dancing at gala balls.

For day two, the Drudge Report headlines with the president engaging in prayer. The setting was an interfaith prayer service at the Washington National Cathedral. Here is the CNN political coverage Drudge links to.

Essentially what is traditionally called "prayer" is a surrendering of the self to a force greater than our little human plans,  wants and needs. That force has been labeled:

God

The Universe

Higher Power

The Buddha Within

Jesus

Allah

Zeus

Universal Oversoul

There are myriad theories why human beings keep embracing prayer. In America, iconoclast Christopher Hitchens was an outlier.

But the bottom line on prayer, research and experience show, is that it can clear the mind and heart enough so that distressed human beings can be strategic. The classic example is the recommendation in 12-step recovery programs that members turn themselves over to a higher power. That can allow them to think before doing something self-defeating. They are not caught up in the loop of self-will run riot.

Meditation or mindfulness is catching on be it facilitates slowing down the through processes. The outcomes can simulate those in prayer.

Through prayer, the Trump Administration sent the message that it defers to an entity greater than itself. Smart move.

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Trumpism - Is It Based on the Protestant Ethic (Salvation through Hard Work)

The conservative Drudge Report which has been a Trump cheerleader headlines with the news that the new president went right to work. No just dancing around at balls.

That work included two executive orders. One was the vague "to ease the burden of Obamacare." The other was to appoint General James Mattis the Secretary of Defense. Here is the Daily Mail coverage the Drudge Report links to.

At his core, the flamboyant Trump may be a worker bee. That would be no surprise.

From the get-go, America was built on the Protestant Ethic of Work. The Puritans introduced that. And, except for periods of extreme hedonism like the Roaring Twenties, the ethos of Americana was based on the religion of hard work. Screw up? Salvation came not through a clever public relations agent but extreme work.

No coincidence, the Midwest, which was a big Trump supporter, is known for its work ethic. And  it's done with no complaints. Maybe those cold winters imbues that spirit.

Trump could become known as "The Working President." There might be few recreational functions. His schedule of events could revolve primarily around getting things done.

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Daily Mail - Rosie O'Donnell, Like the 2Hs, Should Embark on Pilgrimage to Buddhist Temple in Tibet

Did the influential Daily Mail feature Rosie O'Donnell's Tweet plea to Americans to stop The Donald as comic relief?

She's as over as Hillary and Huma (the 2Hs).

The last time we heard from O'Donnell was her apology to the Trump family for suggesting (with the greatest of fine motives) that son Barron was autistic. Many assumed that would drive her off the world stage, the way the election loss should have done the 2Hs.

But, no, O'Donnell is struggling to claw her way back.

Many moons ago, the comic was able to piggyback on Madonna's early fame. And, she was a fun presence. Brash, she pontificated about the world. It was welcome break from canned comedy.

That was then. Now her strident tone and content full of platitudes have become so yesterday. Perhaps the 2Hs and O'Donnell can take a pilgrimage to a Buddhist temple in Tiber and find their path.  The current ones have vanished. There are no footprints in the sand. It's The Donald Show.

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Judith Clark - Who in a Society Should Be In Charge of "Forgiveness?"

New York governor Andrew Cuomo has commuted the 75-year-to-life sentence of former radical Judith Clark.

She had driven the getaway vehicle in the 1981 fatal $1.6 million armed robbery of a Brink's truck. Two police officers and a security guard were killed. Next year, Clark will now be eligible for parole. Here are the details from the media.

According to Cuomo, Clark has been a model prisoner. Also, the sentence might be assessed as severe, given that she didn't do any of the actual killing.

But the decision, nevertheless, is controversial. We do know that human beings are capable of change. Perhaps Clark has changed during the 35 years she has already served of her sentence.

But the issue remains: Who should be in charge of the decision to forgive such a horrific act? Can that be in the hands of a governor or a corrections committee? Or should it be primarily up to the survivors of the victims?

In the memoir of his pre-teen brother's brutal murder - "Alligator Candy" - David Kushner explains why he and his older brother went to the parole hearing. They made it their business to hammer how much suffering the family had gone through. And was still going through. Parole was not granted.

On the other hand, those who study Buddhism have read accounts of those who forgive the murderers of their loved ones.  The theory behind that is that retaining a grievance destroys the person holding that grudge.

In the Roman Catholic Church it is believed that during the sacrament of reconciliation, God wipes the soul clean of all sins, no matter their nature.

Forgiveness of all kinds is a very difficult process. One of its versions - self-forgiveness - is especially challenging in our society. After all, the nation was founded by the highly judgmental Puritans.

One wonders: Does that ethos of Puritanism permeate our corrections system?

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Drudge Report: Trump Joins Putin in Boosting Nuclear Warheads (will our children be hiding under desks?)

The conservative Drudge Report has bestowed a strange holiday gift on the world.

It's the headline that president-elect Donald Trump is following Russia head Vladimir Pultin's lead. Like Putin, Trump wants to increase the capacity of nuclear warheads. 

That's what Trump tweeted today. And it was this volatile man's authority in regard to nuclear arms which so many feared if he was elected.

Here is the coverage in The Washington Post which the Drudge Report links to. But few need to read that media analysis. If it looks, walks, talks and can cause the kind of cloud of the possibility of a nuclear war, then maybe it is. 

In addition, it could cost a bundle. The executive director of the Arms Control Association, Daryl Kimball, estimates the nut for that could total $1 trillion over 20 years.

And fear of nuclear war can bring back the mid-20th-century Cold War with all its implications.

It was a time of high distrust. We were instructed to "watch" our suburban neighbors.

Sure they were American citizens who went to work every day and mowed their lawns. But they could be communicating information to the Russians about Americana.

No, they weren't Muslims. They were as WASPY as the Bush dynasty.

Once a week, we children hid under our desks. That was the "safety" drill in the event of nuclear attack.

And, it was downright unpatriotic to question the expense of any aspect of the U.S. defense against nuclear.

The 1959 film "On the Beach" portrayed the aftermath of a worldwide nuclear war. No, it wouldn't help to take refuge in a cave somewhere. This was when we were still getting our bearings after the war to end all wars.

Survivalists, such as I met in the desert of southwestern Arizona, likely feel smug. Despite that the holiday laziness has already taken over much of America, they will be busy ensuring an ample amount of food, water, chemicals for hygiene and guns to prevent intruders. They warned us, "Build your own shelter. We won't let you in."

How will school systems be informing children of this threat? In those days, they didn't have to be "transparent." There was only the order: "Under the desk, as far as you can."

When the drill was over, we children in Catholic schools prayed for the conversion of Russia back to Christianity.

Will the Trump Administration create yet another generation anticipating getting wiped out by a nuclear bomb?

Takeaway: Let's enjoy what could be the last Christmas on planet earth. The heck with what the credit card bill will be next month.

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Drudge Report - MANHUNT! (Positive Development for Whatever Trump's Security Initiatives Will Be)

The conservative Drudge Report has been tracking terrorist developments outside the U.S.

The fear unleashed from those can give Donald Trump popular support in America for any and all national security initiatives he introduces as president. Despite the horror of the recent assassination in Turkey and massacre in Germany, this has been a fortunate development for the incoming Trump Administration.

Meanwhile Germany has unleashed a manhunt. 

Government officials are searching for a man who the Islamic State claims is one of tis soldiers. That person might be anywhere. He is described as armed and dangerous.

Until apprehended he could be the instigator for more terrorism. Obviously, he is effective at what he does. Here is the coverage by The Telegraph which the Drudge Report links to.

In guerrilla forms of warfare such as terrorism timing is everything. It's no accident that the two recent ones have taken place during the holiday season.

An objective of terrorism is to throw a society off-center. And off-center all of Europe, as well as England, will be before, during and after Christmas.

Should residents of the U.S. also consider themselves possible targets? Of course. The attack on the Berlin marketplace could just have been the start of the holiday mayhem.

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Drudge Report - Murder in the Museum in Ankara (No Safe Place)

The conservative Drudge Report switched from domestic politics to the global reality of terrorism.

Now we know: There is no safe place, including in a museum. The world is caught up in a cultural conflict between Western and Islamic values. Both groups are convinced they are right.

At any time, anyone, powerful or ordinary, can be the target of fatal violence.

The Drudge Report headlines with the assassination of Andrey Karlov in the museum in Ankara. He was the Russian ambassador to Turkey. He had been there to deliver a speech.

The young gunman, who was murdered by the police, presented himself as a terrorist. His mission, he cried out, was jihad. Here is The New York Times article the Drudge Report links to.

There is no telling what this murder will do to the already-charged relationship between Russia and Turkey.

Meanwhile, on the domestic front - here in the U.S.A. - there are also two cultures. The two groups are those loyal to Donald Trump and those who label him a dark force. Both are convinced they are right.

But underneath the ideologies there are simply human beings. I live in Trumpville, that is, rural Ohio. Once there were the booming industries of coal and steel. Now there are lost aging white men. Unlike what anti-Trump forces claim, they are not angry. Rather they are sad. Once they had houses and trucks. Now they rent. And drive old cars.

They and I talk about our dogs, our health and the cold weather. To my surprise, politics never comes up.

What comes back to me are the words of Rodney King: Can't we just all get along ...

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