I always wondered where former FEMA director Michael Brown would end up. I imagined he would end up as a greeter at the Bush presidential library. You know, something that he is actually qualified to do.
Instead, it appears the overmatched bureaucrat is taking his show to law school. No, not as a student, as a professor. TPMMuckraker reports:
Michael Brown, the much-ridiculed former FEMA director who became a symbol of the Bush administration’s disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina, has landed a new gig: teaching a law-school class on the Patriot Act next spring.
What student body will be lucky enough to learn from the best? Details after the jump.
A couple’s ill-concealed sexual play aboard a Southwest Airlines flight from Los Angeles got them charged with violating the Patriot Act, intended for terrorist acts, and could land them in jail for 20 years.
First, a correction. The couple wasn’t charged with violating the Patriot Act, but with violating 49 U.S.C.A. § 46504. As Professor Orin Kerr explains, this provision was amended by the Patriot Act, but “the substantive offense that was charged dates back to the 1960s.”
Second, an update. The couple may have needed air sickness bags rather than a hotel room. From a later AP piece:
A man arrested for allegedly engaging in “overt sexual activity” with his girlfriend on an airliner was lying with his head on her lap because he wasn’t feeling well, his attorney said.
That gesture was misinterpreted by a flight attendant, who humiliated and harassed the couple, said attorney Deb Newton, who represents Carl Persing.
Jeez, the terrorists really HAVE won. They’ve sucked all the fun out of flying:
A couple’s ill-concealed sexual play aboard a Southwest Airlines flight from Los Angeles got them charged with violating the Patriot Act, intended for terrorist acts, and could land them in jail for 20 years.
According to their indictment, Carl Persing and Dawn Sewell were allegedly snuggling and kissing inappropriately, “making other passengers uncomfortable,” when a flight attendant asked them to stop.
“Persing was observed nuzzling or kissing Sewell on the neck, and … with his face pressed against Sewell’s vaginal area. During these actions, Sewell was observed smiling,” reads the indictment filed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Help us out here. How does “pressing one’s face” against the “vaginal area” of a fellow passenger violate the Patriot Act? Especially if that passenger is “observed smiling”?
On a second warning from the flight attendant, Persing snapped back threatening the flight attendant with “serious consequences” if he did not leave them alone.
The comment was enough to have the couple, both in their early 40s, arrested when the plane reached its destination in Raleigh, North Carolina, and charged with obstructing a flight attendant and with criminal association.
Okay, that makes more sense. Press all you want into the “vaginal areas” of your fellow passengers (provided, of course, that you know them and they consent). Just don’t threaten the stewardess flight attendant when ordered to stop, and you’ll be fine. Update: Professor Orin Kerr has some doubts about this case. See here. Further Update, and Correction: They weren’t charged under the Patriot Act, but under 49 U.S.C.A. § 46504. See Professor Kerr’s update. Serves us right for not looking at the indictment ourselves. Mid-flight Sexual Play Lands US Couple Afoul of Anti-Terrorism Law [Associated Press]
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The last time I flapped my wings your way, I tried to make at least enough noise about your mobile phone to make you more than a little bit uncomfortable. I hope I did. If enough of us become anxious enough about the known and unknown unknowns and knowns in our mobile phones, then we can start making wise decisions about how to manage that information and its resultant investigations.
Today, I’d like to put a finer point on the last installment’s topic by asking a question that seemed to catch most attendees off-guard at a conference panel that I moderated last week: is there discoverable personal information in a mobile app? Our panelists’ answer was a uniform “yes” with one stating that, if he had to choose only one type of data that he could discover from a mobile phone, he’d choose app data. Why? Because there’s simply so much of it and because almost all of it is objective – not just user-created like an email – but machine-tracked like GPS, usage duration, log in and log out times, browsed web addresses, browsed actual addresses. Also, most of us seem to have the idea that data doesn’t actually “stick” to our mobile devices the way it “sticks” to our hard drives. Maybe there’s a disconnect based on the fact that our phones are mobile so we assume the data is mobile to?
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I always wondered where former FEMA director Michael Brown would end up. I imagined he would end up as a greeter at the Bush presidential library. You know, something that he is actually qualified to do.
