Hummingbird Mentality

This weeks award winning episode of radio show and podcast ‘This American Life‘, addresses the issue of Habeas Corpus. Broadly speaking, Habeas Corpus is the right of a prisoner to apply to be brought before a court to have the legality of their detention adjudicated. ‘This American Life’ examines how it’s suspension for detainees of Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, and in secret extraterritorial prisons run by the CIA, has effected their treatment. The episode includes eye opening interviews with two former inmates of ‘Gitmo’.

In addition to providing a predictably terrifying list of interrogation techniques in use against detainees accused of ‘terrorist activities’, from electrocution, to sexual humiliation, water deprivation and physical violence; and documenting how bounties offered for Al-Qaeda members led to the imprisonment of innocent civilians; this episode also describes a fascinating chapter in the history of Habeas Corpus.

John Ronson, an author and documentarist in the vein of Louis Theroux, takes a look at the suspension of this Magna Carta granted right, during the British restoration, an act which led to the impeachment of the Earl responsible (Lord Clarendon); and 450 years later, to an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief to the US Supreme court, by All-Party Parliamentary Group of 175 members of the British parliament.

Compelling and disturbing listening.

Links: MP3, Transcript, Podcast Feed

Paul Walch of Segala, asks ‘Do we want a code for blogs?’

This question has arisen due to the Kathy Sierra controversy, the case of the online harassment of an O’Reily writer by an anonymous group of commenters, at a blog created specifically for uncensored criticism. Very quickly the ‘blogosphere’ divided into two camps, those who repudiated the hate speech directed at Sierra, but considered it a cost of the freedom of speech that blogging affords. And those, like tech writer and Web2.0 pioneer Tim O’Reilly, who believed a response was needed (beyond the specific legal retaliation sought against the perpetrators). O’Reilly’s proposal was a code of conduct for bloggers. Here’s the wiki for the code under development.

What follows is my response to Paul’s question, both in terms of the idea of a bloggers code of conduct, and the specific code O’Reilly proposes.

In short

Absolutely not, as Glen Farrelly points out, ‘good’ bloggers will follow their own individual codes regarding what they perceive as responsible behavior, ‘bad’ or ‘irresponsible’ bloggers will not follow any informal codes.

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