December 17, 2005 - Saturday

6 a.m. and the city crew has already swept through our end of Kaaawa emptying trash cans. There's nothing like an early start to the day.

Thanks to webmaster Ryan Ozawa for pointing out the discussion over at Hawaii Threads of the HPD "unathorized computer access" case.

Meanwhile, reader reaction here was mixed. Here's one:

Since you made a plea for comments... :)

I'm no lawyer, but that charge is not gonna stick---unless this guy has the worst lawyer ever. The "network" this guy used was part of his job. His access to the network was authorized. Obviously, the porno sites don't have any access restrictions beyond, at most, a valid credit card... None of the elements of the charge are there, according to the facts we have now.

His *USE* of the HPD network is where he went astray, but the law does not proscribe that. Start a termination process, sure, but don't try to put him in jail. I think he's being made into an example, since civil service termination cases are too hush-hush for anybody to thump their chest about them.

Another says:

I glanced through your rant on crimelization of misdeeds in the workplace and I just could not get past the post on my Earthlink homepage that said- Porn found in HPD Headquarters Computers - and I felt this pang of disgust at the indecency of the act and pity for the chief, oh there goes some more bags under his eyes. I wonder if SHOPO will decry for the porn perp's morale?

And another shared her own experience:

I agreed with what you said, by the way. At my last workplace, from which I retired last year, we were constantly snooped upon by the people who ran the computer system. I was told by others that at least one of them was always monitoring what everyone else was doing on their computers. They did let us send personal e-mails, as long as we didn't do it excessively. A lot of places won't even allow that. At one point they were going to take away that privilege, but one of the higher-ups told them, "I have two sons in college in California, and I need to be able to communicate with them during the day at times."

We were a relatively small organization, so it was easy for them to know if anyone was looking at "dirty pictures," etc. But there was always this knowledge that we were being monitored and we better be careful. A definite "big brother/sister is watching you" atmosphere.

A person just needs to get their own home computer, and even that doesn't have much protection, considering our current federal government administration. Even using my home computer, which has two different security systems, plus Road Runner's own, I always feel like just about anybody can access my computer at any time. Maybe I just learned that at work!

P.S. Glad to hear Leo continues to do better.

Speaking of government monitoring, I noted a story this morning about a Dartmouth student who made an inter-library loan request for Mao's "Little Red Book" as part of an assigned research project and earned himself a visit from two Homeland Security agents. Such is the state of intellectual freedom these days.

December 16, 2005 - Friday

It's the week before Christmas and down on the beach....well, that's where I found this little scene. Self-portrait in a colorful globe. Just another sign of the season here in Kaaawa. Click on the photo for a larger version.

And next week is also, by coincidence, the Winter Solstice, also a cause for celebration. But, wait. War has been declared on the solstice.

Virtually no feedback on my rant here yesterday on the criminalization of workplace misdeeds and prosecution under an incredibly vague statute aimed an "unauthorized" computer access.

Here's an interesting Editor & Publisher column taking apart reporting of the Florida shooting incident involving federal air marshalls. The facts, as is so often the case, deserve checking. Unfortunately, in this case, that responsibility was ducked by many in the media.

Checking out some recent links to this site led me to a discovery--Mr. Leo is representing the character "Thunderstep" in a web-based roleplay called Ghostclan.

Name: Thunderstep

Basic Personality: Very wise and noble. Thunderstep is feared by most cats beacause of his very tall muscular body. Yet, this tom is quite sweet and kind.

Other: Older than most warriors just not yet a senior warrior

You can find him by going to the Ghostclan list of characters and then scrolling down to Thunderstep/Leo.

By the way, Leo continues to feel better. He's now off the antibiotics, which hopefully will improve his appetite. The stitches come out tomorrow. Progress.

December 15, 2005 - Thursday

There's something very wrong with the yesterday's indictment of a Honolulu man for downloading sexual images while at work on a police department computer.

Although the attention in both the Advertiser and Star-Bulletin stories focus on the buzzword "pornography", he is not charged with anything related to pornography. Instead, he's charged with four felony counts of 2nd degree unauthorized computer access.

It isn't clear from the reporting, but it appears there weren't any pornography-related charges because the act of collecting these images may have been legal if it had been done in the privacy of his own home.

If that's the case, then this appears to be taking an act which violates a workplace policy and prosecuting it as a crime. That is a very dangerous precedent. If he improperly used his employer's computer for personal use, which appears to be the allegation, then he should have been subject to dismissal or discipline under workplace policies. But even losing your job doesn't involve felony charges.

It appears the charges are under this Hawaii statute:

[§708-895.6] Unauthorized computer access in the second degree. (1) A person commits the offense of unauthorized computer access in the second degree if the person knowingly accesses a computer, computer system, or computer network without authorization and thereby obtains information.

You can't get much broader or vaguer language than this. I could be wrong, but it appears this is a statute written to cover hackers who gain access to a computer system and extract information stored in that computer, such as personal data, confidential business data, passwords, credit card information, etc. In this case, the person was apparently authorized to use the computer, but accessed unapproved internet sites and downloaded information (otherwise legal images?).

If the charges stand, what's next? Most employers have policies against personal use of work computers. Check out those vacation air fares or order a couple of books from Amazon for weekend reading and, bingo, criminal unauthorized computer access? It's an employers dream!

Was this guy a union member? Where's the union on this one?

This case should not be allowed to move forward without a lot more explanation. If it is an attempt to criminalize workplace access to unathorized web sites, then it is a dangerous prosecution that impacts anyone who uses an employer's computer.

December 14, 2005 - Wednesday

Don't miss Doug White's annotated list of Lingle's big donors over at his blog, Poinography.com. Good work, Doug.

Standard & Poors has downgraded Hawaiian Telcom's debt in light of additional expenses associated with the delay in implementing its own back office operations. Meanwhile, Hawaiian Telcom owner Carlyle Group has been mentioned as a possible bidder for Knight Ridder, and has been on a buying spree with investments in Dunkin' Donuts, Hertz, a Swedish telcom provider, among others.

There was also a report last month that Carlyle provided VX nerve gas to Saddam Hussein in 1988 and 1989. Here's an excerpt from the original report from the November 14th entry in the Wayne Madsen Report.

November 14, 2005 -- US shipped deadly VX nerve gas to Saddam Hussein in 1988 and 89. In violation of UN Security Council Resolution 598, in 1988 and 1989, the Reagan-Bush administration shipped deadly binary VX nerve gas to Iraq for use in its bloody war with Iran. According to U.S. military intelligence officers on the ground in Iraq after the U.S. invasion of that country, the U.S. covered up the presence of documents and canisters clearly showing the U.S. origin of the nerve gas.

U.S. military intelligence personnel discovered VX gas canisters at the Bilad weapons site. The Iraqi official who took U.S. military intelligence officers to Bilad even had the American bills of lading for the nerve gas shipments. The bills of lading also showed the Carlyle Group as the facilitator of the nerve gas shipments. These documents were scanned and videos of the canisters, clearly showing the U.S. serial numbers, were stored on DVDs that are now held by the 223rd Military Intelligence Battalion in San Francisco. The canisters were physically removed by British units in Iraq.

Very interesting....

Meanwhile, it's just another sign of the season here in Kaaawa, decorations that appeared on a tree down on the beach a few days ago. No commentary, no big thing. Just an unexpected flash of color as we passed by.

December 13, 2005 - Tuesday

Yesterday morning's dawn walk was grey clouds and veils of rain dancing on the horizon until just a minute or two after the sun appeared over the horizon, transforming those curtains of rain into this streak of color.

Doug Thompson of Capitol Hill Blue writes of a recent meeting between the president and Republican congressional leaders to discuss the renewal of the Patriot Act.

“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”

According to Thompson, three people present at the meeting have confirmed Bush's dismissive reference to the constitution.

A very disturbing account in the context of Bush's simultaneous selection of a Supreme Court nominee who one suspects must at least partially reflects the president's viewpoint.

One reader reacted to Sunday's entry on "the Japanese situation".

Great conspiracy-around-every-corner piece - great list of "rumors" beginning on page 25! An equal opportunity offender!

I like the part about Japanese sampans being part of the Japanese Naval Reserve fleet, and the business about the Territorial government having to borrow buildings from Japanese language schools because the public education system seemed to be chronically short of classrooms ... sounded familiar.

But the classic sentence about government workers is a gem:

"It is necessary to reside a considerable length of time in the territory and thus become acquainted with the situation to fully realize the lack of coordination and the inability on various grounds to cooperate manifested by various federal and territorial officers."

Actually, some people might say you don't have to live here very long at all to figure that out!

Time for another dose of Kaaawa's morning dogs that we've come to know on our daily dawn walks. We've been trying to broker an adoption of this incredibly sweet dog, but several attempts have been floundered. We're still trying. In any case, just click on her photo for this whole batch.

December 12, 2005 - Monday

It probably passed under the radar of most people, but yesterday's Honolulu Advertiser served up an amazing example of the cooptation of critical concepts by powerful interests that then use those concepts in exactly the opposite of their original meaning and intent.

In this case it was the Advertiser's special advertising supplement for the Honolulu Board of Realtors, the "Aloha Aina Realtor Awards Program 2005".

One thing is clear. The process of turning land into a commodity, profiting from its sale and "development" in a process driven by greed is the exact opposite of what Hawaiians would describe as Aloha Aina. These are conflicting concepts at their roots, and it's amazing that the Board of Realtors has managed to wrap their profession in the cloak of this almost mystical religious and cultural relationship to land.

The modern use of "aloha aina" first appeared in the weeks after the initial protest landing on Kahoolawe in 1976. Compare the idea of the professional buying and selling of land with this early leaflet from the "Protect Kahoolawe Aloha Aina Ohana". Planets apart.

From a reader:

Subject: Kapolei City Lights
Best line of the night:

The Mayor was on stage (Saturday night) with VIPs of one kind or another, and he had lined up "special guests" to come up and push the button to turn on the lights display at Kapolei Hale - the city hall for Kapolei. He asked outgoing fire chief Atilio Leonardi to do the honors - but first gave the chief the opportunity for a few "last remarks" before he officially retires at years end. The chief heaped praise on his firefighters and sent out best wishes to his successor - and then said:

"So, Mr. Mayor, how we gonna light up this tree? Anybody got a match?"

Saturday's return to the vet resulted in good news for Leo. His temperature is normal, an ultasound exam found his bladder looking better and his endangered kidney okay. Everything looked good. Or what passes for relatively good under these circumstances. We're still struggling to find an acceptable combination of food that will reduce his exposure to these microscopic crystals and that he likes or will eat without too much fussing. We've given up on the strictest and most beneficial diet, and now just hope for a reasonable compromise. But he's doing pretty well just ten days after this emergency surgery. We even allowed him to start going outside yesterday, although I'll probably let him spend the day inside while we're in town, just in case.

December 11, 2005 - Sunday

I spent Friday night at Kaaawa School's Christmas program, a delightful combination of stories, dance, food, and obvious anticipation. Getting good pictures of kids seems to be something like catching photos of cats, a matter of waiting for that special look and then a bit of luck. I wouldn't normally post so many photos, but everyone seems to enjoy looking at them.

This next item should have been ready for December 7, but I just didn't get to it in time. It's a memo dredged up from the National Archives, dated October 11, 1920, and titled, "Estimate of the Japanese situation as it affects the Territory of Hawaii, from the military point of view." It is signed by a Lt. Colonel George Brooke. Two decades before the attack on Pearl Harbor and 11 years before the Massie case, it describes Japan as poised for war and ready to gobble up these islands, aided by "hosts of aliens, of radicals, of pacifists and of renegades of every sort and description now rampant in the United States...." Sort of the great grand-daddy of the O'Reilly Factor.