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The PATRIOT Act and Libraries: A Sensitive Relationship
No full textThe sensitive relationship between libraries and the USA PATRIOT Act is back at the top of the headlines. In August, a “member of the American Library Association”, known only as “John Doe”, filed a federal lawsuit after receiving a National Security Letter (NSL) from the FBI. The NSL requested information from John Doe pursuant to an “authorized investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.” John Doe is prohibited from discussing the letter or even that they had received the letter John Doe’s lawsuit argues that the provisions of the PATRIOT Act governing NSLs violate the Constitution’s free speech provisions and protections against unreasonable searches. In particular, John Doe argues that the secrecy provision prevents him or her from relating their experiences with the PATRIOT Act as part of the public debate of the Act’s renewal. Most of the concern and debate on the PATRIOT Act’s impact on libraries has focused on Section 215 of the Act. This controversial provision allows government officials to obtain “any tangible things” during an intelligence or terrorism investigation, including library and bookstore records. The Act also requires the recipient of a request to keep it secret. Section 215 is due to expire in December, 2005. However, there are several proposals to extend and modify this section currently being debated in Congress. Section 215 is not unlimited. The law provides that searches which target U.S. citizens cannot be based only on activities protected by the first amendment, such as reading or speech. The law also requires that a subpoena be obtained from a designated federal court judge, who reviews the subpoena request to ensure that it complies with the law. Although this process has been criticized for its secrecy and overwhelming history of approving subpoena requests, there is at least some judicial review
Evolution of China's U.S. Policy (1965-72): Prelude to the Economic Reform?
No full textChina embarked on its grand economic reform in 1978, and the resulting economic performance has impressive by any standard. Many have accredited China's apparent success to the "gradualism" or patience in its reform agenda. But equally important is China's reform "sequence", which began in staple food production before spreading to other sectors of the economy. What has been absent in the literature is the explanation of why China started with the staple food sector, and why China embarked on the reform in the first place. This study traces China's early reform (the agricultural production) to her realization and abandonment of the self-reliant agriculture policy in the early 1970s. This self-reliance had been China's central ideology and main objective since the 1950s. We study China's attitude towards the U.S. via the line-struggle between different fractions within the Chinese Communist party during this period (1965-72). We further quantify the evolution of China's U.S. policy by examining the anti-U.S. propaganda in Chinese publications
Congress Extends USA PATRIOT Act by 1 Month
No full textOn the last day of the 2005 legislative session, the U.S. Congress passed Senate Bill 2167, which extended the existing USA PATRIOT Act by one month. The Act’s provisions, which had been set to expire on December 31, 2005, will now set to expire on February 3, 2006. The passage of the extension maintains the status quo represented by the existing USA PATRIOT Act for a few weeks. However, the objections and concerns raised by critics of the PATRIOT Act are also maintained as well. The one-month extension allows both supporters and critics a bit of time to regroup. However, with such a short time to the next deadline, the political storm surrounding the Act is unlikely to die down
On thought experiments: Is there more to the argument?
No full textThought experiments in science are merely picturesque argumentation. I support this view in various ways, including the claim that it follows from the fact that thought experiments can err but can still be used reliably. The view is defended against alternatives proposed by my cosymposiasts. Copyright 2004 by the Philosophy of Science Association. All rights reserved
Being Nothing: George W. Bush as Presidential Simulacrum
No full textThis article was first published by c-theory.net and can be read in English there. It is # 144. The article has been translated into Polish, Italian, and Portugese. This is the Portugese version
Einstein’s Investigations of Galilean Covariant Electrodynamics prior to 1905
No full textEinstein learned from the magnet and conductor thought experiments how to use field transformation laws to extend the covariance to Maxwell’s electrodynamics. If he persisted in his use of this device, he would have found that the theory cleaves into two Galilean covariant parts, each with different field transformation laws. The tension between the two parts reflects a failure not mentioned by Einstein: that the relativity of motion manifested by observables in the magnet and conductor thought experiment does not extend to all observables in electrodynamics. An examination of Ritz’s work shows that Einstein’s early view could not have coincided with Ritz’s on an emission theory of light, but only with that of a conveniently reconstructed Ritz. One Ritz-like emission theory, attributed by Pauli to Ritz, proves to be a natural extension of the Galilean covariant part of Maxwell’s theory that happens also to accommodate the magnet and conductor thought experiment. Einstein's famous chasing a light beam thought experiment fails as an objection to an ether-based, electrodynamical theory of light. However it would allow Einstein to formulate his general objections to all emission theories of light in a very sharp form. Einstein found two well known experimental results of 18th and19th century optics compelling (Fizeau’s experiment, stellar aberration), while the accomplished Michelson-Morley experiment played no memorable role. I suggest they owe their importance to their providing a direct experimental grounding for Lorentz’ local time, the precursor of Einstein’s relativity of simultaneity, and do it essentially independently of electrodynamical theory. I attribute Einstein’s success to his determination to implement a principle of relativity in electrodynamics, but I urge that we not invest this stubbornness with any mystical prescience
How Hume and Mach Helped Einstein Find Special Relativity
No full textIn recounting his discovery of special relativity, Einstein recalled a debt to the philosophical writings of Hume and Mach. I review the path Einstein took to special relativity and urge that, at a critical juncture, he was aided decisively not by any specific doctrine of space and time, but by a general account of concepts that Einstein found in Hume and Mach’s writings. That account required that concepts, used to represent the physical, must be properly grounded in experience. In so far as they extended beyond that grounding, they were fictional and to be abjured (Mach) or at best tolerated (Hume). Einstein drew a different moral. These fictional concepts revealed an arbitrariness in our physical theorizing and may still be introduced through freely chosen definitions, as long as these definitions do not commit us to false presumptions. After years of failed efforts to conform electrodynamics to the principle of relativity and with his frustration mounting, Einstein applied this account to the concept of simultaneity. The resulting definition of simultaneity provided the reconceptualization that solved the problem in electrodynamics and led directly to the special theory of relativity
A Material Theory of Induction
No full textContrary to formal theories of induction, I argue that there are no universal inductive inference schemas. The inductive inferences of science are grounded in matters of fact that hold only in particular domains, so that all inductive inference is local. Some are so localized as to defy familiar characterization. Since inductive inference schemas are underwritten by facts, we can assess and control the inductive risk taken in an induction by investigating the warrant for its underwriting facts. In learning more facts, we extend our inductive reach by supplying more localized inductive inference schemes. Since a material theory no longer separates the factual and schematic parts of an induction, it proves not to be vulnerable to Hume's problem of the justification of induction
Causation as Folk Science (Italian Translation)
No full textI deny that the world is fundamentally causal, deriving the skepticism on non-Humean grounds from our enduring failures to find a contingent, universal principle of causality that holds true of our science. I explain the prevalence and fertility of causal notions in science by arguing that a causal character for many sciences can be recovered, when they are restricted to appropriately hospitable domains. There they conform to a loose collection of causal notions that form a folk science of causation. This recovery of causation exploits the same generative power of reduction relations that allows us to recover gravity as a force from Einstein's general relativity and heat as a conserved fluid, the caloric, from modern thermal physics, when each theory is restricted to appropriate domains. Causes are real in science to the same degree as caloric and gravitational forces
Causation as Folk Science
No full textI deny that the world is fundamentally causal, deriving the skepticism on non-Humean grounds from our enduring failures to find a contingent, universal principle of causality that holds true of our science. I explain the prevalence and fertility of causal notions in science by arguing that a causal character for many sciences can be recovered, when they are restricted to appropriately hospitable domains. There they conform to a loose collection of causal notions that form a folk science of causation. This recovery of causation exploits the same generative power of reduction relations that allows us to recover gravity as a force from Einstein's general relativity and heat as a conserved fluid, the caloric, from modern thermal physics, when each theory is restricted to appropriate domains. Causes are real in science to the same degree as caloric and gravitational forces