Mea Culpa

Ramesh Ponnuru is right, and I'm wrong. Mostly. He lays out his case here, and he's correct: much of the language I cited in the Patriot Act was there in the pre-amended version of Title 18 as well. So it's not true, as I wrote, that the Patriot Act "expands" the definition of terrorism to include hacking. It would be more accurate to say it expands the definition of hacking, along with the government's ability to surveil and prosecute hackers. The fact that it does this under the heading "cyberterrorism" might raise some eyebrows, but it was a mistake to treat that as a significant development in itself.

So:

1. Please ignore that perturbed blog entry I wrote earlier today.

2. If you haven't looked at my article on moral panics yet, go ahead and read it, but when you come to the part where I say the Patriot Act expands the definition of terrorism to include computer hacking, just shake your head and ignore me.

3. For more details on what's going on in that cyberterrorism section of the Patriot Act, and elsewhere in the law, go here.

Comments

[Andrew Lynch]

Few things build trust among readers as much as the writer who admits he was wrong. Thanks, Jesse, you're awesome.

[Brady]

"it takes a big man to admit when he's wrong"

only wish more people had the self respect to do the same.

[Zathras]

Ha! Let's see the trained professional journalists at The New York Times admit it when they get something wrong.

[joe]

The New York Times runs more corrections than any other paper in America. They actually published a book of them recently.

[Anonymous]

I've never made a mistake. I thought I did once, but I was wrong.

----------------------------------------------------------

It takes a big man to admit that he made a mistake, but it takes an even bigger man to laugh at that man.

[Andrew Lynch]

Ray, which puerile banter are you refering to?

[Anonymous]

ok, two people hav tried it and both messed it up:

I've only been wrong once -- that time I thought I made a mistake.

[Rory Daulton]

Skip and Kevin,

I have seen National Review make a number of corrections in the last four months, some of them in the last week. And Skip, just what are you talking about?

[Forbes Tuttle]

Always important to set the record straight.
Now, how about a discussion of the alleged curtailments of civil liberties due to the Patriot Act. I know CATO has done some barking, as Reason has--but I also read Heather MacDonald in the current issue of City Journal (see: http://www.city-journal.org/html/13_3_straight_talk.html). As I understand it, investigative tecniques already in place, i.e. wire taps, search warrants et.al., for use in organized crime were extended to counter-terrorism. I don't find that unreasonable, but if there were some overstepping, let's correct it. Pre-9/11, we were stuck in the 1970s with Sen. Frank Church's "reforms" of intelligence procedures, as I think, the Moussaui (sp?) investigation proves out. Maybe someone can point out a well reasoned critique of Patriot. I'm open-minded, but I'm just tired of this "they can search your library records" rhetoric.

[Todd Tharp]

Jesse:

Thank you for being intellectually honest. It is nice to see humility from those advocating political views and opinions.

The PATRIOT act's name tells me enough to be highly suspicious. My spidey 'sucker alert' senses tingle...

[Anonymous]

Forbes: See Julian Sanchez's article from earlier this week:

http://www.reason.com/links/links090203.shtml

[Todd Fletcher]

If I'm ever wrong about something, I hope I'll be as classy about it as Jesse!

[Ken]

My father-in-laws name is Ramesh. As a rule of thumb, anyone named Ramesh is always right. If you'd known this going into it, you wouldn't have gotten egg on your face. On the flip side, people named Ken are almost always wrong, ask Ramesh

[Kevin Carson]

And that should probably be a "Mea Minima Culpa," Jesse, since the expansion of the definition of hacking should cause pretty much the same degree of alarm.

...the Patriot Act 'expands' the definition of terrorism to include hacking. That's only nine little words out of how many?

[Anonymous]

I thought I was wrong once. Turned out I was right.

[Skip Oliva]

I wonder if a National Review writer would be as forthright in making a correction.

[Kevin Carson]

Skip,

It's been four months and they haven't yet. The Prince of Darkness is expressing misgivings from France, so I guess that's something.

[Ray]

Hats off to Jesse, that shows a lot of character.

And the rest of you grow up. You're dumping on Jesse's moment of nobility with your puerile banter.

[Rick Barton]

Kudos to Jesse Walker. It is to his great credit that both accuracy and honor are important to him. This display of character is all too rare in political debate these days, but when we do witness it, we shouldn't be suprised that it's source is an editor of a publication such as Reason.

Also, let us not lose sight of the multiple threats that the Patriot Act continues to pose to our liberty, and that the preservation of that liberty may well be dependent upon the rolling back of Patriot and resisting the implementation of any further versions.

[Forbes Tuttle]

Thanks for the above (10:05pm) post.

[Bradford W. Short]

I have only one thing to say on this subject. Concerning the statement "I wonder if a National Review writer would be as forthright in making a correction." In early 2001, Ramesh Ponnuru wrote a great piece harshly criticizing Paul Krugman...that had one large error in it. He wrote a correction in either the next issue of NR or the one thereafter. All this occurred in the winter/spring of 2001. It can easily been seen if one takes a look at those back issues of NR. In fact Mr. Walker's language: "Ramesh Ponnuru is right, and I'm wrong," I think mirrors closely Mr. Ponnuru's language in his correction in 2001. This episode confirms my general distaste for "Reason" magazine, although I readily admit that Mr. Walker's correction is an honorable act.

-Bradford W. Short-
-Student, Fordham Law School-