Swedish Embassy 04_29_2004 (unabridged 'sic')

Robert B Johnson Sleuth17@comcast.net 972.620.0290 4/29/2004 To All Concerned: As we begin to cross boundaries of loyalty, by speaking to an officer of a nation not my own (I am an American Citizen by birth,) it is appropriate to address any future questions by a small preamble. By including it, I do not think to tell you anything you do not already know, but only to document a basic uprightness of character, so that I may have an answer at any future date, as to my character and motives. Then I will proceed to the substance of my proposal, and you may be the judge of it. Our American government is a system not primarily responsible to logic or reason, but rather to a majority voice. The judicial system provides an appeal for any minority, provided their purposes are lawful... logicians among them. It is my duty not to neglect to voice dissent, if I find the law at odds with logic, but if I hope to effect political change, I am responsible for persuading enough people to my viewpoint, that we can make ourselves heard in terms of numbers. This process takes (among other things,) time. I have not had the foresight to lay the groundwork for the discussion we shall embark upon, and it turns out that it is relevant now. I expect that the abstract will have a short political shelf life, though it should remain true for any indefinite time to come. As such, I have determined to be your servant, and let you use my thoughts to what should be a common goal. I will take thought in future, how to work within the system, and choose not to make the mechanism which we now employ a repeatable process. I am not a diplomat, but I hope that what I will have to say could be of service to a person in that field. It is my understanding that the Prime Minister of Sweden is now in talks with President Bush on the subject of those persons held without recourse as terrorists. As dated above, today is April 29,2004, and I believe this is the case because of information on C-Span on 4/28. I did not see all of it, but I infer, since the Prime Minister of Sweden has taken an interest, that the interests of a Swedish Citizen are under discussion. Your interest here is self evident, and mine is this: by seeking the best interest of a Swedish Citizen, I will not easily be confused with a person who aligns his loyalties with states that sponsor terrorism. I am aware that I will not have enough time tomorrow to make my point on the phone, so I am burning the midnight oil, setting it down here, with a view to e-mailing it to you. I am not a person who feels the need for encryption commonly, but I have elected to employ an elementary substitution cipher, by converting the font to "Wing-ding." This will not defeat any serious analysis, but will afford you the discretion necessary for diplomacy, by escaping the notice of automatons such as Echelon. The long established practice of employing lawyers has its basis in logic. Any representation a person makes about himself is subject to the paradox of self reference. Famous examples include "Evaluate True or False: This statement is itself false." "Have you stopped beating your wife?" And "Can God create a rock so big, that he cannot lift it?" It is appropriate then, that a person have representation in any case where he is called upon to "prove" a negative proposition. That this person should have special knowledge of laws in general, and have a trust-based standing with the court is a good addition, but added as an afterthought, not the reason that representation is a necessity. Our 5th and 6th amendments to the constitution reflect my point. I am not able to date them conveniently, but they come before the eleventh amendment which had been considered in its entirety by December 1797. The ruling in Miranda vs Arizona in 1966 did not really bear on the matter, except that it made them more famous than the Beatles, by requiring the state to prove universally that every person should be made aware of these rights. Nor is this discussion new to you. My discussion begins to be more novel as follows. In any case where self reference is a problem, there does exist one other appeal. Mathematicians call it the exhaustive algorithm. For example, if the crime in question should have taken place in Montana, and I can show by some vehicle or mechanism, from the moment of my birth to the present that I have never been in Montana, then I have satisfactorily shown that I did not commit the crime, even in that case in which I must become my own advocate. I did not commit it because I cannot commit it. Clearly this does not answer that class of crimes that I possibly could have committed and did not. Eventually, even the most creative application of the exhaustive algorithm will not suffice, though I be innocent in all respects. I enter into this discussion because this is the generically lawful motive of the investigator: he would like to compel the exhaustive algorithm as often as possible. In general, the American justice system has contented itself to date with the argument that even if we let some guilty go free (and increasingly more so over time, which dismays us,) we should never commit that injustice of incarcerating the innocent, if we afford them the correct defense, including but not limited to representation. Enter the discussion of terrorism. Here the wrong perceived is not against a person or corporation, but against the nation. The substance of the constitution that directs officers of the government to "provide for the common defense" would be thought to supercede amendments. Not only is the overhead of setting the guilty free an altogether more serious concern, but the seduction of compelling what I have called "the exhaustive algorithm" is in a class all its own. If every terrorist must tell all he knows, then no terrorist known to him is safe; if they cannot know each other, they cannot co-operate, and we have arrived at a real hope of abrogating terrorism. What the Swedish Government (and probably a majority of American Citizens) is sensitive to, is the potential for abuse. There appears to be no time limit on the pre-trial phase of detention, and the person is de-facto imprisoned, without a trial at all. Here is the bind in which Mr Bush finds himself. I suppose that he will owe a debt of gratitude to the person who solves his problem, and I suspect that he will not conceive it. If I were to obtain the audience and approval of our Supreme Court, I would have accomplished nothing... they do not make the laws. In order to persuade the law makers, I would have to convince them of its political advantage. To abbreviate, I despair of this. We are a nation of businessmen without time for Adam Smith, politicians without time for Machiavelli (who wrote what I believe to be the authoritative manual for oppressors,) Christians without time for the Bible, and redeemed only by Generals who will not neglect Tsun-Tzu. I would be of two minds about solving this problem for Mr Bush myself, without any reservation about solving it for the Office of the President. It turns out that the Prime Minister of Sweden is the person who has something to gain by presenting a solution, and so my thoughts below are submitted for your review. Not only will the alleged terrorist and the government benefit, but in the end all who will be suspected and accused in future, and the American Citizen. We do not want to make the process of "compelling the exhaustive algorithm" unavailable - it is our hope of fully up-rooting terrorism. We want to make those who exercise this authority accountable. To do so, we want to define: What office has authority to levy this charge? What criteria should govern those who populate its ranks. Can we formalize exactly who should makes the studied determination that charges should be brought? While the burden on the state might not rise fully to the level of indictment, it should equally well not be at the discretion of persons who in the end are not answerable. Can we formalize the class or list of crimes that we will investigate in this special and different way? Can we devise a case for this class, such that the person under investigation has a built in penalty for refusing to co-operate with "the exhaustive algorithm." For example, could we say "Whether in conjunction with a counselor or not, you will continue to be lawfully incarcerated until you have answered all questions on the record - truthfulness to be determined later." I realize this removes the discretion needed for diplomacy, but we hope to do this only in our above mentioned formalized class of terrorist threats. I believe that in forcing the issue, "compelling the exhaustive algorithm," we should make a reciprocal arrangement. Every question and its answer in this process should become part of a record, such that the accused should be able to appeal to it at some future date. In this imagined solution, where our hapless victim has run afoul of the system and become accused of terrorism, I think we can fairly define some finite, non-null time frame during which all relevant questions must be asked. If a person refuses to answer, they continue to be held, but if they answer all, I believe they should go free at the end of that time frame, if no formal charges have been brought. Those more trained than I in the conception of laws might be called upon to formalize exactly how the aforementioned record of questions should be accessible. I think we can agree that publishing it in the newspaper defeats the purpose, but defining it as a state secret removes the government's liability, and accountability fails. On short notice, I have no elegant suggestion here. However, it should be formalized. If charges are brought, and this person is found "not guilty," the state should be liable in some way. I truly think that this is the only way to enforce accountability. Certainly our model of punitive monetary damages has been seen to fail, and I will enumerate my thoughts on that at length, if asked. In designing the liability, it is well to remember that while a nation such a Sweden would never do this, a state that sponsors terrorism will see advantage to be had in generating false accusations against its own Citizens, only to have them found innocent later. So this mechanism should be designed with particular rigor, but we cannot safely fail to address it - it must be answered. Sir: I am sure that this rough draft can be refined upon, and I leave modifications and improvements in the hands of those who must be responsible. I suppose that neither I, nor any Swedish person can profitably write in the answers to these questions, when presenting them to the American Government. However, enumerating questions gives less offense than other avenues, and provides a starting point for those sincerely seeking a solution. I balance the arrogance of suggesting that I alone have discovered a solution where all others have failed, against the despair that neither have I been able to meet these others, nor does their voice appear to have been heard. I remain your humble servant, Rob Johnson