Justice served, for a price
Why are we so positively awful
at choosing our crusades and
naming our martyrs? The same
crippling logic that made 2 Live
Crew the center of the freedom of
speech debate has now cast
Orenthal James Simpson’s pound
of flesh as an indictment of the
American Judicial System.
There it is, the dead horse that
once was the stud we rode in the
name of Justice. It’s been thrown
into a barrel to be bitched will
corruption and god Money; hand
me the stick son, and let me get my
whacks in.
As the Nostradamus-esque Jello
Biafra once wrote; “We live in a
country that provides liberty and
justice for all those who can afford
it.”
Hans ot justice paintea green.
Once you’ve gone this freakshow,
there is no turning back. Regardless
of whether he actually committed
the crimes or not, a good chunk of
Americans were willing to go to
bat and say he did. What was
needed to heal the country was a
calm, clean, conclusive, defense,
not Vaudeville scare tactics,
genocide references and rampant
conspiracy theories resembling
mescaline-induced Oliver Stone
out-takes.
Johnnie Cochran can sit back
now and claim that the race card
was not played, but the cameras
made sure that we all saw it in the
deck, sandwiched between
Frederick Douglass quotations and
asinine calls for jury nullification.
Contrary to popular belief, the trial
was to see whether O.J. Simpson
murdered his wife, not to determine
whether he or the LAPD was the
more evil entity. Some cops are
fascist, racist, pigs. See, I can
assert that and it still does not
precipitate the guilt or innocence of
O.J. Simpson.
The whole thing boils down to
bad algebra. No matter how many
times Mr. Cochran would like to
Aaron McKain
“Hell, what's one more
dead American ideal."
push it into our skulls, there is no
correlation between X and Y. Mr.
Simpson’s acquittal will not change
anything and I pray, against all
reason, that the jurors were not so
gullible as to believe the claim that
their ballot would equal a reform of
the legal system.
If you’re a minority thinking this
media circus furthered your cause,
think again. Revenge, the other
white meat. I’d hate to be a black
man awaiting trial on a domestic
abuse case in the South this week.
They’ll be lynching so hard it’ll
make the reconstruction look like
“We Are The World.
Congratulations to those who
bought T-shirts with the winning
side, but don’t expect O.J. to be
inviting you over for Monday
Night Football anytime soon. 200
years of misery, struggle and
perseverance changed into a cheap
Get Out Of Jail Free card. Yeah,
he’s just like the common man,
give or take a few million dollars.
Bear with me O.J. supporters.
Even if he was not responsible for
the deaths of Ronald Goldman and
Nicole Brown Simpson, what does
this mockery of a trial really
prove? That twelve people, when
lied to and told that their ballot will
somehow radically change the
racist police state that is L.A., will
desperately cast their vote for
reform? I can’t blame the jurors,
my faith in mankind is too shallow.
In a Nixon linkage nightmare,
guilt became associated with a
powder keg of racial upheaval no
one wanted to be held responsible
for lighting. Would I have been
able to vote guilty once convinced
that my decision would
1) possibly start a riot and
2) serve as an affirmation of the
police’s totalitarian chokehold on
the citizenry.
Hell, what’s one more dead
American ideal.
I don’t know what the jury voted
on and we will never know exactly
what they ingested during the long
trial, but I do know that various
pollutants should have been kept
out of the courtroom to prevent
possible delusions from developing
within their minds; to keep their
decision from being trivialized and
easily discarded by a section of the
American public.
America is going to have the life
expectancy of a narc at a biker rally
if we don’t legitimize our system
by finding a mysterious killer who
stepped in, slaughtered two people
and then disappeared into the night.
We also really need a motive as to
why Mark Fuhrman, rather than
picking a random black man off the
streets to subdue his racist wrong
ful prosecution fix, decided to
frame one of the few people who
would have the resources necessary
to beat the rap.
You can’t find justice, it’ll find
you. Murder for fun and profit.
Between book deals and pay-per
view specials, it’s beginning to
look like crime, excuse me, being
wrongfully accused of a crime,
pays.
I smell a Jack Ruby overtime
play.
McKain is an undeclared sophomore and
a Daily Nebraskan columnist
innocent images, it was tne
name of the investigation, but it
didn’t describe what the FBI found
on Michael Shasky’s computer.
Instead, they found illegal child
pornography. What some may find
startling is that Shasky serves as a
State Patrol Trooper in the Ogallala
area. The FBI found the material
after a nationwide search of over a
hundred homes and offices.
The FBI certainly were within
their limits when they searched
Shasky’s computer. The images
they confiscated were legally
obtained and will be used against
Shasky when he goes to court later
this month.
But the overriding question
deals not with the FBI’s search but
this — who can access what you
have on your computer?
The answer is disheartening.
The services and access we pay for,
down to the last e-mail transmis
sion, do not actually belong to us.
Computer bulletin boards and
Internet use provide us with almost
instantaneous connection and
information. There is no arguing
their usefulness. Yet we often take
their privacy for granted.
I know I’ve never questioned
any of the letters I’ve sent hurtling
down the information superhigh
way. Most people haven’t. But the
fact remains that even material we
consider harmless could be cen
sored.
Most of it isn’t, of course.
America Online and Prodigy
probably won’t bother with my
letter to a friend vacationing in
Germany or care about any law
school information I might down
load.
However, these services do
reserve the right to remove mail,
examine bulletin boards and even
discontinue service if they feel a
user has overstepped their bounds.
If Exon and others have their
way, some of this material will
automatically be off limits to the
younger members of our society.
We will see services such as “Net
Nanny” take over for parents who
Krista Schwarting
“Better that several
offensive statements go
uncensored than one
truly original idea go
unnoticed. ”
don’t have the time or interest to
regulate what their kids tap into on
the computer after school.
Anne Wells Branscomb, in her
book “Who Owns Information?”
states for once and for all that we
can’t take privacy for granted, even
in the comfort of our own home.
If you use a UNL e-mail account
be aware that the university has the
right to examine your mail periodi
cally if it wants to. Again, it
probably wouldn’t without good
reason, but it’s within its rights.
Any business has the ri^t to
access your e-mail sent or received
at work. The reasoning is simple;
when you log onto their system, the
first thing you’re likely to see is a
one-sentence release asking you to
accept their use conditions before
continuing. The same applies even
with services you pay for the right
to use.
With the vast, largely untapped
resources of the information
superhighway stretching out before
us, it’s ludicrous to think that it all
can be controlled. I don’t believe it
can. At some level, people still '
have to have the freedom to write
what they want in their e-mail and
check out just about anything
floating around on the World Wide
Web.
When I first heard about what
the new technology could do, I
thought it might be one last chance
at an uncensored environment. I
was, naively, wrong.
I don’t have a problem with a
service, either free or paid, watch
ing over what happens under their
auspices. Branscomb clarifies that
such supervision can actually
protect users from having unwanted
mail stuffed in their box.
I think there isn’t any place
where free speech could exist more
freely than online. Although the
First Amendment continues to
protect our rights to speak and
demonstrate, the Internet would
provide that service in a relatively
anonymous and comfortable
environment.
A service needs to be instituted
for people to speak without any
chance of censorship. It means that
people who log on must take the
chance of being offended by
something that is said without
chastising the owner of that
service.
Better that several offensive
statements go uncensored than one
truly original idea go unnoticed.
It’s not a practical theory. But as
we type into the great wide open, it
would be helpful to know we stand
no chance, even a small one, of
having our words removed before
others have a chance to read and
respond. I’d be willing to risk being
offended if it meant being heard.
My idea certainly isn’t PC, and j
it still wouldn’t prevent people like
Shasky from their illegal activities.
Those who favor regulation would
say such a service opens up the risk
for other illegal actions like drug
deals.
Like the justice system, we have
to look at the balance. Freedom of
speech always poses risks. But are
they risks we’re willing to take?
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