If you’re in the Fleet Center and need to upload photos to your server, it seems a heck of a lot faster here in the Press Filing Room on the third floor: I’m getting uploading speeds of 90-150 kB/s down here.

There’s also no filter on outgoing SSH down here, so you can SSH to your server, use SCP/SFTP to upload, or set up tunnels and port forwards to secure your traffic.

I went along to the Joe Moakley Courthouse at 2:00 p.m. to attend a hearing in American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, et al. v. MBTA. It was my first time in a working courtroom, and my first non-Law and Order experience of the U.S. court system.

Apparently (from the several mentions made in the hearing itself), federal courthouses, although open to the public, have been deemed a special area where citizens must consent to search of themselves and their belongings to gain entry. At the Moakley Courthouse, I had to check my laptop, camera and cell phone. This left me with the clothes on my back, and a pen and paper. Kind of comforting, actually.

The hearing was in Courtroom 9, on the third floor. The Courthouse itself is a even more stunning inside than it is outside. Of course you’ll never know that, because I couldn’t take a photo. But here’s the outside:

While I was waiting for the hearing to begin, I had a chat with a local radio reporter. He was convinced the judge wouldn’t grant the injunction against searches on subways and buses because, he said, “no federal judge would ever do something anti-security in this day and age.”

When the courtroom opened, shortly before 2:00 p.m., it quickly filled up with various reporters, supporters (of both sides) and members of both legal teams. At the top of the hour the clerk said “All Rise,” and Judge O’Toole entered.

Right off the top there was a request from the plaintiff (representing those seeking the injunction) to “approach the bench” (who knew this actually happened?). Much to my surprise, we in the audience could pick up bits and pieces of what was being said, although I couldn’t make any sense of it.

It became evident later on that the result of the “approach the bench” session was to narrow the scope of the hearing to just the searches on the Orange Line at Haymarket and Community College stations, and on the buses that pass along the I-93 expressway when it’s closed to other traffic.

After three or four minutes of this, everyone returned to their seats, and the judge heard from Michael Avery, for the plaintiff.

After prefacing his arguments by saying “on the surface” the practice of searching “seems reasonable,” he went on to explain why, in the view of the plaintiff “after more thoughtful analysis,” it isn’t.

The heart of this issue, from his perspective, is the Fourth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

He characterized the MBTA searches as “suspicionless searches” and suggested they were unreasonable because:

• The buses and subways in question don’t go near enough to the Fleet Center to be a danger to the Fleet Center especially with no evidence (filed with the court) to suggest that handheld luggage can contain enough explosives to damage the Fleet Center.
• There is no evidence that the searching will actually achieve its stated goal, even if explosives or other materials were found.
• The nature of the threat is non-specific.

He characterized the threat as “not substantial or real” and said that the searches were not “measures properly calibrated” to the threat.

He went on to describe the harm the searches inflict on what he called “Fourth Amendment Values.” Those being searched, he said, can refuse to be searched, but this results in being ejected from the transit system, possibly many miles from their destination. He said that the “physical exposure of possessions” is intrusive and intimidating, especially with “the way Boston Police are dressed these days.”

He concluded by asking that the injunction be enjoined.

Mr. Avery’s remarks were followed by a brief dialogue with Judge O’Toole, who posed a hypothetical question about whether, if it were helicopters (subject to the special provisions regarding search given air travel) involved instead of subways, would the objections stand. Avery’s response to this was to suggest that there is a large difference between air travel, which for most people is not a component of their everyday life, and public transit, which carries 1.1 million Bostonians a day through their daily lives. In other words, people who don’t want to be searched don’t have the practical option of “opting out.”

With this, Mr. Avery concluded, and Rudolph F. Pierce spoke for the MBTA, the defendent.

Mr. Pierce opened with the statement that “the MBTA doesn’t want to go out of its way to interfere with civil liberties” but said that the risk involved requires what he called a “measured response.”

Pierce said that the law recognizes “administrative search” and he questioned whether the characterization of the threat at hand, by the plaintiff, as “non-specific” was relevant: “how specific does the threat need to be?”

Pierce went on at some length about how the special circumstances of the Democratic and Repulican conventions demand special arrangements like the transit search, and said that were the MBTA to not have acted it would have been accused of “putting its head in the sand.”

He said that the MBTA had “taken measures to inform the public” and used a poster, brochure and newsletter as evidence of this:

At that point the Judge interjected, and there was a back-and-forth about whether the specific measures taken on the Orange Line represented a different practice than that taken on the rest of the transit system. Pierce said it was “part of the same policy” — that the policy allowed for search of any bag anywhere on the system but that the Orange Line represented a special area of interest. The Judge asked whether it would be appropriate, perhaps, to bring in representatives of the Secret Service, Dept. of Homeland Security or the FBI if in fact the special Orange Line measures were “ordered” by one of those agencies.

Pierce summed up by saying that “the court has to recognize that we are in different times” and that “police in a civil society need to do everything they can.”

Before concluding, Mr. Avery was allowed an additional comment, and that was that the 4th Amendment was passed when “the new republic was hanging in the balance.” He characterized the 4th Amendment as being conceived of precisely for times like these — a measure, in other words, to ensure against unreasonable measures during “different times.”

At the close of the hearing, the Judge said he would “take the matter under advisement” and adjourned.

I just came into the Fleet Center after taping an interview with Eileen Sharon Dempsey, a science reporter who contributes to Spectrum, an English-language program on the German Deutsche Welle radio network. She was interested in the technology behind the blogger setup at the convention — WiFi, etc. We had a good chat.

Coming in to check my email, I see another request from Deutsche Welle, this time for a story about bloggers on their website.

Perhaps the weirdest thing that’s happened with the “other media” today is a call from David Folkenflik at the Baltimore Sun: all he needed me to do was hand my cell phone to someone else (anyone) at the convention so as to verify that I was here. Apparently in the post-Jayson Blair era, he’s required to verify that the “blogger at the DNC” he might write about is, indeed, a “blogger at the DNC.” Comforting, in a way. But still weird.

I’m not sure I’ve been able to get any real sense of what this convention is for.

I understand its role in history, and I understand its formal role in the presidential campaign. Which is to say that I understand that “there is a convention because there’s always been a convention.”

But I’ve been hard-pressed to find anything that comes close to resembling the kind of participatory democracy that I, perhaps naively, expected to find here.

This is not a national town hall meeting; it’s more akin to a televised debutante ball. I’m afraid that politics here in America is so abstracted from reality that it is, in fact, impossible to understand on a level other than the superficial.

Perhaps this is inevitable in a country as large, complex, and diverse as this. But I’ve a vague, depressing feeling that there may not actually anything of interest here. The convention, despite all appearances to the contrary, might not be newsworthy, if one takes that to mean that to be news something has to be more than simply self-reverential.

I talked with my mother this morning on the phone, and she said she was worried because I didn’t update here last night. So, for her benefit, here’s an update, and a recap of yesterday.

I was at the Fleet Center from about 1:00 p.m. to just after 10:00 p.m. I spent some of my time wandering around the areas my “Hall” pass allowed access to — the corridors, the media center, and the 7th floor arena seating. Anecdotal evidence suggest that other bloggers did likewise.

The convention proper was convened at 4:00 p.m., and the program from then until about 6:00 p.m. was mostly formal business: reports from various convention committees, etc. There was a break, and then things got started again at 7:00 p.m.

From that point, speakers were dolled in roughly increasing order of their Q score: Tom Menino, Al Gore, Glenn Close, Jimmy Carter, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Bill Clinton, Patti LaBelle, interspersed with various others for colour.

For the Clinton - Clinton - LaBelle sequence I’m afraid I have to rely on the evidence provided by others: by 10:00 p.m. my mind, on only two hours sleep and starved of food and drink, was starting to shut down. Comparing the possible effects of staying until the bitter end and fighting my way home with the teeming hordes vs. sneaking out early and going to bed, I choose bed.

Heading out into the cool Boston night, I felt almost exactly as I did when I landed in Seoul in 1998 after flying for 19 hours: completely drained, and almost unable to navigate. In Seoul I had brother Steve to guide me; last night, I flew on auto-pilot. I made it down to the Quincy Adams T station, caught the shuttle to my hotel, checked in, and fell immediately to sleep.

Until I was awoken by Matt Rainnie at 8:00 a.m. Which was probably a good thing because I would still be sleeping now otherwise.

I just picked up my credentials for today here at the Westin Copley Plaza. I’m taping an interview with Matt for this afternoon’s Main Street in about 25 minutes, and then I’m going to head over to the courthouse for the hearing.

More as things develop…

Apparently one is not allowed to take photographs inside ‘T’ stations. Riding the Red Line into Boston this morning, I transferred at the Park St. station. In the waiting area for the outbound Green Line were four soldiers, dressed in fatigues with ‘MP’ armbands. They were armed. And I tried to take their picture:

Travel writer and civil libertarian Edward Hasbrouck points out that there is an emergency hearing today in American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, et al. v. MBTA. The hearing, reports Edward, concerns “the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction against unwarranted searches without probable cause of passengers on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) public transit system.”

I just got off the phone with the District Court: the hearing is still on, and is open to the public. It’s being held at the Joe Moakley Courthouse, which is within walking distance of the DNC. It starts at 2:00 p.m. and the court clerk recommended showing up by 1:45 p.m. You will need photo ID to enter the court, and laptops and cameras are not allow in the courtroom (but can be checked at the door).

I’m going to head over to the Westin Copley Place now to pick up my credentials, and then over to the courthouse.

Update: here’s the complaint and here’s the motion.

Here is a rough transcript of a conversation I had with Matthew Rainnie this morning at 8:00 a.m. (Matthew is the host of CBC Radio’s Main Street):

Matt: Hey, Peter, it’s Matt Rainnie. Hope I didn’t wake you up.

Peter: No, not at all. What’s up? Matthew Rainnie — who the hell is Matthew Rainnie? Where am I? What time is it? Was I sleeping? Who the hell is Matthew Rainnie?

Matt: Sorry for calling so early, man. I just wanted to see if we were going to be able to hook up with you today.

Peter: Oh, Matthew Rainnie. Yah. I’m in Boston. I was sleeping. I am now awake. Why am I so tired. Must sound intelligent. Must sound intelligent. Must sound capable of providing radio listeners with insight. Sure, yah, that would be great.

Matt: What time would be good for you?

Peter: Well… How does time work again? What time is it now? Holy shit, it’s 8:00 a.m. Time… Time… How about… How does that whole time zone thing work? I gotta get this right or he’ll know I’m still asleep… How about 1:00 p.m. your time?

Matt: You’re an hour behind us, right… how about 1:00 p.m. your time… what way Maritime Noon will be out of the studio.

Peter: Calculate… calculate… 1:00 p.m. my time is, oh yah, it’s just plain old 1:00 p.m. That sounds great.

Matt: Great, we’ll talk to you then…

Peter: Great. Who am I talking to again?

I have always prided myself on being one of those “even if they call me when I’m sound asleep, they won’t be able to tell” kind of guys, but I’m afraid I didn’t pull this off this morning.

Matthew Rainnie is not the devil, by the way. He’s very nice. Although I gotta say there was a brief period at the beginning of our phone call when I thought he was a motivational speaker from Tyne Valley. That was confusing.

Tune in to Main Street this afternoon (streamable from here) to hear the rest of the story…

EtherPEG lets you see all of the images flowing over your local network. Here’s a brief run of EtherPEG on the blogger WiFi network here in the Fleet Center:

I went to NBC’s website to find out what time their convention coverage starts. Here’s what I found:

This, my friends, is America.