Hard to believe but apparently true : Top Pentagon lawyer Jeh Johnson informed the Senate Armed Services Committee today that the Obama Administration might decide to continue imprisoning detainees indefinitely, even if they were charged with a crime, tried and acquitted. The new assertion of presidential authority is staggering. Previously the Bush Administration had held the detainees for years without trial, and claimed the right to hold them basically forever, which the Obama Administration endorsed. But trials were avoided for lack of evidence. President Obama had previously defended the release of detainees ordered to be let go by the courts by insisting there was nothing he could do after the court ruled. Not so now, it seems, and the lack of evidence is no obstacle because even if the trial fails, the president can simply overrule the court and keep the innocent detainee anyhow. Johnson said the detainees held despite being found not guilty in court would be permitted “some for...

What a surprise : “President Obama may mouth very different rhetoric,” said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “He may have a more complicated process with members of Congress. But in the end, there is no substantive break from the policies of the Bush administration.” I'd say it was worth reading in its entirety, but by this point you either get it or you don't: President Obama is shaping up to be essentially just as authoritarian, just as cavalier about civil liberties, and just as dangerous to the Constitutional rule of law as somebody else with whom we recently parted company. But his supporters, much like the Stepford Republican faithful who followed Dubya over the cliff, mostly don't give a damn as long as he keeps them happy with domestic Bread and Circuses .

Unlike the Missouri Information Anaylysis Center, the Delaware fusion center (Delaware Information Analysis Center) flies mostly below the public radar. Since opening in late 2005, news stories about DIAC have been sparse, partly because investigative reporting in the First State is a non sequiteur, and partly because Captain William Harris (who oversees the center) is a bright guy who understands that it is in his best interest to operate quietly. Harris did make one interesting comment in the only News Journal story to appear on DIAC, back in May 2007: The facility, known as the DIAC, opened in December 2005 with help from a $925,000 grant from the federal Department of Homeland Security to buy high-powered computers, software and other equipment. It is overseen by Delaware State Police Capt. Bill Harris, who asked that its exact location, somewhere between Dover and Smyrna, not be disclosed.... "The fusion process is to take law enforcement information and other information -...

Warning: Don't read unless you're willing to become ... very angry. From Classically Liberal : Apparently the Galveston police got a phone call that some white prostitutes were seen on a certain street corner. The cops love to shakedown prostitutes, prostitutes tend not to shoot back and sometimes the cops get free blow jobs to conveniently forget to finish the arrest. Of course, the bozos in uniform went to the wrong street. Meanwhile a peaceful family was preparing things for the kids to head to school the next morning. The circuit breaker went out and Emily Milburn asked her 12-year-old daughter to go outside and switch it back on. Dymond Milburn did as her mother requested. But as she got outside a dark van pulled up and three men jumped out and grabbed the girl. They started pulling toward the van saying: “You’re a prostitute. You’re coming with me.” The terrified child began screaming for her father and trying to fight back. So the men, far bigger than her, covered her m...

... because, after all, people ingesting alcohol shouldn't have to put up with drug users in their midst, should they? From the BBC : Pub-goers in Aberdeen are facing a drugs test before entering bars as part of a crackdown by Grampian Police. Officers in the force will be the first in Scotland to use an Itemiser - a device which can detect traces of drugs from hand swabs in a matter of seconds. The test is voluntary, but customers will be refused entry if they do not take part. They could be searched and even arrested if traces are found. The device was trialled by the police force in the area earlier this year. The Itemiser allows police officers or door staff to swab customers hands as they enter a pub or club. It can tell almost instantly if drugs are present - including cocaine, cannabis, heroin and ecstasy. The device can show three possible results: green, amber or red. Customers who get a green reading are allowed entry to the pub, those who get amber are given a drug infor...

... and now Radley Balko has confirmed it: In the 1976 case U.S. v. Martinez-Fuerte, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that contra the Fourth Amendment, the government can set up roadblock checkpoints within 100 miles of the nation's borders in order to check for illegal immigrants and smuggling. The Court ruled that if the stops are brief, limited to that purpose, and not fishing expeditions, the minimal invasion to personal privacy is outweighed by the government's interest in protecting the border. The ACLU says that since September 11, 2001, the government has been steadily stretching the limits of Martinez, to the point where the Department of Homeland Security is using that case and the terrorism threat to conduct more thorough, more invasive searches at dozens of checkpoints across the country. With 33 checkpoints now in operation, we're not exactly to the point of "Ihre Papiere, bitte" Berlin yet, but the ACLU does warn that the area of the country 100 miles...

New blogs take time to develop a personality, so checking back periodically is a necessary exercise, as with Brian Shields' The Mourning Constitution , where he has the first original thought about wire-tapping I've seen yet. Brian points out that the government claims it will only tap international calls. Then he reminds you of the last time you dialed an 800-number for customer service and ended up speaking to Vhopal, India. After that: Say you have a situation with John Druglord is in Arizona making a phone call to Joe Drugdealer in Sacremento. They plan on coordinating a distribution of a large number of goods. The feds want to catch these two and make a big drug bust. Now, if they wanted to, the feds could tell the telecom company to reroute all of John Druglord's phone calls to a server overseas, and re route them back into the US on it's way to Joe Drugdealer's phone. It would take literally milliseconds. On the way back into the country, the feds would have...

The NY Times reports yet another reason why having Democrats in control of Congress is no better than big government Republicans running the show, you just get a lot more whine with your cheese. These people are just gutless, spineless liars. At least the Bushie Republicans are straight-up fascists. The Democrats bitch and pretend otherwise, and then show their true colors with their actions. Pelosi and Hoyer are disgraces. Both are what is wrong with Washington. Entrenched lifer insiders cutting deals to protect corporate and statist interests, civil liberties and the public interest be damned. Ex post facto immunity for major telecoms' trampling the Constitution as useful tools for a rogue imperial now-lame duck president, on his way out the door. Of course, they have let Bush and his henchman get away with murder, too craven to impeach the son-of-a-bitch...why not help their telecom lobbyist pals out of a jam, too? The money line : "I think the White House got a better...

. . . . then you need to read this . And then take a few minutes to think about the comparison. No, the only hint I'm going to give you is that I found it at Waldo's.

Dear Yoani , I love to read your site. I read it in English and Spanish. I want to tell you sister...you might as well be writing about Glorious Conservative Cultural Revolution that is George W. Bush's America. A prolonged public flagellation is exactly what we need- all across the Americas until we can all cooperate together to make our hemisphere more peaceful and better for normal people. I mean, if your site is at all an accurate picture of life in Cuba, we are quickly becoming exactly the same as Cuba.....no one ever apologizes for anything, instead, they say things like "well we know there are problems, but what can we do, there are always going to be problems...." Or the "economy is not so bad" when over 47 million people live in desperate poverty another 120 million in real hardship...... With the obvious historical differences the cultural attitude is identical, the scary thing however is that it does not come from the left in America. It comes from th...

. . . because while I loved the album, I fell asleep during the movie of The Wall . Who could forget, "HEY! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!" Apparently not the Media Awareness Project , which has one of the best intellectual dissections of what's wrong with random drug testing of American students, including this gem: None of this is to say random drug testing is totally indefensible. It's just that the following defenses don't pass muster: * If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. This is the single most odious line of reasoning ever concocted because it misses the point. People, including students, are not required to prove they've done nothing wrong. * For safety's sake. Though the safety message is appealing, at its heart, drug testing isn't about safety. It's about control. It is worth noting students are not police officers, airline pilots, doctors or even teachers. They shouldn't be forced to choose between priva...

. . . which is not exactly a big surprise. Here's the gist of the inane editorial arguing that the Feds should be allowed to collect DNA from everyone arrested for a Federal crime : DNA is simply the 21st-century version of 19th-century fingerprint technology. In addition, DNA from both a victim and the accused can be invaluable proof of whether a charged or convicted suspect is actually guilty of a crime. Fingerprints can't do that. It is easy to see where civil libertarians can be wary of government compilation of such data. But the good that it can do in law enforcement overrides the fears of potential abuse. Besides, creating a database of everyone's personal health profile would be complicated, extremely time-consuming and expensive. The new federal rules for use of DNA apply only to those arrested or convicted of federal crimes. But 13 states, with California soon to join, have already agreed to start collecting DNA information for those arrested or convicted of stat...

. . . and that's something the government should be able to regulate. A scenario: a woman is married in the Catholic Church, abused by her spouse, and later seeks a civil divorce. She does not go through the church for an annulment. Later, she meets another man and is married to him by a Methodist minister. Are they married? The Catholic Church, which does not recognize divorce and has not granted an annulment, would say, "No." The State in which the Methodist minister performs the ceremony, however, says, "Yes." These two individuals are recognized by the State as legally joined in economic, social, and legal terms. They are collectively responsible for debts/taxes they incur. They own property together. They qualify automatically as next-of-kin in health-related situations. They are co-guardians of any children they have or adopt. They qualify for spousal benefits on health insurance. The Catholic Church still says they aren't married--and in a r...

. . . . and this time it's the public school system in Safford AZ, where a pre-pubescent middle school girl was forced by administrators to strip to her skivvies and then shake her breasts and pelvis to see if. . . a gun (no, that's not it). . . . a knife (no, not that, either). . . . but maybe some heroin (nope). . . . crack or even powdered coke (uh-uh). . . . or just a doobie (not even). . . . but (oh, yeah, now I remember) a single prescription 400mg Ibuprofen. Maybe they just should have water boarded the little (honors student) tramp. Thanks for this one, Becky .

From Vice Squad (via Drug War Rant ): Fortunately, this sort of thing could not happen in a country where juries provide the ultimate check on the power of the state to punish. The case just described, for instance, derives from some remote, tyrannous locale called "Wisconsin". The defendant was found guilty of possessing powdered cocaine -- a conviction that might have netted him three years in prison. He simultaneously was acquitted of a charge of possessing crack cocaine. The farsighted magistrate, the Solon of the Seventh Circuit, Judge John Shabazz, nevertheless sentenced the possessor of the unapproved substance(s) to 18 years in prison, relying on precedent that allows judges to alter sentences based on charges for which defendants are acquitted. The Supremes let the injustice stand. So let's see if I've got this right. I'm accused of tax evasion and first-degree murder. I'm acquitted of the murder charge, but can still get the chair because I was ch...

Real ID is a program that needs the careful attention of Americans concerned with their civil liberties. It basically creates a Soviet style internal passport that every American must show to get a job, do their work with the government, enter government buildings, etc. In some ways it is surprising to see that many states are adopting anti-Real ID legislation . I hope Delaware chooses to adopt anti-Real ID legislation in the same spirit because the idea of a national ID card in this way is a complete contradiction of what a free society is all about. Is that really somewhere we want to go? Yale University has an interesting take on the problems of National ID and how these are related to the genocide committed by Hitler , Pol Pot and others. If you examine the legislation closely , you see that it is the antithesis of being the "first state" because it removes all constitutional protections under the bill of rights . It is important to understand and remind our selves from ...

Steve wrote an interesting look at why someone like Pat Buchanan should not be painted with a broad condemnation brush and written-off solely based on his comments related to race. Buchanan gave a very interesting analysis * of the war issue and the larger ideological context in which it resides : [ * - Jeanne Kirkpatrick was a professor of mine at Georgetown University. From 1994-95 I studied in her courses 'Critique of Utopia' and 'Capitalism, Competition, and Democracy' .] I agree with everything Buchanan says in the video but do I agree with everything Buchanan says anywhere else I have heard him? Certainly not but it worries me not an iota because , as Steve mentioned, he is not elected and has no public power to wield over any of us. Nevertheless, as the above video attests, Buchanan has had valid and insightful ideas and analyses for many big questions, not the least of which was a very realpolitik critique of the Iraq war. Even more, his critique was based n...

I'd add something of my own to this, but I can't think of anything beyond giving Cara's post a new title: Al Sharpton and the NAACP Declare it Unfair to Hold Black Rapists and Torturers without Bail Read it and then wash carefully afterward.

Sometimes when you want to comment on a major story of the day, it's difficult to figure out what to say that's any more important than the thousands and thousands of posts floating out there on the Net. I mean, I'm a Libertarian, which practically requires me to have "cold, dead hands" tattooed on my forearm, doesn't it? In truth I do believe that not only does the 2nd Amendment assert the right of individuals to own firearms, but also signifies the inalienable right of American citizens to make the determination (with due appreciation for the consequences) to employ deadly force in self-defense. Yawn. So what? Not like this was news to anyone, right? Let's try a different approach, and assume for a moment that the DC gun ban had been passed by a majority vote of the citizens. How would that change things? Can a community actually vote to restrict or even a constitutional right within its borders? This is actually a more interesting question than it ...

Oops, looks like Steve beat me to an article, anyway, here is the video of Obama NOT disowning his Pastor for your enjoyment. Proving to us all that tolerance is a virtue that heals what divides the nation. Good stuff. Thanks Steve.