Bill Richardson Pushes to Implement N.M.'s
Medical Pot Law

post from TalkLeft on 19 August 2007 11:50:00 PM. © TalkLeft

Drug War Rant reports Bill Richardson refuses to be bullied by the D.E.A. and has been actively trying to implement New Mexico's medical marijuana law. (Background here.)

He's directed state officials to continue to work toward finding a way to implement the law, and has written a letter to the President urging him to end the "White House Office of National Drug Control Policy's misguided priority and wasted resources spent to intimidate states trying to implement medical marijuana programs."

From Richardson's letter to Bush, which he posted on his website.

I am writing to raise my deep concern about the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy's misguided priority and wasted resources spent to intimidate states trying to implement medical marijuana programs that provide relief to citizens suffering from the pain of severe illness or injury.

"At a time when the scourge of meth is coming across the border, and cocaine and heroin use continues to ravage our communities, the federal government should be cracking down on real criminals---not people who are trying to help those in pain."

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Blogs Suck

post from Eschaton on 19 August 2007 11:40:00 PM. © Eschaton

Indeed. But it's not like the alternatives are covering themselves in glory either.

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Sunday Late Nite: Openly Closeted

post from Firedoglake on 19 August 2007 11:10:27 PM. © Firedoglake

There’s a new type of closet for LGBT folks. This became a ticklish issue for the media with the death of mogul and game show producer Merv Griffin last week at 82. Pam Spaulding calls Merv openly closeted, an identity with which I was previously[...]

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Late Night Music Club with Belly

post from Crooks and Liars on 19 August 2007 11:00:39 PM. © Crooks and Liars

Belly got started in Boston in 1991 when Tanya Donelly left Throwing Muses. I was working at Sire Records at the time and they were one of my favorite bands on the label– musically and as people. Sire’s fate was attached to Warner Bros which decided what songs would be prioritized fro radio play. One [...]

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Trial Begins for Former Abu Ghraib Officer

post from TalkLeft on 19 August 2007 10:53:00 PM. © TalkLeft

Monday, Lt. Army Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan goes on trial at Ft. Meade for his role in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. He is the only officer charged. His claim to fame? According to the charges against him, he approved the use of dogs and nudity to intimidate the prisoners.

If convicted on all counts, Jordan faces 16 1/2 years in prison.

It's not just cooperators testifying against him. Maj. Gen. George R. Fay who investigated the abuses and wrote a report found:

Jordan's tacit approval of violence during a weapons search on Nov. 24, 2003, "set the stage for the abuses that followed for days afterward."

Jordan has a two-fold defense.

More...

Jordan's defense, led by Capt. Samuel Spitzberg, will argue that although he was the titular head of the interrogation center, he spent most of his time trying to improve soldiers' deplorable living conditions.

At a hearing in October, the defense contended that interrogation conditions were set by two other officers: Col. Thomas Pappas, an intelligence brigade commander who was the highest-ranking officer at Abu Ghraib, and Capt. Carolyn Wood, leader of a unit within the interrogation center called the Interrogation Command Element.

Jordan maintains he's a scapegoat and was targeted because he's a reservist.

Jordan's case isn't just old news.

Kurt Goering, director of research and policy at Amnesty International USA, said the trial could shed light on high-level approval of interrogation tactics tantamount to torture.

"There is quite a bit of evidence to suggest that it goes all the way to President Bush and (former Defense Secretary) Donald Rumsfeld," Goering said. "There is today, still, a continuing failure to hold these officials at the highest levels responsible."

If Jordan is found guilty, I hope he joins Lt. Charles Graner who is serving ten years for his part in the disgusting conduct.

In all, 11 enlisted soldiers have been convicted.

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Maradona as Political Commentator

post from Ezra Klein on 19 August 2007 10:24:00 PM. © Ezra Klein

By Randy Paul of Beautiful Horizons I'm hardly an America love it or leave it type. I have no problem with making informed, well-grounded criticisms of my nation's government when merited. However, should I take seriously a multiple-rehabbed, possibly[...]

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"One nation, under [surveillance], with liberty
and justice for all."

post from TalkLeft on 19 August 2007 10:22:00 PM. © TalkLeft

Today's NY Times on the FISA legislation signed into law less than two weeks ago: Concerns Raised on Wider Spying Under New Law:

Broad new surveillance powers approved by Congress this month could allow the Bush administration to conduct spy operations that go well beyond wiretapping to include -- without court approval -- certain types of physical searches on American soil and the collection of Americans' business records, Democratic Congressional officials and other experts said.
Administration officials acknowledged that they had heard such concerns from Democrats in Congress recently, and that there was a continuing debate over the meaning of the legislative language. But they said the Democrats were simply raising theoretical questions based on a harsh interpretation of the legislation.
They also emphasized that there would be strict rules in place to minimize the extent to which Americans would be caught up in the surveillance.

Once again, Congress adopts something and reads it later. What are we paying you guys for? I'm not holding my breath, but I've got clients who are citizens of Canada, Egypt, Jordan, Mexico, and other countries. What happens when I call their families? Am I presumptively being surveilled because my foreign clients, defendants in a federal criminal case, require me to talk with their families about their cases?

The adoption of the August 2007 FISA amendments were pushed through Congress in typical Administration scare tactic style, just like the USA PATRIOT Act. Responding to a an alarmist push from the White House claiming some unknown and undefined threat to the United States, Congress approved amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the "Protect America Act of 2007," with a sunset section for 180 days, that permits surveillance of any telephone call with one end of the call outside of the United States, increasing executive power and reducing judicial oversight over warrants.

The best source I have found for information about FISA is the Electronic Privacy Information Center, www.epic.org, which has a section devoted to FISA surveillance, with a history of national security wiretaps, going back to the 1972 case of United States v. United States District Court.

The NY Times two weeks ago said that the Protect America Act of 2007 broadened the law beyond the need proffered by the White House.

President Bush signed into law on Sunday legislation that broadly expanded the government's authority to eavesdrop on the international telephone calls and e-mail messages of American citizens without warrants.
Congressional aides and others familiar with the details of the law said that its impact went far beyond the small fixes that administration officials had said were needed to gather information about foreign terrorists. They said seemingly subtle changes in legislative language would sharply alter the legal limits on the government's ability to monitor millions of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of the United States.
They also said that the new law for the first time provided a legal framework for much of the surveillance without warrants that was being conducted in secret by the National Security Agency and outside the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that is supposed to regulate the way the government can listen to the private communications of American citizens.
"This more or less legalizes the N.S.A. program," said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington, who has studied the new legislation.
Previously, the government needed search warrants approved by a special intelligence court to eavesdrop on telephone conversations, e-mail messages and other electronic communications between individuals inside the United States and people overseas, if the government conducted the surveillance inside the United States.

The White House, of course, denied it:

Today's New York Times story by James Risen makes the unfounded claim that new FISA legislation has "broadly expanded the government's authority to eavesdrop on the international telephone calls and e-mail messages American citizens without warrants." This is highly misleading.
Revolutionary changes in technology have occurred since FISA was enacted in 1978, and those changes have resulted in FISA--contrary to the intent of Congress in 1978--often requiring the government to get a court order to collect information on foreign terrorists and other foreign targets located overseas. The new law makes clear that a court order is not required to conduct surveillance of foreign intelligence targets located overseas.
But under FISA, court approval is required for the government to target an individual located in the United States, and nothing in the new law changes that.

Under the Protect America Act, the so-called judicial approval can be obtained after the fact, if the circumstances do not permit applying in advance, something likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. When an application is filed, it is under seal and in secret, so the only time anyone would know is if a legal challenge some how unearthed the papers.

Those lawyers representing terrorism defendants that filed the case the Sixth Circuit reversed on July 6th who had no standing? Don't they now have standing if any call out of or into the United States is subject to monitoring as a matter of course?

And who really thinks that it won't be re-upped in 180 days? The same "there hasn't been another 9/11" will be used as justification. I predict it will be readopted with a year or longer sunset clause, to at least get past the Bush Presidency, without any proof that any plot was thwarted or alleged terrorist arrested, unless, of course, they can arrest somebody and keep him or her detained indefinitely without trial or habeas to prove the truth of the allegations.

[cross-posted to www.FourthAmendment.com]

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The Era of Bad Feelings Grows Worse

Some unknown signal has turned red on the Michael Jordan Memorial Highway suddenly stopping traffic. A stocky, balding man in a blue Tar Heels T-shirt waddles from his black Ford pickup with a dented front fender and shades his green-sunglasses with his stubby fingers as he searches for answers. Off to the [...]

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Preview Of CNNs New Series: Gods Warriors

CNN’s Christiane Amanpour has produced a new series of documentaries titled “God’s Warriors” which “examines the intersection between religion and politics and the effects of Christianity, Islam and Judaism on politics, culture and public life.” In this preview, Amanpour talks with the late Rev. Jerry Falwell shortly before his passing, about his fight against [...]

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http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/08/19/preview-of-cnns-new-series-gods-warriors
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Own to Rent: The Way to Save Subprime Borrowers

Last week I floated the idea here that the best way to rescue subprime borrowers struggling to hang onto their homes is to allow them to become long-term renters, paying the fair market rent. This...