Andrew Sullivan writes:

[T]here is no denying that our liberties have been seriously eroded by the last few years in this respect. I just understand that some loss is defensible in the war we now fight, and wire-tapping, if monitored by the Congress, a FISA court, as well as the executive is a price we may have to pay to keep our intelligence accurate [How does Sully know this?].

Louis Brandeis wrote:

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.

(Emphasis supplied.) Brandeis was pretty smart, wasn't he?

Texas goes farther than most states in authorizing the use of deadly force to prevent a thief from making off with property. The more common and sensible position recognizes that a thief should not suffer death at the discretion of a vigilante property owner, that human life has greater value than property. That is not the Texas view.

And so it is shocking to the sense of justice but not surprising to learn that a grand jury declined to indict Joe Horn, who made no secret of his intent to gun down two people who had burglarized his neighbor's house. During a 911 call (listen here), Horn asked if he should intercede to prevent burglars from escaping. (Horn misidentified the burglars as black men.) The dispatcher assured Horn that officers were on their way, warned him to stay inside and reminded him that "Property’s not worth killing someone over, OK?" After Horn saw the men climbing out of the window, Horn said "I'm gonna kill 'em." Horn told the dispatcher "here it goes, buddy. You hear the shotgun clicking and I’m going." Horn is soon heard yelling "Move, you’re dead!" followed by gunshots. Horn shot both men in the back, although he claimed he had no choice because they were running through his yard. [more ...]

While the latest CNN poll has Sen. Barack Obama 8 points ahead of McCain, a new Newsweek poll shows Obama ahead of McCain by only 3 points.

A month after emerging victorious from the bruising Democratic nominating contest, some of Barack Obama's glow may be fading. In the latest NEWSWEEK Poll, the Illinois senator leads Republican nominee John McCain by just 3 percentage points, 44 percent to 41 percent. The statistical dead heat is a marked change from last month's NEWSWEEK Poll, where Obama led McCain by 15 points, 51 percent to 36 percent.

Is it a fluke? Or, if it's accurate, what's the reason for the drop and is it temporary or permanent?

Personally, I don't think it's due to buyer's remorse or dropping support among liberals. I think it's that his recent changes of position on multiple positions have made people unsure of where he really stands -- and whether his new stands reflect his true beliefs or are caluclated to get votes. It could be a trust issue. [More...]

Kanye West - Can't Tell Me Nothin'

UPDATE:

In the latest CNN Poll of polls, the Illinois senator holds an 8-point lead among registered voters nationwide, 49 percent to 41 percent, with 10 percent still undecided.

Wisconsin has ten electoral votes. John McCain has little chance of winning them, but he sealed that fate today. During an interview with a local television station in Pittsburgh:

McCain told a rather moving story about his time as a P.O.W. "When I was first interrogated and really had to give some information because of the pressures, physical pressures on me, I named the starting lineup, defensive line of the Pittsburgh Steelers as my squadron mates." ...

[T]he Steelers aren't the team whose defensive line McCain named for his Vietnamese tormentors. The Green Bay Packers are. At least according to every previous time McCain has told this story.

In Wisconsin, the only thing more important than God, country, and the right to hunt deer is Packers football. (Speaking of, Favre wants to come back and the Packers don't want him? Say it ain't so!) Whether McCain was honestly mistaken in this version of an oft-told story, whether he was pandering to Steelers fans, or whether the story has always been a fiction (a possibility that would never be considered had McCain not changed a key fact), he has messed with the Packers. In Wisconsin, that's unforgivable. Tally ten EV's for Obama.

I stopped in at the Apple store around 12:45 pm today. There were over 100 people in line. Those just getting in the store had been in line since 8:30 am. They weren't giving out numbers (so I could get a number, go to the jail and return afterwards) so I left. They did say they had plenty and would not run out.

On my way back from the jail around 3:30 pm, I stopped at the AT&T store. There was no line. They also had no more iPhones. They were expecting 70 more tomorrow. 70? That's a joke. [More...]

The police love asset forfeiture laws because they get to keep lots of cool stuff that used to belong to drug dealers (among other crimes to which the laws apply). So imagine how happy the Dallas police were to seize a black 2004 Infiniti at a drug house. It became a nice ride for undercover police officers.

Of course, before they put the car into service, they searched it for contraband. Not well enough, it seems. After two months:

An officer cleaning the car at a patrol station Wednesday discovered the nearly 50 pounds (23 kilograms) of cocaine carefully hidden in hydraulically controlled compartments.

On a more serious note, wouldn't the public be better served if (as is true in some states) seized assets were sold and the money directed to school budgets? That would certainly give the police less incentive to indulge in questionable seizures.

When we last checked in on Julie Amero, she was facing sentencing for "impairing the morals of a child and risking injury to a minor" by showing porn sites on the web to students in her seventh grade class. Amero's side of the story, which proved (albeit belatedly) to be convincing, is that the computer was infected with malware that kept popping up porn sites faster than she could close them. The state's "expert" testified that Amero must have deliberately accessed the porn, a false proposition that computer experts from across the nation derided after Amero was convicted.

The good news: "In June of 2007, [Superior Court Judge Hillary] Strackbein threw out the initial conviction and ordered a new trial." The bad news:

Unbelievably, more than 13 months after Strackbein set aside Amero's conviction on charges that she allowed seventh-graders to view pornography in her classroom, the state is apparently still planning to bring Amero back to trial.

Why? [more ...]

Rudy Escobedo, a mentally ill resident of Fort Wayne, Indiana, called 911 "asking for help."

He said he was on cocaine and Antabuse – a drug given to some alcoholics – and ready to kill himself. He apparently had hallucinations of police already in his home, according to a transcript of the 911 call.

How did police respond to the call for help? Escobedo called at 4:30 a.m. He apparently made five calls after that to a police cell phone, but the battery was dead. At some point he apparently had some conversations with the police in which he was asked to "surrender." His responses were "erratic," as one might expect from a mentally ill suicidal man. By 8:30 a.m., officers decided to use overwhelming force to break into Escobedo's home.

This happened after police halted communications with him, released 12 times the normal incapacitating dose of tear gas into his apartment and launched a flash-bang grenade into his room that exploded near his head.

[more ...]

TChris and I have been focused on crime this morning and Big Tent Democrat is attending to some other matters, so for those of you with politics or other things on your mind, here's an open thread.

Mississippi mayor Frank Melton has been indicted on federal civil rights violations over a crack house raid.

In August 2006, Mr. Melton and his two police bodyguards, Michael Recio and Marcus Wright, ordered the occupants out of the house at gunpoint and directed a group of youths to attack the house with sledgehammers, the indictment said. The mayor, who ran for office on an anti-crime platform, himself broke out the windows with a large stick, the indictment said.

No drugs were found in the raid. [More...]

A quarter century of "tough on crime" political rhetoric has in many states spilled over into the juvenile justice system, based on illogical platitudes like "commit an adult crime, do adult time." With the exception of a few status offenses like truancy, every crime is an "adult crime" in the sense that it can be committed by an adult. That's no reason to pretend that a 14 year old has the same maturity or reasoning ability (pdf) as an adult.

The "lock 'em up" strategy that prevails in our adult criminal justice system has infected the juvenile justice system, as well. Fortunately, as a New York Times editorial recognizes, there are more productive alternatives than shipping children off to juvenile (or adult) prisons where they'll be warehoused with minimal effort to rehabilitate.

One proven way to prevent borderline young offenders from becoming serious criminals is to treat them — and their families — in community-based counseling programs instead of shipping them off to juvenile facilities that are often hundreds of miles away from home. ... In addition to saving young lives, the community-based programs cost a lot less: $20,000 per child per year versus as much as $200,000 for holding a child in a juvenile facility.

[more ...]