Christy at Firedogake writes about the numerous U.S. Attorney vacancies around the country and yesterday's New York Times article about them. She posits the vacancies put us at risk. The Times reported:

Among the 93 United States attorneys, who serve as the chief federal prosecutors for their regions, there are 24 vacancies. The White House has announced nominations for only six of those offices, which means that several of the jobs may remain unfilled for the rest of the Bush administration.

The Times quotes senior department officials as saying "the work of the department has been severely disrupted by [Gonzales'] troubles.

I think it's worth noting that a big (if not the biggest)reason for not being able to fill the vacancies is that very few people are going to leave current jobs to take the U.S. Attorney's job when the appointment will expire in less than 16 months if a Democrat is elected. Even if a Republican is elected, new U.S. Attorneys may be appointed.

The job is, after all, a political plum. It's awarded based on recommendations from the district's senators, it almost exclusively goes to a member of the President's party and very often it's based on the person's contributions, including fundraising efforts, to the successful presidential candidate.

As for the U.S. Attorney firing scandal and Gonzales' problems disrupting the work of the Department, I haven't seen it in the Districts I practice in. I don't doubt morale is suffering and I don't know of any Assistant U.S. Attorneys who are happy with the situation, but work goes on in the federal courts, people get sent to jail daily, new cases are being brought, existing cases are being argued and Justice Department guidelines are being followed. In other words, the war on drugs, war on civil liberties and trend towards draconian sentences continues unabated.

I've spoken to AUSA's who are embarrassed and critical of Gonzales, but it's not affecting their work. Every district without an appointed U.S. Attorney has an Acting U.S. Attorney. The vacancies are in name only.

As long as Jeralyn, Orin Kerr and Marty Lederman are speculating about what the legal dispute was that triggered the 2004 Comey crisis, I am going to throw my 2 cents in too. I think a thorough review of the original Times article, and the most recent article lead us to a reasonable speculation - that it was NOT the data mining itself that was objectionable but the use of the data mining results. Lederman writes:

[T]he most likely possibility -- the legal problem wasn't the data mining itself, but instead that the uses of the data that were mined violated FISA. The Times story hints at this -- that perhaps it was not so much the data mining itself, but instead what what NSA did with the mined data, that caused the legal uproar: "Some of the officials said the 2004 dispute involved other issues in addition to the data mining, but would not provide details. They would not say whether the differences were over how the databases were searched or how the resulting information was used." . . .

Indeed, and I think we can trace where these concerns first started:

In mid-2004, concerns about the program expressed by national security officials, government lawyers and a judge prompted the Bush administration to suspend elements of the program and revamp it. . . . A complaint from Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the federal judge who oversees the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court, helped spur the suspension, officials said. The judge questioned whether information obtained under the N.S.A. program was being improperly used as the basis for F.I.S.A. wiretap warrant requests from the Justice Department, according to senior government officials.

The Judge's concerns, I speculate, led to a wholesale review by Comey and others and they came to conclude the program did not pass legal muster. More.

Frank Rich writes an important column on the reality behind the myth of General Petraeus. Some key execerpts:

As always with this White House’s propaganda offensives, the message in Mr. Bush’s relentless repetitions never varies. General Petraeus is the “main man.” He is the man who gives “candid advice.” Come September, he will be the man who will give the president and the country their orders about the war.

. . . Actually, we don’t have to wait. We already know what David will say. He gave it away to The Times of London last month, when he said that September “is a deadline for a report, not a deadline for a change in policy.” In other words: Damn the report (and that irrelevant Congress that will read it) — full speed ahead. There will be no change in policy.

More...

Ever since I ordered my new Macbook Friday night, I haven't been able to get this song out of my head.

"I've got a brand new pair of roller skates, you've got a brand new key"

So, Mac users out there, what's a good external portable hard drive for backup, what programs do you use to backup and are there any new software programs you especially like for it? I'm thinking of getting Parallel and Data Backup 3. Apple Care seems like a necessity too.

No GOP defenders for Gonzo:

Jeralyn, Glenn Greenwald and Anonymous Liberal take apart the NYTimes leaked defense. And I have a new point on the flip.

Ignatius:

The most sensible comment I heard on Iraq in the past week came from one of the Democratic presidential candidates -- indeed, from the one with the strongest antiwar credentials, Sen. Barack Obama: "I think we can be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in." Obama is right, and so, for that matter, is President Bush when he says much the same thing. The United States is on its way out of Iraq eventually, but it matters powerfully how we disengage -- most of all to Democrats, who at this point seem likely to inherit the responsibility for America's security 18 months from now.

(Emphasis supplied.) Now that he has discarded the "Politics of Hope," I sure wish Obama would criticize David Ignatius for basically speaking falsely of his views on Iraq.

I'm as perplexed as everyone else in trying to decipher the White House's latest explanation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' seemingly inconsistent statements in his sworn testimony on what was at issue regarding the NSA's Terrorist Surveillance Program when he and Andy Card went to visit former Attorney General John Ashcroft in the hospital in March, 2004.

A 2004 dispute over the National Security Agency’s secret surveillance program that led top Justice Department officials to threaten resignation involved computer searches through massive electronic databases, according to current and former officials briefed on the program.

....Mr. Gonzales insisted before the Senate this week that the 2004 dispute did not involve the Terrorist Surveillance Program “confirmed” by President Bush, who has acknowledged eavesdropping without warrants but has never acknowledged the data mining. If the dispute chiefly involved data mining, rather than eavesdropping, Mr. Gonzales’ defenders may maintain that his narrowly crafted answers, while legalistic, were technically correct.

Big Tent Democrat argues that the TSP program and the data-mining program were one and the same -- data mining was part of the TSP program. While there are many data-mining programs run by a host of different agencies, that seems right in this context.

I'd like to examine it from a different angle: Was John Ashcroft ever opposed to data-mining? If not, how could that be the basis of the need to go to the hospital and twist his arm in reauthorizing the NSA's TSP program?

More...

There are so many amputations required in Iraq that a limb shortage is feared:

Iraq is facing a hidden healthcare and social crisis over the soaring number of amputations, largely of lower limbs, necessitated by the daily explosions and violence gripping the country.

In the north of Iraq, the Red Crescent Society and the director general for health services in Mosul have told US forces, there is a requirement for up to 3,000 replacement limbs a year. If that estimate is applied across the country, it suggests an acute and looming long-term health challenge that has been largely ignored by the world.

[Hat tip Newshoggers.]

Seizing a vehicle is a disproportionate response to the minor social harm (if any) caused by drivers who use their cars and trucks to solicit a prostitute or to buy small quantities of marijuana. The California Supreme Court, by a 4-3 vote, struck down city ordinances that purport to authorize the seizure and forfeiture of vehicles used to commit those crimes on the ground that state law does not authorize cities to impose that penalty.

The Court invalidated a Stockton ordinance that authorized the police to seize a vehicle if they have probable cause to believe it was used to solicit an act of prostitution or to acquire any controlled substance. The ordinance provided that title to the vehicle would vest in the City, and gave the City a generous year to hang onto the vehicle before starting a forfeiture proceeding. Because the Court found that the ordinance was preempted by the state criminal code, it didn't reach the obvious due process concerns that the ordinance raised.

The decision is here (pdf).

From tomorrow's NYTimes Editorial:

Democratic lawmakers are asking for a special prosecutor to look into Mr. Gonzales’s words and deeds. Solicitor General Paul Clement has a last chance to show that the Justice Department is still minimally functional by fulfilling that request.

If that does not happen, Congress should impeach Mr. Gonzales.

Gleen Greenwald reports on President Bush's radio address today on, get this, amending FISA. What the President said:

[M]y Administration has proposed a bill that would modernize the FISA statute. . . [I]t seeks to restore FISA to its original focus on protecting the privacy interests of people inside the United States, so we don't have to obtain court orders to effectively collect foreign intelligence about foreign targets located in foreign locations.

Did you get that? Bush will protect the privacy interests of people inside the United States by removing the requirement of a court issued warrant. Thank you very much Big Brother. More.

The Bush Administration has leaked the following story to the NYTimes as an explanation for Attorney General Gonzales' seemingly incorrect testimony:

A 2004 dispute over the National Security Agency’s secret surveillance program that led top Justice Department officials to threaten resignation involved computer searches through massive electronic databases, according to current and former officials briefed on the program. . . . The N.S.A.’s data mining has previously been reported. But the disclosure that concerns about it figured in the March 2004 debate helps to clarify the clash this week between Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and senators who accused him of misleading Congress and called for a perjury investigation.

The confrontation in 2004 led to a showdown in the hospital room of then Attorney General John Ashcroft, where Mr. Gonzales, the White House counsel at the time, and Andrew H. Card Jr., then the White House chief of staff, tried to get the ailing Mr. Ashcroft to reauthorize the N.S.A. program.

Mr. Gonzales insisted before the Senate this week that the 2004 dispute did not involve the Terrorist Surveillance Program “confirmed” by President Bush, who has acknowledged eavesdropping without warrants but has never acknowledged the data mining. If the dispute chiefly involved data mining, rather than eavesdropping, Mr. Gonzales’ defenders may maintain that his narrowly crafted answers, while legalistic, were technically correct.

Personally, I am at a loss at how this exonerates Alberto Gonzales. He flatly stated there was no dispute over the TSP. Later, he stated it was about the program President Bush confirmed. Data mining is a search without a warrant. The data mining is part of the same program. The speculation, indeed JUSTIFICATION, from many conservative legal scholars was that President Bush was discussing data mining. In fact, this NYTimes reporting is flat wrong, since in his discussion of the TSP, President Bush expressly referenced "the program" described in news reports, news reports that expressly discussed a data mining program. More.