Legal Times has a profile of the Judiciary Committee lawyers who are framing Tuesday's hearing at which Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will testify.

Preet Bahara is Sen. Schumer's chief counsel.

Bharara leads a small team of Senate lawyers that includes Jeremy Paris, a former Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld associate, and Jennifer Duck, the chief counsel to Judiciary Committee member Feinstein. On the House side, Republican Daniel Flores is handling duties for ranking Judiciary Committee member Lamar Smith, R-Texas, while Mincberg is leading the investigation for committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich. One of Mincberg's deputies, Robert Reed Jr., is also a former assistant U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia.

In advance of Gonzales' April 17 hearing, Bharara, representing Senate Democrats, and three other lawyers -- representing Senate Republicans and House Democrats and Republicans -- spent two full days querying top Justice officials behind closed doors.

Bahara is a former AUSA from the Southern District of New York.

More....

The Administration, after violating FISA for years while claiming the President as Commander in Chief during Wartime is a King, now wants the Congress to codify violations of the Fourth Amendment:

The Bush administration yesterday asked Congress to make more non-citizens subject to intelligence surveillance and to authorize the interception of foreign communications routed through the United States. Currently, under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, individuals have to be associated with a foreign terrorism suspect or a foreign power to fall under the auspices of the FISA court, which can grant the authority to institute federal surveillance. . . . The proposed revisions to FISA would also allow the government to keep information obtained "unintentionally," unrelated to the purpose of the surveillance, if it "contains significant foreign intelligence." Currently such information is destroyed unless it indicates threat of death or serious bodily harm.

This would run afoul of the Fourth Amendment. In U.S. v. Duggan the Second Circuit explained why FISA as currently written is constitutional:

What Matt said.

See also my vitriolic attack on SYFPism, quoting pach:

It's amazing to me to see how many commenters are personality/candidate partisans rather than progressive value partisans, independent of candidate affiliation. . . . The purpose of writing about this stuff is to make a public argument about the role of the US in foriegn policy, a discussion that is not really happening today. I happen to agree with Matt on all these fronts. This is what a progressive movement does: put pressure on the party and its high profile candidates to transform the conversation from one dominated by the Georgetown foreign policy elites.

Rocker Patti Smith has a new song about Guantanamo, "Without Chains." She says it will be available soon for download on her website.

"I feel responsible as an American citizen," Smith told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from New York. "It’s a terrible injustice and I think it will be a stain upon us when history examines this period."

Smith’s "Without Chains" focuses on Murat Kurnaz, a German-born Turkish citizen who said he was kept under fluorescent lights for 24 hours at a time and complained of being beaten at the U.S. military detention center in southeast Cuba. Detainees are held there on suspicion of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban, many without the opportunity to face trial.

More like Patti, please.

San Quentin prison houses 600 death row inmates, more than any other prison in the country. State legislators were surprised during a visit last month to learn that construction is almost complete on a new death chamber.

Staff members with the California Legislative Analyst's Office were made aware of the project to build a lethal injection chamber during a visit to the prison Tuesday, according to Dan Carson, director of the office's criminal justice section. The news spread Thursday to legislators after it was discussed at an oversight hearing for the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's budget.

Legislative analyst staffers were "surprised" to learn the construction had started, Carson said, adding the project is "very far along."

The cost: $399,000. The figure is important because had it been $400,000., approval would have been required.

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I have criticized Senator Barack Obama for the politics he is practicing. Some Obama supporters, as supporters do, take great umbrage at any criticism aimed at their candidate. But Obama and his supporters need to wake up to an emerging trend, Obama is losing support. Look at the trends:

CBS News Poll. April 9-12, 2007.

Obama 24

3/26-27/07 28

American Research Group poll. April 9-12, 2007.

Barack Obama 24

3/2-5 31

Time Poll conducted by Schulman, Ronca & Bucuvalas (SRBI) Public Affairs. April 5-9, 2007.
4/5-9/07

Barack Obama 26

3/23-26 30

Gallup Poll. April 2-5, 2007.

Barack Obama 19

3/23-25 22

I think the reason for this slippage is clear - Obama does not project an image of someone fighting against President Bush and Republicans. It seems to me that is what he has wanted to project. I think that if he does not get himself straightened out on this, the trend will continue.

Some self-helper, I can't remember who, wrote a book "Don't sweat the small stuff." Alberto Gonzales should have read it.

When it comes to credibility, I think this statement about the U.S. Attorney firings says it all:

"I value their independence, their professionalism, what they do in the community, and these decisions were not based on political reasons," Gonzales said.

Those of us who toil in the federal courts, particularly in criminal cases, know how it works. The job of U.S. Attorney is 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.

That's the way the system has always worked for both parties. The position of U.S. Attorney is an administrative job -- very few of them actually try cases.

I haven't read anyone on either side of the aisle reporting differently. Alberto Gonzalez chose to pretend otherwise. I hope it sinks him.

The document dump Friday showed a chart of U.S. Attorneys to be fired and potential replacements that listed their political loyalty and their membership in the conservative Federalist Society. That totally belies Gonzales' statement.

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Remember this?

Citizen Stengel [Managing Editor of Time] claimed that the American people do not want the Democrats to investigate the attorney firings story:

Mr. STENGEL: I am so uninterested in the Democrats wanting Karl Rove, because it is so bad for them. Because it shows business as usual, tit for tat, vengeance. . . . That’s not what voters want to see.

What could Citizen Stengel be thinking now? This is the Managing Editor of Time Magazine. Boy, he is some newshound huh? Here is some not breaking news, much of our Media is a disgrace.

A U.S. attorney in Wisconsin who prosecuted a state Democratic official on corruption charges during last year's heated governor's race was once targeted for firing by the Department of Justice, but given a reprieve for reasons that remain unclear. A federal appeals court last week threw out the conviction of Wisconsin state worker Georgia Thompson, saying the evidence was "beyond thin."

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby filed court documents today saying he will not be requesting a new trial in the trial court. He's going to make his arguments in the Court of Appeals.

His sentencing is set for June 5, 2007.

Earlier, I linked to this Newsweek article today in which a data recovery expert was interviewed on the missing e-mails. The interview includes this q and a:

What would you do if you were pulled into this White House case?

If they were really doing their job, they would have to give access to forensic specialists. Those companies can go in and find that e-mail file and then sort through it using proprietary software and hardware. But the government is going to have to open their doors. Top secret stuff is on there, I'm sure, and they'd make it hard.

But, the RNC files are not top secret and those are the missing files now at issue, at least with respect to Karl Rove.

And, if there was anything "top secret," wouldn't that be an incredible breach of security for the information to reside outside secure government servers?

This may become a Catch-22 for Bush. Either the Administration was incredibly lax about top secret information or there was no top secret information.

Marcy (Empty Wheel) has some terrific posts up about the Rove-Hadley e-mail and Fiztgerald and the missing e-mails.

Also not to be missed, Glenn Greenwald. Jack Cafferty at CNN highlighted it -- Crooks and Liars has the video.

E.J. Graff makes a simple but important point about the fact that women face hateful speech at higher rates than men; it is NOT a web based phenomenon:

here's what has been missed in the discussion of Kathy Sierra's horrific experience, as far as I can tell: this happens in the world, not just on the web. What's happened to Sierra is a virtual extension of the sexual harassment that hits women in any predominantly male field, what I've come to think of as "barrier" sexual harassment: making it clear to women that they don't belong and will be violated if they stay.

From Hillary Clinton to women academics, particularly in the sciences, to sports coverage to news anchors (yes, I think Katie Couric is awful, but no more so than Brian Williams, and it seems clear to me that Couric is heaped with much more abuse than Williams), to women bloggers, they face much more abuse than men generally (I am the exception that proves the rule, but then I heaped more abuse on folks than anyone in the history of blogging as well so it was to be expected.)

In case it has not been made clear enough, Ed Kilgore is someone I consider a friend and generally very very astute. On top of that, Ed writes on politics as well as anybody, in terms of clarity, persuasion and the goal of being interesting. I wrote about one of his posts, and in the interest of fairness, I want to highlight his response to my post.

As I said, discussion with Ed is always fruitful. I will reply to him in a later post.