Via Federal Defender David Beneman in Maine:

New Federal Rules take effect December 1, 2006.

Criminal Rules 5, 6, 32.1, 40, 41, and 58.

Evidence Rules 404, 408, 606, and 609.

Appellate Rule 25 and new Appellate Rule 32.1

Criminal Rules:

The ACLU (received by e-mail, on line link should be here later) brings our attention to a new Government program in the works called the Automated Tracking System:

The American Civil Liberties Union today condemned an unprecedented new program for generating terrorist ratings on tens of millions of travelers, including American citizens, maintaining those ratings for 40 years, and making them available throughout the government.

"Never before in American history has our government gotten into the business of creating mass 'risk assessment' ratings of its own citizens," said Barry Steinhardt, Director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Project. "That is a radical new step with far-reaching implications - but one that has been taken almost thoughtlessly by expanding a cargo-tracking system to incorporate human beings, and with little public notice, discussion, or debate."

Originally intended for cargo, it's now going to be applied to people, and scheduled to be implemented December 4.

Update: It also tracks what travellers eat.

It's official. House speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi has named former Border Patrol agent and current Congressman Silvestre Reyes to head the House Intelligence Committee.

What's his background?

Known as "Silver" to friends, Reyes was drafted into the Army and served during 1966-68 as a helicopter crew chief and gunner. His service included 13 months in Vietnam.

He rose through the ranks during 26 years of service in the Border Patrol, leaving as a senior law enforcement official in Texas in 1995. He won his seat in Congress the next year.

What will the agenda be?

Bob Somerby does excellent though sometimes he goes off the rails. But his column today is Grade A, as he explains in clear detail how our Media simply fails at its job. This time he discusses Margaret Carlson's latest travesty in discussing Al Gore and the 2000 election:

There are no words, except bad words, to describe this new column by Margaret Carlson . . . [She] muses about the lessons we can learn from the events of Campaign 2000. And omigod! Even today—even after Iraq—Carlson simply refuses to stop. Her cohort is shameless beyond all compare. They’re disgraceful, like those who enable them:

CARLSON: George W. Bush's win (if that's what it was) over then-Vice President Al Gore was attributed in part to style. Gore took every opportunity to lecture voters on how a bill becomes a law. He even invoked the “Norwood-Dingell” patients' bill of rights legislation in a debate to show how much his 24 years of government experience mattered versus his opponent's five.

Even today—even after their conduct has led to Iraq—these people are determined not to stop. In the first paragraph quoted above, Carlson refers to the third Bush-Gore debate, the “town hall forum” held in St. Louis on October 17, 2000.

Question: Did Gore mention the Dingell-Norwood bill “to show how much his 24 years of government experience mattered versus his opponent's five?” Did he mention this bill because he “took every opportunity to lecture voters on how a bill becomes a law?” Yes, that’s what the laughable fellow did—if you live in the fictionalized world of a moral disgrace like Carlson. In the real world, though, a different reason intrudes; Gore mentioned Dingell-Norwood (not “Norwood-Dingell”) for a good and obvious reason. Bush had been saying that he supported a “patients bill of rights” too; Gore wanted to show that Bush was supporting a weak bill, one that was favored by industry.

This is interesting:

The latest example of a lack of grace in Washington is the exchange between Jim Webb and President Bush at a White House Christmas party. Mr. Webb did not want to pose with the president and so didn't join the picture line. Fair enough, everyone feels silly on a picture line. Mr. Bush approached him later and asked after his son, a Marine. Mr. Webb said he'd like his son back from Iraq. Mr. Bush then, according to the Washington Post, said: "That's not what I asked you. How's your son?" Mr. Webb replied that's between him and his son.

For this Mr. Webb has been roundly criticized. And on reading the exchange I thought it had the sound of the rattling little aggressions of our day, but not on Mr. Webb's side. Imagine Lincoln saying, in such circumstances, "That's not what I asked you." Or JFK. Or Gerald Ford!

"That's not what I asked you" is a sentence straight from cable TV, from which many Americans are acquiring an attitude toward public and even private presentation.

The President of the United States should not behave like Sean Hannity. In public or private. Good for Noonan.

Today's addition to the list of wrongly convicted prisoners is Marlon Pendleton, who served 12 years for a rape he didn't commit. Judge Stanley Sacks in Cook County, Illinois ordered Pendleton's release yesterday.

The conviction could have been avoided if the government's scientist had done her job. (It may be, of course, that she saw her job as supporting the arrest rather than discovering the truth.)

The judge's ruling follows an announcement last week that DNA tests ruled out Pendleton as the source of genetic evidence left by the person who attacked and robbed a woman on Chicago's South Side in 1992.

Pendleton had claimed from the outset that he was innocent of the attack. He was convicted after Chicago police crime lab analyst Pamela Fish, whose work has been linked to several wrongful convictions, said there was not enough evidence for DNA testing.

But a forensic serologist chosen to analyze evidence by prosecutors and Pendleton's attorneys found that, even after the crime analyst used some of the evidence in her testing, he still had enough material to develop a profile.

Via Facing South, Pedro Parra-Sanchez, age 44 and a resident of California, moved to New Orleans to assist with the Katrina recovery. Six days later he was arrested for assault.

13 months later, he had still not seen a defense attorney -- or brought before a judge. He doesn't speak a lot of English. Other inmates alerted the Tulane law clinic. He finally was located and brought to court -- last week.

At his arraignment -- a court proceeding the law requires to take place within, at most, a month after charges are filed -- Parra-Sanchez could speak only through a translator about his extended stay in a prison system that officials from several agencies admitted simply lost him, failing to secure him the most basic American rights.

Apologies have been forthcoming:

At the hearing, Assistant District Attorney Greg Thompson expressed the prosecution's "formal apology" for Parra-Sanchez's "prolonged incarceration," while Criminal District Court Judge Darryl Derbigny called his time in jail "unacceptable."

What went wrong?

Two months ago, TalkLeft introduced you to Majid Khan, a Baltimore resident who was detained in secret overseas prisons before he was moved to Guantanamo. Earlier this month, TalkLeft chided the government's effort to preclude Khan's defense lawyers from talking to him.

An editorial in today's Appleton Post-Crescent takes up the cause:

The reason [for preventing contact between attorney and client], as offered by an "information review officer for the National Clandestine Service," is because he was held in a "top secret" program and "may have come into possession of information, including locations of detention, conditions of detention and alternative interrogation techniques." And the government wouldn't want his attorney to reveal any of that information in court because of national security.

So the U.S. captured Khan, put him in a hiding spot for three years, finally allowed him legal representation to — we presume — defend himself, but doesn't let him talk to that legal representation because the U.S. captured him and put him in a hiding spot for three years.

Give it up, President Bush. When you've lost Appleton, Wisconsin, you've lost pretty much everyone.

It may be time to file a commitment petition against Rep. Tom Tancredo. The man needs some serious medication.

Tancredo managed to cheese off Jeb Bush, of all people, with this remark:

"Look at what has happened to Miami. It has become a Third World country. You just pick it up and take it and move it someplace. You would never know you're in the United States of America. You would certainly say you're in a Third World country."

Although Bush omitted the obvious argument that third world countries aren't as populated with Starbucks as Miami, he made a good point nonetheless: "Miami is a wonderful city filled with diversity and heritage that we choose to celebrate, not insult." You know the end is near when Jeb Bush is the voice of sanity.

Glenn Greenwald explains how Lanny Davis mirrors his buddy Lieberman as the Fox Democrat, this time on Bush's illegal warrantless surveillance:

[E]ven if Lanny Davis and the other Republicans on the panel think the President is using his illegal powers carefully, his conduct is no less illegal. Why is it necessary even to point that out? This has been the obvious and paramount point from the beginning, as I wrote in my book (at pages 25, 60) (emphasis in original):

The heart of the matter is that the president broke the law, deliberately and repeatedly, no matter what his rationale was for doing so. We do not have a system of government in which the president has the right to violate laws, even if he believes doing so will produce good results. . . .

. . . In a system that operates according to the rule of law, what matters is what the law says, not what Lanny Davis or the other members of some meaningless ad hoc council think. The fundamental issue here is not what sort of privacy protections the NSA program does or does not provide; the problem is that the NSA program does not comply with the law. . . . This is a BIG DEAL. A constitutional system of government cannot tolerate a chief executive who operates outside of the law, even if, in doing so, he implements policies that Lanny Davis thinks are swell. There is no 'Lanny Davis exception' to the rule of law.

Olberman really soaring:

Some highlights:

• Olberman's 266,000 Adults 25-54 represent a 63% increase versus November 2005. His 689,000 total viewers represent a 49% increase.

• Olbermann is now a solid number two among the cable newsers at 8pm. He was a distant number three a year ago.

• Competitively Bill O'Reilly continues to slide, -19% in total viewers from a year ago.

• A Year ago Paula Zahn on CNN maintained a 67% edge over Olbermann in total viewers, but her 11% slide coupled with Olbermann's 49% inclrease has catapulted Olbermann past her into second place.

Which makes this post by Red Stater Leon Wolf ridiculing me for pointing to Olberman as MSNBC's future in June 2005 all the more hilarious:

As proof that they deserve all the mockery we can muster, I offer you this from Armando at dKos:

I saw this ratings synopsis and it really impressed me that it looks like Olberman is really the biggest show on MSNBC now. Pretty impressive. Remember, Hardball was their signature show.

Now, I'll grant you, this is pretty hilarious in and of itself. When you click on the link itself, the one thing you are ACTUALLY impressed with, when checking Olberman's ratings, is that he is consistently pummeled each and every single night by O'Reilly, Zahn, and usually (!) Grace.

Looking forward appears to be a problem for the Right. Here was Michelle Malkin sneering at me for calling the January 2005 Iraq elections "an exercise in pretty pictures." I think maybe I was onto something.

He says he is going to run for President but he can't seem to remember he is a Democrat:

Biden resonates with Republicans as he sets up S.C. ground game

COLUMBIA, S.C. | U.S. Sen. Joe Biden heads into his quest for votes in a 2008 presidential primary in South Carolina with a well-exercised sense of what to say and what to leave unsaid to Republicans and Democrats alike.

. . . He's not shy about talking about South Carolina's Confederate history either. . . . Biden noted Delaware was a border state and "a slave state that fought beside the North. That's only because we couldn't figure out how to get to the South - there were a couple of other states in the way."

Oy. But wait there's more:

. . . Club member Bruce Rippeteau, who says he's on Genghis Khan wing of the Republican Party, said Biden kept the crowd's attention by being nonpolitical. And his Iraq message resounded because "what we've been doing hasn't worked," he said. Biden told the crowd he needs the GOP and its supporters to put Nov. 7 behind them. "American needs - I need - the Republican Party to get back up," he said. "Not a single change in direction can be done without a bipartisan consensus in this country." . . . "I don't find a lot of difference between Republicans and Democrats right now," Biden said.

I like Biden. I really do but man does he seem in outer space politically. h/t TPMCafe.