Senator Chris Dodd of CT has announced he is exploring a bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Thoughts, anyone?

No surprise here, but General Michael Hayden was approved by the House Intelligence Committee today as CIA Director and now will go to the full Senate for a confirmation vote. Today's vote was 9-3. Voting against him were three Democrats, Russ Feingold, Ron Wyden and Evan Bayh.

The ACLU responds:

And the hits, they just keep coming. The latest is Osama bin Laden's newest audio tape in which he says Zacarias Moussaoui was not a part of 9/11.

"He had no connection at all with Sept. 11," the speaker, claiming to be bin Laden, said in the tape posted on the Internet. "I am the one in charge of the 19 brothers and I never assigned brother Zacarias to be with them in that mission," he said, referring to the 19 hijackers.

The al-Qaida chief said the Sept. 11 hijackers were divided into two groups, "pilots and assistants." "Since Zacarias Moussaoui was still learning how to fly, he wasn't No. 20 in the group, as your government has claimed," bin Laden said. "It knows this very well," he added. Bin Laden said Moussaoui's confession -- that he helped plan the attacks -- was "void," calling it the result of "pressures exercised against him during four and a half years" in U.S. prison.

Will Moussaoui's lawyers ask for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence showing he's innocent? Is it admissible, if authenticated? Would it have made any difference to the jury? Does anyone care any more about Moussaoui, or has he already become a footnote in 9/11 history now that he is languishing at Supermax?

Remember Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht who served as the Administration's unofficial spokesman in advancing Harriet Miers' nomination to the Supreme Court? (Background here.)

He has been admonished for his conduct by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct which issued a public admonition to him for his media comments.

Last fall Hecht estimated that he gave 120 interviews to the press about Miers' qualifications for the bench -- including information about her religious beliefs and views on abortion -- after her Oct. 3, 2005, nomination came under attack from conservative groups. [See "Texas Attorneys Support Dallas Native's High Court Nomination," Texas Lawyer, Oct. 10, 2005, page 1.]

At that time, Hecht jokingly said to Texas Lawyer that he had been acting as a "PR office for the White House" and had been filling in gaps about Miers' background to the press, countering some conservatives' skepticism about her qualifications -- statements that were referenced in the commission's admonition. [See the commission's admonition.]

Washington Post Photo

The trial of Abu Ghraib dog handler Sgt. Santos A. Cardona opened today. He is accused of letting his dog bite a detainee, which resulted in the detainee receiving stitches. The actual charges are:

....assault, dereliction of duty, maltreatment of detainees, conspiracy to maltreat detainees and lying to investigators in late 2003 and early 2004. If convicted on all counts, he faces up to 16 1/2 years in prison.

Opening statements were held this morning.

The BBC News reports today that a panel of experts in Britan have recommended a program that has been in effect in Switzerland for years -- heroin addiction rooms, where addicts can go to get clean needles and shoot up, with a nurse on staff to help them find a vein or provide medical or treatment advice.

Addicts can get a shower, there is a small restaurant providing nutritious food, and even a corner with comfortable armchairs and table football. But perhaps the most important thing the centre provides, apart from the clean needles, is psychiatric support.

Most doctors who treat long-term addicts agree there is always a point when an addict is ready to give up heroin, and there are staff here to watch for those signs, to counsel, and to refer patients for therapy.

I can't read German, but a lawyer who reads TalkLeft can. This just in today. The German high court has sharply limited data-mining as an invasion of citizen privacy. His translation of the news article, with his explanation in brackets:

The Federal Constitutional Court [located in Karlsruhe, their highest court] has drastically limited the possibilities and opportunities for dragnet/grid/screening searches (data-mining) and thereby rolled back limitations on people's civil liberties in the fight against Terror.

In a decision made public today, the justices stated that foreign policy tensions or a collective threat level such as after the attacks of 9/11/01 do not suffice to permit the dragnet/grid/screen searches. In that connection [i.e., post 9/11] in Nordrhein-Westfalen the data pertaining to more than five million men were reviewed/scrutinized in detail. The justices found that officials [seeking to do data-mining] must have/put forward concrete grounds to believe there will be foreseeable attacks in Germany. While electronic/data privacy advocates and politicians from the Greens, FDP and Left Party greeted the decision, the Bavarian Interior Minister Beckstein called it a black day for the War on Terror.

Original news item (Bavarian Radio):
17:00 Uhr: Karlsruhe schränkt Möglichkeiten der Rasterfahndung ein

The New York Daily News is reporting that former CIA official Robert Grenier has been disclosed in pleadings by Team Libby to be the unnamed CIA official who allegedly told Libby on June 10 that Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame Wilson,worked for the C.I.A. and had a role in sending her husband to Niger to check on the uranium claim.

Unless I'm missing something, this news is two months old. The first such pleading was filed on March 17. (pdf) The latest was May 12. Both have been previously reported on.

Jason Leopold reported this on March 18.

In Friday's filing, Libby's attorneys attempted to push the blame for the leak onto other officials at the CIA and the State Department and said these officials will likely be called to testify at next year's criminal trial. In doing so, the attorneys disclosed in the 39-page document the identities of four CIA employees who possibly provided their client with information about Plame Wilson's work for the CIA.

Say hello to Stand Down, a blog by the Texas Standown Project covering death penalty issues. While Texas-centric it also links to major national stories and events.

It's great to see more of anti-death penalty blogs. I also recommend Abolish (NCADP) and Capital Defense Weekly which in addition to its own blogging, has a blogroll with many defender blogs.

by TChris

Orlando Bosquette didn't bust out of prison to chase after a one armed man, but he played the role of The Fugitive for about a decade after he was sentenced to serve 65 years for a rape he didn't commit. Bosquette was captured in 1995, ten years after his escape, but by that time, DNA technology had improved and (with the help of Nina Morrison of New York's Innocence Project) Bosquette was able to have the rape evidence tested. Based on the results, the chief prosecutor for the area that includes the Florida Keys agrees that Bosquette is innocent, and has moved to vacate Bosquette's conviction.

Unfortunately, Bosquette's freedom won't be easily restored. Bosquette borrowed a number of identities during his fugitive years and admitted to crimes that others had committed to protect his true identity. Immigration authorities are holding those admissions against Bosquette, and he faces possible deportation.

by TChris

Among a dozen criminal court judges in New Orleans, one so far has had the courage to stand up for the Constitution. Speedy trials are impossible in a city that can't get lawyers to indigent defendants, leaving more than a thousand jail inmates with no trial date, no lawyer, and no immediate hope of having their day in court. The presumption of innocence is a hollow promise to those who are jailed indefinitely as they wait for the system to fulfill its obligation to provide them with counsel.

Judge Arthur Hunter recognizes that enough is enough.

And so Judge Hunter, 46, a former New Orleans police officer, is moving to let some of the defendants without lawyers out of jail. He has suspended prosecutions in most cases involving public defenders. And, alone among a dozen criminal court judges, he has granted a petition to free a prisoner facing serious charges without counsel, and is considering others.

by TChris

Electronic information identifying every veteran discharged since 1975 has been stolen. If you're in that group, you should be aware of what was taken.

The data included names, Social Security numbers and dates of birth for the military veterans and some spouses, the department said, although there had as yet been no indication it had been used for identity theft.

The data was stolen from the residence of a Department of Veterans Affairs employee who violated a Department policy by bringing the information home.