For those of you online today with thoughts to share, this space is for you.

The New York Times blasts Bush and Cheney on the NIE report leaks in the Valerie Plame investigation.

Since Mr. Bush regularly denounces leakers, the White House has made much of the notion that he did not leak classified information, he declassified it. This explanation strains credulity. Even a president cannot wave a wand and announce that an intelligence report is declassified.

To declassify an intelligence document, officials have to decide whether disclosing the information would jeopardize the sources that provided it or the methods used to gather it. To answer that question, they closely study the origins of the intelligence to be disclosed. Had Mr. Bush done that, he should have seen that the most credible information made it clear that the Niger story was wrong. (In any case, Iraq's supposed attempt to buy uranium from Niger happened four years before the invasion, and failed. The idea that this amounted to a current, aggressive and continuing campaign to build nuclear weapons in 2002 -- as Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney called it -- is laughable.)

The Times calls upon Patrick Fitzgerald to make public Bush and Cheney's 2004 interviews in the leaks investigation.

A new report by Human Rights Watch finds that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld may be criminially liable for torture of a Guantanamo detainee in late 2002 and early 2003. HRW says Rumsfeld could be prosecuted for his actions.

The report involves the alleged torture of Mohammed al-Quantani, which we reported on in depth here. Time Magazine published the full 83 page log (pdf) of his interrogation. Here are some of the things that reportedly were don to al-Quantani.

Intrepid reporter Murray Waas has new disclosures in the Valerie Plame investigation. Not only did Cheney authorize Libby to leak the information in the NIE report, he also authorized him to leak information in the still classified March, 2002 CIA debriefing of Joseph Wilson conducted after his trip to Niger.

Vice President Dick Cheney directed his then-chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on July 12, 2003 to leak to the media portions of a then-highly classified CIA report that Cheney hoped would undermine the credibility of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, a critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, according to Libby's grand jury testimony in the CIA leak case and sources who have read the classified report.

The March 2002 intelligence report was a debriefing of Wilson by the CIA's Directorate of Operations after Wilson returned from a CIA-sponsored mission to Niger to investigate claims, later proved to be unfounded, that Saddam Hussein had attempted to procure uranium from the African nation, according to government records.

Murray also picks up on this nugget in Fitzgerald's April 5 filing (pdf):

by TChris

What a waste.

More than 31,000 California college students forfeited their shot at federal financial aid because of past drug convictions, newly released records show.

Why should a drug conviction prevent students from obtaining the financial assistance they need to improve their educations? Shouldn't society try to help them gain the tools they need to live productive lives?

While Congress recently "softened" the law, it should be jettisoned altogether.

by TChris

After the FBI arrested Hamid Hayat and his father Umer, President Bush declared that their arrests were part of the government's effort to "bust up these terrorist networks." Ten months later, as separate juries deliberate at the end of their trials, residents of Lodi are unconvinced that there was ever a terrorist cell in their midst. (Additional TalkLeft background is here.)

"I think people have gone 'Oh, it turned out not to be a big deal. It turned out not to be a terrorist cell,'" Mayor Susan Hitchcock said.

The government's fear-mongering was based on the word of -- you guessed it -- a less-than-credible informant.

by TChris

A number of states have enacted laws making it easier for the wrongly convicted to take advantage of improved DNA testing to demonstrate their innocence. A bill is pending in Florida that would rescind a deadline for presenting new DNA evidence to a court. Its passage should be a no-brainer, but the "tough on crime" crowd is making the predictable argument that post-conviction attempts to prove innocence are an "abuse" of the criminal justice system. They seem less concerned about the abuse that occurs when an innocent accused is sent to prison.

All this rhetoric about ''court system abuse'' is getting old anyway. Whatever costs are associated with clearing people's records are negligible compared to the costs of keeping an innocent person in jail -- from the financial burden on tax payers, to the moral burden of thwarting justice while real criminals go unpunished.

As Jenny Greenberg, director of the Florida Innocence Initiative, said: "I'm fixing the mistakes. I'm not making the mistakes.''

Conservatives in the state House are pushing last minute amendments that would weaken the bill. Their colleagues should Just Say No to new legislative barriers that might prevent an innocent prisoner from regaining his or her freedom.

by TChris

If you're homeless in Los Angeles, the city doesn't want you on its sidewalks -- at least, not unless you're walking. The city passed an ordinance (unenforced for many years) that criminalizes sitting, laying, or sleeping on public sidewalks. That law narrows the options when homeless shelters are full -- a frequent occurrence in a city that is home to more than 80,000 people who lack homes on any given night. LA's Skid Row contains the largest concentration of the homeless in the country, but Skid Row parks are closed to the public at night. Where are the homeless who can't find shelter to sleep, if not on sidewalks?

As a result of the expansive reach of section 41.18(d), the extreme lack of available shelter in Los Angeles, and the large homeless population, thousands of people violate the Los Angeles ordinance every day and night, and many are arrested, losing what few possessions they may have.

Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit told Los Angeles that it may not criminalize the status of being homeless, or "acts that are an integral aspect of that status." Most people do not choose to be homeless, and the Eighth Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment prohibits the government from punishing individuals for sleeping on sidewalks when they have no other choice. As the linked article suggests, this "could be a far-reaching victory for homeless advocates."

by TChris

The morning headline, Rumsfeld Faces Growing Revolt by Retired Generals, leads to the predictable response from our stubborn president, Bush Declares Full Support for Rumsfeld, and the sad but inevitable late afternoon headline, Rumsfeld Rejects Calls to Quit.

Your turn. I'll be back this evening. And blogging through the holiday weekend.

[Thanks to all, comments now closed.]

Time Magazine has an interview with Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte. Those in secret prisons abroad will remain there indefinitely.

Negroponte also told TIME that three dozen or so of the worst al-Qaeda terrorists held in secret CIA prisons are likely to remain in captivity as long as the "war on terror continues." He added, "These people are being held. And they're bad actors. And as long as this situation continues, this war on terror continues, I'm not sure I can tell you what the ultimate disposition of those detainees will be." Negroponte's comments appear to be the first open acknowledgement of the secret U.S. detention system and the fact that captives such as Khalid Shaikh Mohammad -- involved in Sept. 11 or other major attacks on U.S. interests around the world -- may be held indefinitely.

[Hat tip Patriot Daily.]

Update: The media has corrected the earlier reporting that police attempted to serve search warrants at players' dorm rooms Thursday night. Apparently, they were attempting to interview players and in some instances, walked uninvited inside dorm rooms.

Condolences to defense lawyer Joe Cheshire, whose father passed away today.