by TChris

Conventional lie detectors are untrustworthy assessors of the truth, at best. Even worse, according to a recent ABC Primetime report, are Voice Stress Analyzers. Expect police departments to continue using them, nonetheless. They've paid big money for these machines and are likely to stand behind them, even though they're about as reliable as voodoo.

"Police departments have paid $10,000 per system over the last 18 years and rely on it exclusively for truth verification," said Charles Humble, chairman and CEO of the National Institute for Truth Verification, which sells the CVSA. "We have a remarkable record of success."

Not according to the military, which used voice stress analyzers during interrogations in Guantanamo Bay and Iraq. Military investigators now realize that Voice Stress Analyzers are no more accurate than a coin-flip.

The Koufax Liberal Blogging Awards winners were announced today. Congrats to all the winners, particularly, Confined Spaces, a blog about the workplace health and safety issues, which won the best single issue category. TalkLeft came in second, and we proudly pass the crown, having won the category in 2002, 2003 and 2004. I'm grateful that TalkLeft did so well among the incredible competition. Thanks to everyone who voted for us.

Major congrats to winners Crooks and Liars (best blog, non professional), Daily Kos (best community blog), Digby (best writing), Firedoglake (best series writing for PlameGate) and Glenn Greenwald of Unclaimed Territory (best new blog.)

The full winner's list is below.

by TChris

After arguing that the government is entitled to hold Jose Padilla as an enemy combatant, the Justice Department decided to prosecute him on criminal charges, much to the displeasure of the Fourth Circuit, which wondered whether the Justice Department changed its theory to avoid Supreme Court review of Padilla's claim that his detention as an enemy combatant was unconstitutional. If so, the strategy succeeded. The Court decided today, by a 6-3 vote, not to review Padilla's case.

The Sopranos starts now. The episode is called "The Fleshy Part of the Thigh." Here's the lead-in:

Tony and Johnny Sack haggle over Barone Sanitation's future; Paulie is rocked by an aunt's revelation.

I bet a lot more happens than that.

Newsweek has an excellent wrap-up of the Duke Lacrosse team rape allegations, including a few new facts. One seems to make more viable a theory I floated in comments here and mentioned on Fox News yesterday-- that there may have been a physical altercation over the money, rather than a rape, that led to the broken fingernails.

In recounting the accuser's side, Newsweek writes:

They had just begun their performance when the men became "excited and aggressive." According to Nifong, one of the players called out, "Did you bring any sex toys?" When the women answered no, a man said, "That's OK, we'll just use a broom." Frightened, the strippers ran outside to their car. One of the men followed and coaxed one of the women to come back in. When she did, she told police, she was forced into a bathroom and held down while three men forced her to have sex. According to Nifong, she claimed that the men robbed her and that she broke off several fake fingernails clawing one of her attackers.

Newsweek reports the feds obtained 1,000 emails from Tom DeLay's lawyers around Christmas. Along with Tony Rudy's guilty plea and cooperation agreement, could DeLay be in trouble?

Although court papers filed by prosecutors with the plea contain no direct allegations against DeLay, the documents for the first time refer to an unnamed "Representative No. 2" (who is DeLay) whose office repeatedly assisted Abramoff and his clients. The papers allege that Rudy, while still working for DeLay, arranged for the congressman to sign a letter opposing a postal-rate increase to aid an Abramoff client and helped kill an antigambling bill opposed by another Abramoff client. At the same time, Abramoff arranged for $86,000 in consulting payments to be made to Rudy's wife, Lisa, according to the documents. (She was not charged.)

And here's a revelation: None were from DeLay himself because he doesn't e-mail.

In the Gus Boulis murder trial (in which Jack Abramoff has been subpoened to a depositon) it has just been disclosed that the star defendant, alleged Mob Boss Anthony Moscatiello, has been playing both sides of the fence for years, doubling as an FBI mob snitch. It sounds like an episode of the Sopranos, but its real.

Moscatiello's outing as an FBI informant might cause some embarrassment for federal authorities. But its impact won't be entirely clear until more evidence surfaces about what he told FBI agents about his involvement in the Boulis murder and previous criminal investigations.

Sensitivity over Moscatiello's 15-year career as an FBI informant prompted the Broward State Attorney's Office to hold a closed-door meeting with defense attorneys in Circuit Judge Michael Kaplan's chambers on Friday. Some of the lawyers asked the judge to keep Moscatiello's statements given to the FBI after Boulis' murder under wraps.

Moscatiello ended his snitching after the Boulis slaying. But what about the mobsters he put in jail over that time period whose lawyers weren't told he was a snitch?

What's going on in your neck of the blogosphere? Here's what's happening in mine:

• A human rights group is alleging there is a secret death camp in Sujiatun, Shenyang City, Liaoning Province in China. The group charges that doctors at the camp are harvesting the organs of Falun Gong practitioners -- and in the cases of corneas, particularly the elderly and children, even while they are still alive. And that there are gas chambers on the premises and no one seems to come out alive. The Washington Times reported on the charges here.

• Christy at Firedoglake analyzes the Feb. 23 hearing transcript in the Scooter Libby case. (Transcript here.)

• The NORML Aspen CLE program for June 1 to 3 just keeps getting better and better. (I'll be one of the speakers, my topic is "Terrorism and the War on Drugs.") On Saturday afternoon, Hunter Thompson's widow, Anita Thompson, has invited the seminar attendees out to the fabled Owl Farm in Woody Creek to spend the afternoon. The Aspen Times has this writeup of NORML coming to town.

The New York Times reports that Joe Lieberman did not command the attention or respect of his audience at a fundraising event in Connecticut Thursday night.

Three times on Thursday night, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman asked the crowd of 1,700 for quiet during his remarks at the state Democrats' annual Jefferson Jackson Bailey fund-raising dinner. "Shhh," he told the guests. But rather than interrupting him with applause, many were ignoring him, having struck up conversations after finishing their chicken.

The inattentiveness -- as well as the scattered boos amid the supportive calls of "Joe" that welcomed Mr. Lieberman to the podium -- convinced some that the three-term senator, criticized for months because of his continued support for the war in Iraq, may be vulnerable in the primary challenge he faces.

Who came to his rescue? Sen. Barak Obama, with a ringing endorsement.

The right and left blogosphere, as well as the New York Times and the Washington Times, report differing interpretations of the testimony of five Judges at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this week on FISA and Bush's NSA warrantless surveillance program.

• Glenn Greenwald and Anonymous Liberal weigh in here.

• Right wing Powerline, which says the New York Times blew the story, is here and here.

Let's go to the transcripts. Since they are not yet available free, I've put them on TalkLeft, along with the transcript of the question and answer session that followed. They are in pdf format.

San Francisco criminal defense lawyer Tony Serra, a legend and the lawyer the movie "True Believer" was based on, got an extension of his jail surrender date last week so he can finish a murder trial. Tonywill be going to jail to serve a ten month sentence for tax evasion.

For any other lawyer, a jail term would mean financial ruin. For Tony Serra the 10-month sentence he starts this weekend for 20 years of tax evasion will be little more than a much-needed rest. With his long silver hair in a ponytail, his tie-dyed shirts and his admission that he smokes cannabis every day, Serra, 72, isn't like most lawyers, yet in a 40-year career he has built an unrivalled reputation of being able to win cases others dismiss as unwinnable.

What makes him remarkable is that, in a country where lawyers are among society's top earners, he has no credit cards, savings or bank account and owns no property. All his clothes are from charity shops or the Salvation Army. His net worth is whatever he happens to have in his pockets.

The UK papers get it right: Moussaoui was a hanger-on, a bumbling holy warrior, who was not connected to 9/11. Neither was Richard Reid.

The Times Online:

The notion that Moussaoui and Reid were central to the 9/11 conspiracy -- and had been entrusted with the task of destroying the White House -- was "pretty fantastical", one Washington official said. "If there had ever been any evidence that Reid was in any way connected to this, the Feds would be all over him," the official added. Another source said there were no plans to interview Reid about the allegations.