by TChris

The government wants a ten year sentence for former U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (Talkleft background collected here). This is why:

Court documents filed late on Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California in San Diego, contain previously undisclosed details of the Republican congressman's crimes, including taking $2.4 million in bribes.

"For the better part of a decade, Cunningham, in effect, erected a 'for sale' sign upon our nation's capital," U.S. Attorney Carol Lam wrote in her sentencing motion.

The sentencing papers contain a photocopy of a "bribe menu" on Cunningham's official stationery in which he listed what a military contractor needed to pay to obtain various levels of defense appropriations.

by TChris

Republicans continue to back away from Sen. Roberts' suggestion that FISA be "fixed" to better allow court review of NSA's domestic wiretaps.

"I'm not sure that's exactly what Pat meant,'' said Chambliss, a Georgia Republican, on CNN's "Late Edition.''

Fixing the law would be an admission that the president acted beyond the law in authorizing domestic surveillance without following FISA procedures. Sen. Frist, who has given the public reason to question his competence to render medical opinions, has even less basis to advance a legal opinion that the president doesn't need court approval to spy on Americans. Frist seems to think judicial oversight is a bad idea:

by TChris

This is a sad anniversary:

On this day - Feb. 19 - in 1942, two months after Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt signed an executive order clearing the way for some 120,000 U.S. residents of Japanese descent to be evicted from their homes and imprisoned.

The linked story tells how a librarian, Clara Breed, did what she could to help.

by TChris

Newsweek promises to take you "inside Dick Cheney's dark, secretive mind-set." A disturbing journey, that.

Cheney, the conservative that moderates once seemed to like, has strangely iced over in recent years. Even his old friends sometimes wonder if he has not grown angrier, more suspicious, even paranoid.

(Try to get past the description of Brit Hume as a "friendly but also serious and credible interrogator" of Cheney.)

by TChris

The TalkLeft writers are working or playing or hanging out in Amsterdam. Here's a place to chat about the week's events.

by TChris

A Supreme Court Justice's law clerk has the potential to influence some of the Court's written opinions. Justice Alito is catching criticism for hiring Adam Ciongoli, "a former top aide to Attorney General John Ashcroft and an architect of the Bush administration's legal strategy after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, to be one of his law clerks." Here's one example:

"It really indicates a lapse in judgment," Deborah L. Rhode, who teaches legal ethics at Stanford, said of Justice Alito's decision. "I just don't think it helps your reputation for nonpartisanship, particularly after such partisan confirmation hearings, to start out by hiring someone who is perceived to have an ideological agenda."

The concern is that Ciongoli might weigh in on cases addressing the administration's detention without trial of those it labels as enemy combatants.

by TChris

Will we allow fear to turn the United States into a nation of spies? Tens of thousands of school bus drivers around the country have been "trained to watch for potential terrorists, in a program financed by the Homeland Security Department." The School Bus Watch program is intended "to turn 600,000 bus drivers into an army of observers."

But what are they observing? It's fine to teach bus drivers how to inspect their busses for signs of tampering, but the notion that "a bus driver, going down the same streets and going into the same neighborhoods every day," will "know when there's a car that shouldn't be there" is silly. Does an out-of-town friend who drops in for a visit become a suspected terrorist because a bus driver doesn't think her Toyota should be there?

At weekly crime meetings in Nashville, neighborhood residents are told that it's crucial to report anyone "who doesn't belong here." That advice, according to this story, is taken to mean: "If you see more than two young black males ages 12-18 wearing hooded sweat shirts and moving by foot, quickly, run to the phone and call the police."

Apparently young white males wearing hooded sweatshirts are not suspect. This was articulated by a East Nashville Police Department representative who confirmed the fears and suspicions of the residents and assured them (more than five times) that 100% of the recent crimes committed in East Nashville were indeed committed by black males. In other words, "Your fears are completely justified."

In a diverse society that values freedom of movement, it's dangerous to assume that bus drivers, neighbors, or anyone else can reliably decide who "doesn't belong" or who "shouldn't be there."

by TChris

Where did LA County Sheriff Lee Baca get the idea that he can punish jail inmates by making them stand around naked?

More than 100 inmates at a Los Angeles County jail were ordered to strip naked, had their mattresses taken away and were left with only blankets to cover themselves for a day as Los Angeles Sheriff's Department officials tried to quell racially charged violence that has plagued the jail system for nearly two weeks.

The Sheriff opined that he was acting at "outer edge of our core values," but he's fallen off the edge.

"It comes to a different level of basic human rights if you take away clothing and dignity," said Michael Gennaco, chief of Sheriff Lee Baca's office of independent review.

by TChris

It's no longer quite so much fun to be an undercover cop (or a cop under the covers) for the Spotsylvania County Sheriff's office.

A Virginia sheriff said Friday he will no longer allow detectives to receive sexual services while investigating suspected prostitution after they spent $1,200 at massage parlors last month and sparked a public outcry.

The detectives spent so much, according to the sheriff, because it takes "multiple visits" to "build trust" with the massage parlor employees. Not to mention the $350 tip that one detective left after a particularly satisfying undercover experience.

by TChris

A 14 year old boy, Martin Anderson, violated a probation condition. As a consequence, he was sent to a juvenile-detention boot camp in Florida, where he died. A medical examiner, Dr. Charles Siebert, concluded that Martin died from internal bleeding that Siebert attributed to "sickle cell trait, a disorder that caused his red blood cells to change shape and produce 'a whole cascade of events' that led to hemorrhaging." Siebert inferred that bruises on the boy's body were inflicted during efforts to revive him and were unrelated to his death.

Martin's parents believe that Martin died as the result of a beating inflicted by boot camp guards. The beating was videotaped, and the video establishes that the guards abused Martin, whether or not they killed him.

On the 1-hour, 20-minute tape, which has no sound, as many as nine guards can be seen restraining Anderson. Guards kneed him and wrestled him to the ground, where he was repeatedly struck by one guard, either on his arm or the side of his torso, while he lay still. He was limp throughout most of it and never appeared to offer significant resistance.

The "tough love" philosophy that prevails in many boot camps is nothing more than an excuse to abuse kids. A parent who physically mistreated a kid in this way would be arrested. Our society shouldn't tolerate a double standard at boot camps. The Florida camp, and any others like it, should be shut down.

by TChris

As TalkLeft noted here, two air marshals have been arrested for smuggling cocaine. Now it appears that one of the marshals might rat out other marshals who may have participated in a broader drug smuggling conspiracy.

Stuart Maneth, an agent with the inspector general's office of the Homeland Security Department, testified that one of the suspects had told the authorities that after their arrest last week, he was warned by his co-defendant against "giving up other F.A.M.'s."

Of course, federal marshals are well aware that federally prosecuted criminals can gain a huge advantage by ratting out others, truthfully or not. What they say should be taken with several grains of salt, but it will be interesting to see if evidence of a larger conspiracy materializes.

by TChris

As noted here, Pat Roberts, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, isn't particularly interested in protecting Americans from unwarranted surveillance, and seems to think that the best way to protect the president from criticism is to broaden FISA to give the executive branch greater power to intercept domestic communications. Even that isn't good enough for the Bush administration, which must have admonished Roberts for trying to think independently.

Yesterday the NY Times reported that Roberts isn't sure exactly how to reform FISA, but believes that NSA spying requests should still "come before the FISA court." That isn't what the White House thinks, so the Senate Intelligence Committee's majority staff director, Bill Duhnke, had to tell the Times that its reporting "didn't reflect 'the tenor and status' of the negotiations between Congress and the White House." Duhnke assured the press today that Roberts is open to allowing the administration to continue bypassing the FISA court, while preferring that "the entire (intelligence) committee be briefed and involved in oversight issues." In other words, business as usual, with perhaps a few more senators hearing classified information that they won't be able to share with the public. This is oversight?