The Guardian makes an important point on the bin Laden tape today, and warns Britain against falling for it. We need to convey the same message to our legislators who will use the tape as renewed fodder for the Patriot Act renewal legislation, increased surveillance and enhanced security measures.

At the heart of Bin Laden's message is the threat to unleash further terror attacks on American citizens in their homeland. Far from provoking a movement to appease the terrorists, this will surely do the reverse. It will play directly into the hands of those who insist that security must overwhelm all other considerations. It should not.

That's just what bin Laden wants, to destroy our democratic freedoms and our civil liberties. We should not give him what he wants.

We must take care that our leaders do not brainwash the public by using Bin Laden's tape as a justification for Bush's warrantless electronic surveillance of Americans or the torture of detainees (or their extraordinary renditions to countries that engage in torture.)

Update: Check out Jack Shafer in Slate yesterday, This is Your County on Meth.

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The New York Times yesterday furthered law enforcement's meth hysteria . Jan Frel at Alternet does a good job today of deconstructing the meth myth.

Colossal social lies are going on with this meth phenomenon. Stop at ANY truck depot across this great country (nowadays even lots of gas stations) and talk to a truck driver, or go visit a wide swathe of child education specialists or "learning experts." Talk to any A-ball to major league baseball player. Talk to a freelance journalist -- ignore this brat's confessions -- even one who specializes in drug use and American society. Ask them what personal experience has taught them about amphetamines.

Frel continues:

Alaska criminal defender Bill Bryson died on January 12. This front-page article from the Alaska Daily News does a great job of explaining his strengths and weaknesses.

Bill was my friend and a colleague I saw several times a year over the past decade at meetings of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He will be missed.

Does anyone believe this is only about random porn searches? I think it's about the Government's ability to track and spy on what Google users are searching generally.

The Bush administration, in a bid to resurrect a controversial online pornography law, has asked a federal judge to force online search giant Google (GOOG) to surrender details on what its users are viewing.

Google has refused to comply with a subpoena, issued last year, to turn over a sweeping amount of material from its databases, including 1 million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period.

Raw Story has obtained a copy of the Justice Department memo about to be released vouching for the legality of Bush's warrantless NSA electronic surviellance program.

"The NSA activities are supported by the President’s well-recognized inherent constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and sole organ for the Nation in foreign affairs to conduct warrantless surveillance of enemy forces for intelligence purposes to detect and disrupt armed attacks on the United States," Justice Department lawyers write, referring to the President's order to wiretap Americans' calls overseas.

It adds, "The President has the chief responsibility under the Constitution to protect America from attack, and the Constitution gives the President the authority necessary to fulfill that solemn responsibility."

The full DOJ memo is available here (pdf). The New York Times article is here.

The Independent Counsel Report in the 10 year, $22 million investigation of former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros has been released. What does it show? Not much of anything, certainly not enough to justify the length and expense of the investigation. The full report and appendixes and other documents are available here. As to charges that the Clinton Administration intervened to protect Cisneros, it sounds to me like bunk.

Justice Department officials who disputed Barrett's findings portrayed his investigation as deeply misguided and said the tax case against Cisneros had little merit. They suggested the prosecutor had turned his disappointment in his inability to prove the obstruction allegations into unprovable theories. Robert Litt, one of the Justice Department officials involved, wrote in a comment letter May 31 that he was allowed to read only edited portions of the report but he concluded the report was "a fitting conclusion to one of the most embarrassingly incompetent and wasteful episodes in the history of American law enforcement."

Bin Laden has released a tape saying there will be another attack but offering up the possibility of a truce. The U.S. has rejected the truce.

Some experts say the tape will boost support for Bush. Why? Won't it just show the ineptitude of his Administration in finding Bin Laden and its misjudgement in expending resources, energies and lives on Iraq?

Update: Excerpts from the tape are here. [hat tip Patriot Daily.]

This is an open thread, all topics, not just bin Laden.

Update: Check out Daily Kos' Whip Count.

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Original Post

In a closed meeting of the Democratic caucus Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and Patrick Leahy made the case for rejecting Judge Sam Alito.

As I reported yesterday, Sens. Leahy and Kennedy will be speaking publicly against Alito today.

Kevin Zeese, director of Democracy Rising and an Independent candidate for the U.S. Senate in Maryland, makes an excellent case for filibustering Alito. (received by e-mail.) While I don't think that's a realistic possibility, I hope any Democrats and moderate Republicans considering voting for Alito read his piece first. It just might change their minds.

A second report from the independent Congressional Research Agency finds that Bush's warrantless NSA electronic surveillance did not comply with federal law.

The Congressional Research Service opinion said that the amended 1947 law requires President Bush to keep all members of the House and Senate intelligence committees "fully and currently informed" of such intelligence activities as the domestic surveillance effort.

The memo from national security specialist Alfred Cumming is the second report this month from CRS to question the legality of aspects of Bush's domestic spying program. A Jan. 6 report concluded that the administration's justifications for the program conflicted with current law.

With a 72 hour death threat hanging over her head, the Christian Science Monitor and the Council on American-Islamic Relations are stepping into overdrive to save kidnapped American reporter Jill Caroll.

The U.S. and coalition forces are holding 8 female Iraqi prisoners. The kidnappers have demanded their release. The Iraq Ministry of Justice says it will release six of them early in an action it says is unrelated to Ms. Carroll. Will it be enough?

I think Ms. Carroll will be saved. Here's a commercial-free link to the video of Ms. Carroll that appeared on al-jazeera tv.

There's a lot of news in Europe the past two days on the CIA's extraordinary renditions of terror suspects via Ghost Air:

• Europe sets up CIA prison inquiry
  The European Parliament is setting up a committee to investigate claims that the CIA has been transporting suspects to secret prisons in Europe....The committee's inquiry will run alongside the investigation by human rights watchdog the Council of Europe....46 members of the new committee are set to be announced on Thursday.

• Scotland has been asked to cooperate in the investigation . There are allegations Ghost Air landed at Scottish airports.

• A British Foreign Office memo has been leaked showing that British airports may have been used and UK leaders were concerned about the legality of the CIA's rendition program.

• A Swiss Senator says Switzerland has known about the CIA program for at least two years.

Yesterday I wrote about Michael Fortier's impending release Friday from prison. He's done with his 12 year sentence--he served 10 1/2 years, 85%. Fortier pleaded guilty to knowing about plans to bomb the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995 and not reporting it to authorities, as well as lesser offenses.

Tonight the Dallas Morning News reports that Fortier, his wife Lori (who received immunity from prosecution in exchange for her testimony against McVeigh and Nichols) and their children will immediately be whisked off into the Witness Protection program, given new identities and moved to a new location.

This reaction by one of the survivors of the bombing is particularly insightful: