Rep. John Conyers has announced the Democrats will hold a hearing on Bush's warrantless electronic surveillance program on January 20.

Rep. Conyers also highly recommends constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe's letter outlining the illegality of the program, which he includes in his post.

As predicted, much of today's confirmation hearing concerned abortion rights. As GW law prof Jonathan Turley points out in USA Today,

The obsession with abortion in American politics has had an anaerobic effect on past confirmation hearings, sucking the air out of other issues. For Alito, this may have the welcomed effect of obscuring a more troubling question from his past writings and cases: Alito's extreme views of government authority over citizens' rights.

Turley also opines:

Despite my agreement with Alito on many issues, I believe that he would be a dangerous addition to the court in already dangerous times for our constitutional system. Alito's cases reveal an almost reflexive vote in favor of government, a preference based not on some overriding principle but an overriding party.

In my years as an academic and a litigator, I have rarely seen the equal of Alito's bias in favor of the government. To put it bluntly, when it comes to reviewing government abuse, Samuel Alito is an empty robe.

Jason Leopold has an update on RoveGate and quotes Luskin yesterday as saying,

"I think it's fair to say that there is no change in [Rove's] status. He is not a target of the investigation, but there remains an open investigation," Luskin said.

Jason also writes:

....sources knowledgeable about the case against Rove say that he was offered a plea deal in December and that Luskin had twice met with Fitzgerald during that time to discuss Rove's legal status. Rove turned down the plea deal, which would likely have required him to provide Fitzgerald with information against other officials who were involved in Plame's outing as well as testifying against those people, the sources said.

Luskin would neither confirm nor deny that a meeting with Fitzgerald took place last month.

Everyone is blogging the Alito hearings. I'm not going to do a play-by-play, I only got to watch bits and pieces and here's the transcript from this morning.

Of particular interest, Sen. Leahy questioned Judge Alito on his membership in Concerned Alumni of Princeton, a group that advocated against having women at Princeton. While at Princeton, Judge Alito was a member of this group. He listed it on a job application for the Reagan Administration. Today, while not denying he was a member, he says he has searched his memory and doesn't recall it, and therefore, he must not have been an active member.

Raw Story reports that the National Security Agency conducted surveillance on members of a Baltimore peace group. It even has the reports to show it. Kevin Zeese, of Democracy Rising and a candidate for the U.S. Senate in Maryland, writing at Raw Story has more:

According to the documents, the Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore, a Quaker-linked peace group, has been monitored by the NSA working with the Baltimore Intelligence Unit of the Baltimore City Police Department....The documents came as a result of litigation in the August 2003 trial of Marilyn Carlisle and Cindy Farquhar. An NSA security official provided the defendants with a redacted Action Plan and a redacted copy of a Joint Terrorism Task Force email about the activities of the Pledge of Resistance activities.

The NSA should not be conducting surveillance of American protestors. It's time to rein in the agency in. This should be a bi-partisan issue. Will Congress be up to the task?

NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) and the NORML Foundation have released their first major Internet viral animation project. It's called "Sam's Journey" and is a humorous and poignant 90-second animation featuring Samuel Caldwell, America's first prisoner in the war on marijuana users.

NORML asks us not to bogart the video -- it's meant to be passed around.

Former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham's lawyers today issued a statement denying the Time Magazine report that he had worn a wire to surreptitiously record conversations.

Attorneys Lee Blalack and Mark Holscher say Cunningham has never worn a body wire during conversations with his former congressional colleagues or any other public official. They also say he has not surreptitiously gathered evidence against any public officials.

The statement doesn't say whether he allowed federal agents to record his telephone conversations with other suspected wrongdoers. Will Cunningham's lawyers also deny this? In other words, did Time just get the method of the recording wrong, or were they just wrong, period? Background here.

[hat tip Patriot Daily.]

Jeffrey Toobin has an excellent new article in the New Yorker, available here, on how reporters are finding it increasingly difficult to protect their sources as a result of the frequency with which they are being subpoenaed in criminal investigations. He explains how Judge Tatel's decision in PlameGate is not the law of the land, or even in the federal courts in the District of Columbia, and that journalists fighting the subpoenas have little cause for optimism.

Toobin also discusses how defendants intend to fight back. Case in point: Scooter Libby.

As Libby's lawyers prepare for his trial, which will probably take place this year, they are expected to ask to see the journalists' notes, and they may subpoena other reporters who covered the investigation. At the trial, Libby's team will try to undermine the journalists' credibility by challenging them on everything from sloppy note-taking to evidence of bias. "This guy is on trial for his freedom, and it's not his job to be worried about the rights of the witnesses against him," a person close to Libby's defense team said. "There are going to be fights over access to the reporters' notes, their prior history and credibility, and their interviews with other people. By the time this trial is over, the press is going to regret that this case was ever brought."

by TChris

A reformed felon who has paid his debt to society, who works hard and pays taxes, should be entitled to vote. Reformed felons are not second-class citizens, and society is not well served by depriving them of a stake in their government. Felony disenfranchisement laws differ from state to state, but Virginia’s is among the worst.

Felons must wait for years after their release from prison to apply for restoration of their voting rights, and the government must decide on each petition individually, case by case. ... Even Texas and Georgia restore felons' voting rights automatically when they have completed probation and parole.

A NY Times editorial today calls on Gov. Mark Warner to “strike a blow for democracy with the stroke of a pen by restoring the right to vote to more than 240.000 felons who are now out of prison.” It’s the right thing to do.

Let the fallout begin. Alexander Strategy Group became the first lobbying firm to close up shop yesterday, due to ties to Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff.

Alexander Strategy Group, which had thrived since its founding in 1998 thanks largely to its close connections to DeLay (R-Tex.), will cease to operate except for a relatively small business-development division, Edwin A. Buckham, the former top DeLay aide who owns the company, said yesterday.

Buckham said in a telephone interview that the company was fatally damaged by publicity about the ongoing federal investigation into the affairs of Abramoff, who pleaded guilty last week to fraud and conspiracy charges.

As Michael Isikoff reported Sunday in Newsweek, Buckman is now under investigation .

The Supreme Court has never upheld such a sweeping power to invade the privacy of Americans at home without individualized suspicion or judicial oversight.

Law Prof Geoffrey Stone at Huffington Post writes that 14 constitutional scholars and former government officials have written a letter to Congress detailing the reasons that Bush's warrantless electronic surveillance program violates the law.

Although the program's secrecy prevents us from being privy to all of its details, the Justice Department's defense of what it concedes was secret and warrantless electronic surveillance of persons within the United States fails to identify any plausible legal authority for such surveillance. Accordingly the program appears on its face to violate existing law.

Last Night in Little Rock is off to Africa in the morning for a month, where he will be continuing his representation of defendant Sam Hinga Norman, charged with war crimes in the Special Court for Sierre Leone.

Three alleged leaders of the former Civil Defence Forces were indicted separately on 8 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other serious violations of international humanitarian law. Sam Hinga Norman was indicted on 7 March 2003. Moinina Fofana and Allieu Kondewa were indicted on 26 June 2003. On 28 February 2003 the Trial Chamber ordered the joint trial of Norman, Fofana and Kondewa, and on 5 March prosecutors issued a consolidated indictment.

The CDF trial began on 3 June 2004. On 14 July 2005, the Prosecution concluded its case. On 20 September, Trial Chamber II heard oral arguments on Defence Motions for Acquittal.

Since LNILR updates his 4th Amendment blog daily, even from Africa, he likely won't have time to post on TalkLeft until his return. We wish him a productive journey, and look forward to his return.