Julian Sanchez of Hit and Run reports on law enforcement's flavor of the month--drugwipes. Drugwipes are swabs that an officer wipes across a surface and puts in a vial. A color change signals to the officer that trace amount of amphetamines, cannabis, cocaine, and opiates are present. They are being used in schools and elsewhere without search warrants. Julian writes:

A New York Times piece this weekend reports on a hand-held device called DrugWipe that can detect minute residual particles of the most common illegal drugs. Schools are apparently attracted to it as a less intrusive way of "screening" students. I have my doubts: Most people know the factoid that a large proportion of the currency in circulation has detectable traces of cocaine; I'd bet little bits of various drugs are pretty common in our environment.

The interesting question is this: We know that a dog sniff doesn't even count as a search under current Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. ....The question then is: What happens when these things become so cheap that they're standard issue for cops, teachers, and possibly others? How long before suspicionless drug swipes are a routine part of a normal day?

Several blogs are providing their final thoughts on their convention blogging experience. Here are a few:

• Ezra at Pandagon
• Bill at Liberal Oasis gives out awards.
• Buzzflash
• Jay Rosen of PressThink wants to debrief bloggers.

Positive Mainstream Media Wrapups:

• Journalist Dan Bricklin

I think that the DNC bloggers did a wonderful job, and I personally found their work quite valuable.

• Houston Chronicle Editorial

This year, a host of Internet bloggers enlivened the online version of the convention, which included video and audio streams and exhaustive information. For the truly plugged in voter, the Democratic convention took place not in Boston but in the electronic ether.

FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds has written this letter to Thomas Kean, Chair of the 9/11 Commission. Take a minute to read it. Here's just one excerpt:

Translation units are the frontline in gathering, translating, and disseminating intelligence. A warning in advance of the next terrorist attack may, and probably will, come in the form of a message or document in foreign language that will have to be translated.

That message may be given to the translation unit headed and supervised by someone like Mike Feghali, who slows down, even stops, translations for the purpose of receiving budget increases for his department, who has participated in certain criminal activities and security breaches, and who has been engaged in covering up failures and criminal conducts within the department, so it may never be translated in time if ever. That message may go to Kevin Taskesen, or another unqualified translator; so it may never be translated correctly and be acted upon. That message may go to a sympathizer within the language department; so it may never be translated fully, if at all. That message may come to the attention of an agent of a foreign organization who works as a translator in the FBI translation department, who may choose to block it; so it may never get translated.

If then an attack occurs, which could have been prevented by acting on information in that message, who will tell family members of the new terrorist attack victims that nothing more could have been done? There will be no excuse that we did not know, because we do know.

James Hubbard is 74 years old. He has colon cancer and prostate cancer. He's on Alabama's death row and scheduled for execution on Thursday. If executed, he would be the oldest person ever executed in the state of Alabama and the oldest person executed in the United States in more than 60 years.

The NCADP is calling for clemency.

"Even if one supported the death penalty, it is difficult to understand what purpose James Hubbard's execution would serve," said David Elliot, NCADP communications director. "Executive clemency exists to prevent miscarriages of justice when the courts cannot or will not act. This is a clear case for mercy."

Please take a minute to visit this action alert page and e-mail your thoughts to the Governor. From the pre-recorded letter, which you can change to insert your own words if you wish:

As expected, the Supreme Court today agreed to hear two cases decided adversely to the Government in the wake of its Blakely decision. Sentencing Law and Policy and Scotusblog have the details.

Accepting all of the suggestions of the Justice Department, the Court agreed to review two constitutional questions in two cases – U.S. v. Booker, 04-104, and U.S. v. Fanfan, 04-105. The Court indicated it would decide whether Blakely applies to the Guidelines and, if so, whether the entire Guidelines system is invalid, or some of it can be salvaged.

President Bush announced today he will follow the recommendations of the 9/11 report--with some modifications-- and appoint an Intelligence czar.

The bipartisan panel's most overarching recommendations in a 567-page report were for creation of a counterterrorism center, which the commission envisions as a joint operational planning and intelligence center staffed by personnel from all the spy agencies, and a national intelligence czar.

What are the modifications? Here's one:

However, officials say Bush differs from the commission on one point. He thinks the director and a new counter-terrorism center should be outside the White House hierarchy. One official said placing them inside the Executive Office of the President could undermine the intelligence community's traditional autonomy.`

New York City is convinced the terror alert threat is real. It is closing the Holland Tunnel tomorrow to commercial traffic:

The Holland Tunnel is expected to close to commercial traffic heading to New York at 12:01 a.m. Monday, officials said Sunday evening. The ban was "correlated to the warning about the downtown financial districts," said Tony Ciavolella, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. He said commercial vehicles should use the Lincoln Tunnel and George Washington Bridge as alternative routes.

[link via Drudge.]

Update: To make it clear, as a reader has pointed out, passenger vehicles are not affected. I've changed the headline to this post accordingly.]

SK Bubba thinks the terror threats are a ploy.

These alleged terrorist threats to U.S. financial institutions today are a transparent, cynical ploy to make the stock markets tank tomorrow. Then next month the GOP and their talking wobbly bobble-heads can be all serious and somber about how the markets reacted to the Democratic convention and Kerry's plan for America.

Oliver Willis is willing to credit the threats.

I don't know but my instincts tell me, mostly due to their specificity, that the threats are real and not a ploy. Better a false alarm than no notice.

I also wonder whether we are getting the whole story. For example, Secretary Ridge said in his remarks (text available here), “We’re concerned about targets beyond these and are working to get more information.” He also referred to security measures being taken “in our public places and cyber space; on air, land, and sea.”

The "beyond these" and the "in cyberspace" caught my attention. Is the threat broader than the New York area? Does it involve electronic sabotage of our financial markets? Is there an "electronic Jihad" on the way? Is it just a coincidence that American Airlines and U.S. Air were grounded today by "computer glitches?" Or are conspiracy theorists at work again?

Secretary Ridge also mentioned that “thousands of radiological pagers” would be distributed to law enforcement to enable the detection of radiological disbursement. Is there a real concern that conventional explosives will be mixed with radiological ones, which, if it's the case, would increase the damage that would be inflicted?

How serious is the new threat to U.S. assets? What other cities might be involved? Chicago has the Chicago Board of Exchange. Miami, Seattle and Houston could also be targets according to intelligence alert services to which we subscribe.

Oliver asks, if it is a real alert, what can we do? I always tell the TL kid who lives in New York to keep lots of bottled water on hand. Obviously, in a real emergency, that won't be enough. According to the Northeast Security Network, here are the instructions to follow for emergency preparedness--a Major Disaster Survival Kit. You might want to print them and keep them handy. Just in case. And one other thought. If the internet and television go down, you might want to have a short-wave radio on hand.

As early as today the Supreme Court is expected to decide which, if any, of the Blakely cases it will review. The Government has sought review of two cases, one of which was won in the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals by Talkleft contributor TChris. Tony Mauro at Legal Times has the details.

For two years, TalkLeft has published using the "editorial we." There have been many reasons for this, not the least of which is the "six degrees of separation" I hoped to keep between the blog and my law practice. Nobody should seek my legal services because they like what I say on TalkLeft. One has nothing to do with the other. In fact, clients should beware any lawyer who interjects his or her political beliefs as to what the law should be in an argument to a court. If you want the law changed, take it to Congress, not the courts.

I also use the "editorial we" because TalkLeft speaks from the viewpoint of many, although certainly not all, criminal defense lawyers, whose top priority is defending the citizen accused. The main reason criminal defense lawyers comment on cable news shows and give interviews to the print media is to enable the public to view laws and court proceedings through the lens of the Constitution. "We" has a lot more impact than "I" in this regard.

Of course I realized that blogging at the DNC in Boston would call more attention to me, Jeralyn, and that while my identity as TalkLeft's creator and principal author is readily available though TalkLeft's "about page," that after the DNC, more people would associate TalkLeft with me. I decided it was worth the risk because the opportunity to go to Boston was such a special one. And now, it seems like that's exactly what has happened. Other bloggers are now referring to TalkLeft as "Jeralyn"--see here and here and here.

Many readers have criticized TalkLeft's use of the "editorial we" in the past and I've always found that the reasons stated above justify disregarding them. Now, I'm not so sure.

So, as an experiment, even though it seems unnatural, self-absorbed and insanely non-private, I'm going to post for a week using "I" instead of "we." It's only an experiment, so don't go ballistic if I change back to the more comfortable "we" next week. Our contributing blogger TChris will continue to post as TChris--unless the Supreme Court agrees to hear his Blakely case, in which case it may be months before he has time to blog again.

Hey, if Atrios can come out of "the closet,", so can I. Feel free to let me know in comments which way you like it better--"we" or "I." Everyone's opinion matters here.

The past few months, the media has been abuzz with the story of FBI translator Sybil Edmunds. Now, there's a second FBI agent who has come forward alleging that the FBI ignored his warnings.

... in early 2002, when [FBI agent Michael] German got word that a group of Americans might be plotting support for an overseas Islamic terrorist group, he proposed to his bosses what he thought was an obvious plan: go undercover and infiltrate the group.

But Mr. German says F.B.I. officials sat on his request, botched the investigation, falsified documents to discredit their own sources, then froze him out and made him a "pariah." He left the bureau in mid-June after 16 years and is now going public for the first time - the latest in a string of F.B.I. whistle-blowers who claim they were retaliated against after voicing concerns about how management problems had impeded terrorism investigations since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Rolling Stone has an article analyzing the newly declassified documents on Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

New classified documents implicate U.S. forces in rape and sodomy of Iraqi prisoners....The new classified military documents offer a chilling picture of what happened at Abu Ghraib -- including detailed reports that U.S. troops and translators sodomized and raped Iraqi prisoners. The secret files -- 106 "annexes" that the Defense Department withheld from the Taguba report last spring -- include nearly 6,000 pages of internal Army memos and e-mails, reports on prison riots and escapes, and sworn statements by soldiers, officers, private contractors and detainees. The files depict a prison in complete chaos. Prisoners were fed bug-infested food and forced to live in squalid conditions; detainees and U.S. soldiers alike were killed and wounded in nightly mortar attacks; and loyalists of Saddam Hussein served as guards in the facility, apparently smuggling weapons to prisoners inside.

The files make clear that responsibility for what Taguba called "sadistic, blatant and wanton" abuses extends to several high-ranking officers still serving in command positions.

Just a few bad apples, right? [link via Just a Bump in the Beltway]

Check out the case Ron Reagan makes against President Bush in the September issue of Esquire.