This is ridiculous. How can the Court allow it? This will be the shame of Boston:

An area designated for organized protests appears enclosed by mesh and chain link fencing near the site of the upcoming Democratic National Convention, in Boston, Wednesday, July 21, 2004. A new federal lawsuit has been filed against the city over the fenced-in protest area that has been called a 'demonstration zone,' and a 'free speech zone.'

From an editorial in the Boston Globe today:

US District Judge Douglas Woodlock also split the difference Thursday when deciding two lawsuits brought by civil liberties activists. The judge, wisely, will allow antiwar protesters access to Causeway Street tomorrow for what is expected to be the largest protest march of the week. But disappointingly, Woodlock left intact the pathetic coop, complete with razor wire and netting, that is to serve as the designated protest area during the rest of the week. Yesterday, lawyers for the protesters appealed for redress to the US Court of Appeals, and a three-member panel of judges agreed to review the case and additional filings on Monday morning. Clarity must be brought to Woodlock's decision, in which he refers to the protest zone as "an affront to the idea of free expression" yet, fearing violence, allows it to remain.

The FBI is warming up to its new role as a preventive law enforcement agency. It has begun knocking on the doors of those they expect to be protesting at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions and asking questions and giving warnings to the occupants inside. Where? Denver is one place. From today's Rocky Mountain News:

Law enforcement officers visited several Denver young people Thursday to warn them against committing violence at the Democratic and Republican national conventions. "This is part of an ongoing FBI investigation with the Joint Terrorism Task Force," Colorado FBI spokeswoman Monique Kelson said Friday. "That's all that we can comment right now."

Some of those receiving the unwelcome visits called the ACLU:

Mark Silverstein, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Colorado, said young people living at two locations in Denver reported the visits to the ACLU and that similar visits have occurred elsewhere in the United States in recent days. He said officers told the Denver young people that they were visiting "protesters and anarchists."

"It's an abuse of power, designed to intimidate these kids from exercising their constitutional right to protest government policies and associate with others who want to protest government policies," Silverstein said.

Sarah Bardwell, one of those visited, said the six officers and agents who knocked on her door asked these questions:

Dave Winer has set up Convention Bloggers where you can read all the convention bloggers (credentialed, non-credentialed and blogging delegates) in one place.

Feedster has set up this site with the current day's blogging entries from "official" DNC bloggers (yes, we're included.)

Beginning Sunday night, Technorati and CNN will have this site operational, providing research and analysis for Democratic National Convention coverage.

Joe Trippi and others will be blogging the Convention for MSNBC's Hardball at a new blog called the Hardblogger. MSNBC's full convention coverage is here.

If you're blogging the DNC, and you're not on these lists, feel free to add a link to your blog in the comments--using the html instructions in the comment box.

We know. So many pundits, so little time. Read as many as you can though, because we are all different and each of us brings our own unique perspective to the main event.

Late Friday afternoon, the Pentagon announced that President Bush's military records are no longer lost. It was just a clerical error. So what? The new records don't show Bush wasn't awol:

Some of President Bush's missing Air National Guard records during the Vietnam War years, previously said to be destroyed, turned up on Friday but offered no new evidence to dispel charges by Democrats that he was absent without leave. ...The documents released on Friday by the Pentagon included two faded computerized payroll sheets showing Bush was not paid during the latter part of 1972 and offer no evidence to place Bush in Alabama during the latter part of 1972.

Democratic National Committee spokespersons respond:

The Democratic National Committee called the "supposed discovery" of Bush's payroll records late on Friday -- on the eve of the Democratic National Convention -- "highly questionable." "If the Bush administration continues to search, maybe they'll find answers to the long list of unanswered questions that remain about George W. Bush's time in the Air National Guard. Bush's military records seem to show up as randomly as he did for duty," said DNC spokesman Jano Cabrera.

People for the American Way will be hosting a panel on the Supreme Court at the DNC next week in Boston. Titled "Four More Years or Forty More Years," this is one event we encourage everyone to attend.

The current Supreme Court is closely divided on basic constitutional issues, with many key cases being decided by 5-4 or 6-3 votes. The next President is likely to nominate two, three, or even four new Supreme Court justices who will have a huge and long-lasting impact on constitutional rights, liberties and legal protections. People For the American Way’s panel, “Four More Years or Forty More Years?” seeks to educate and mobilize progressive voters around the future of the Supreme Court.

It will be held on Tuesday, July 27 2004, 9 am - 11 am, at the Boston Marriot Copley Place, Salon E. So far the panelists will include:

Ralph G. Neas, President, People For the American Way
Alec Baldwin, PFAW board member
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-TX-18
Rep. Charlie Gonzalez, D-TX-20
James Carville, political strategist

We think they should add some practicing lawyers to the panel.

We wish we were making this up, but we're not:

The FBI said on Friday it was investigating "unconfirmed information" of a possible attack on media vehicles during the Democratic National Convention, which begins on Monday in Boston. "The FBI has received unconfirmed information that a domestic group is planning to disrupt the Democratic National Convention by attacking media vehicles with explosives or incendiary devices," the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Boston field office said in a statement. ...spokeswoman for the Boston FBI told Reuters that the bureau had notified media organizations of the probe because they were potential targets.

This is one way to keep the nation riveted to the convention next week.

John Emerson (Zizka) at Seeing the Forest analyzes the 9/11 report and says while it stops short of saying that Bush and his Administration were at fault, a review of Chapter 8 leads to no other possible conclusion.

The Wall St. Journal (subscription only) reports that hearings for Guantanamo detainees may begin today. First off, put aside any prior concept you may have about court hearings where there is a judge, a prosecutor and a defense counsel-- and where the defendant has the right to cross-examine witnesses and present evidence. The Administration is holding fast to its belief that it need not provide such protections to the detainees. Here's what they get:

Under the procedure, which went under a dry run yesterday, with military personnel playing the part of detainees, prisoners will appear before a three-man panel of senior officers. That panel will examine the dossiers assembled after hours of interrogations, give the detainees a chance to speak and then determine whether they should be set free. The advocates will be U.S. government employees, who, unlike lawyers, will not be honor-bound to serve the best interests of their client.

Under the current plan, three separate tribunals will hear 72 cases a week so each detainee can get a hearing within four months. Unlike traditional civilian justice, the government will have one big advantage: The burden of proving innocence will rest with the detainees. Detainees won't get lawyers, but "personal representatives," military officials without any legal background, who will offer advice to prisoners, lay out unclassified portions of their dossiers and help inmates make their case to the tribunal.

What if a detainee wants to call a witness to repudiate the charges? It will be very difficult if not impossible:

The ACLU provides its take on the 9/11 report released today. The good news: The report is critical of the Adminstration's excessive secrecy and of the USA Patriot Act. It does not recommend that any of the provisions scheduled to sunset be made permanent.

The bad news:

Unfortunately, there are some recommendations that raise civil liberties concerns; two of the most salient are calls for the backdoor creation of national ID cards in the form of a standardized drivers licenses and a cabinet-level intelligence czar. "A Senate-confirmed intelligence director sitting in the White House would be in the hip pocket of the president," Romero added.

The ACLU questioned whether pitting the FBI’s culture of case-oriented law enforcement against the CIA’s culture of covert, subversive operations, under one chief, would result in a further weakening of civil liberties protections in the FBI’s intelligence work. Similarly, if the new director were to have operational control over both domestic and foreign intelligence work - that is, real authority over both the FBI and the CIA - he or she could blur the lines between the agencies’ two very different missions.

The powers accorded intelligence gathering and law enforcment agencies are different for good reason. It prevents the Government from making an end run around the Fourth Amendment. The ACLU has an excellent explanation of the issue here. Additional arguments are available in The Gilmore Report (pdf) which was prepared in 2003 by a federal advisory panel (the Gilmore Commission), chaired by Jim Gilmore, a former Republican Party chairman and Governor of Virginia.

Congress passed a resolution today declaring that genocide is occurring in Sudan.

In a rare show of bipartisan agreement, the House of Representatives passed the measure in a unanimous vote, and the Senate then approved it by a voice vote, in their last acts before Congress adjourned for a six-week summer recess. "While the world debates, people die in Darfur," said Sen. Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican. "We actually could save some lives instead of lamenting afterward that we should have done something."

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat, called the resolution "an important statement to make. The administration needs to hear it, the international community needs to hear it, and certainly the Sudanese government, which tolerates if not assists genocide, needs to hear it." The resolution says "the atrocities unfolding in Darfur, Sudan, are genocide."

Sudan is not happy with the pressure being brought to bear on it from the U.S. and Great Britain. Tony Blair has not ruled out sending military support to the area. The Sudanese President announced that:

"(This) pressure closely resembles the increased pressure that was put on Iraq (before the war)."

The conflict between the Arab nomads and African farmers has been going on for 15 months. The U.N. estimates that the conflict has killed 30,000 and displaced over 1 million. The Arab Janjaweed militias who have been attacking black Africans and raping African women may be getting help from the Sudanese Government. For the latest developments, check in with Passion of the Present.

Update: The Washington Post has this editorial today.

John Kerry and John Edwards will be appearing at a rally in Colorado today. It was scheduled outdoors at Fitzsimmons in Aurora. We just received word that due to rain, it has just been moved to The Fillmore Auditorium in Denver. (1510 Clarkson Street). Gates open at 10 a.m.

The military has released its report on prisoner abuse in Iraq and Afganistan, finding 94 cases of confirmed or alleged abuse:

The number is significantly higher than all other previous estimates given by the Pentagon, which had refused until now to give a total number of abuse allegations.The inspector general investigation, ordered Feb. 10 after the allegations of abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq came to the attention of top Army officials in Washington, concluded that there were no systemic problems that contributed to the abuse. In some cases, the report found, the abuse was abetted or facilitated by officers not following proper procedures.

In contrast to its own findings that there were no systemic problems, however, the Army report also cites a February report from the International Committee for the Red Cross that alleged that "methods of ill treatment" were "used in a systematic way" by the U.S. military in Iraq.

94 cases is not an isolated problem. It is a systemic failure that indicates the need for a comprehensive overhaul of current policies. For more, check out this Human Rights First Press Release. The organization's 10 point plan to end unjust security detentions and abuse is here.

The full military report is available here.