by TChris

It may be counterintuitive, but it is undeniable that persons arrested for crimes they didn't commit sometimes give false confessions.

There are a wide array of reasons. Juveniles are often manipulated into confessing. Tricky questioning, physical coercion or suggestions that a confession is the best way to avoid a lengthy sentence, or the death penalty, persuade many adults to admit crimes they did not commit.

An editorial in the NY Times notes that videotaping of police interrogations is a critical safeguard against interrogation tactics that lead to false confessions. Just as significantly, videotaping preserves the exact words used by a suspect -- protecting against misunderstanding, spinning, quoting out of context, and outright fabrication of the suspect's statement.

Honest officers have no objection to the transparency that videotaping brings, because it protects them from false claims that they used coercive questioning techniques and it prevents a defendant from falsely denying that the statement was made. That's why police in the few jurisdictions that require recording are enthusiastic about the practice. As the Times suggests, "the states and localities that do not require recorded interrogations now should start to do so."

It's our second Blogiversary. We began daily blogging at TalkLeft on June 15, 2002. According to SiteMeter, since then we've had 2,700,000 visitors and 4,500,000 page views. We've written more than 6,800 entries which have generated more than 63,000 comments. We're currently averaging more than 8,000 unique visitors daily.

Thanks to all of you readers for making us feel like you care what we have to say.

Another big thanks is due TChris, who has been contributing posts on TalkLeft for the past several months. And our advertisers. And Markos of Daily Kos who re-designed TalkLeft in its current form. And Eric Alterman, Instapundit, Atrios and VodkaPundit for linking to us early on. And Skippy, who mentions us far more often than we deserve.

We're just beginning to hit our stride, so please, stick around.

Another one of our all-time favorites moves into the "hero" category tonight. Jon Bon Jovi held a fundraiser at his home and raised a cool $1 million for John Kerry:

Kerry arrived via helicopter from Atlantic City, where he was staying the night and speaking to an AFL-CIO convention Tuesday morning. ``I know it makes a lot of you nervous,'' Kerry told the guests, ``the idea of my coming here to a fund-raiser, leaving at 8:30 with a million dollars and then 11 o'clock I'm on the news at the blackjack table in Atlantic City. I promise I will not gamble with your money the way George Bush has gambled with the money of this country.''

As to Bon Jovi, here's what he had to say:

Musician Jon Bon Jovi says criticism and intimidation won't stop him from speaking out in support of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, who raised $1 million at the singer's home Monday night. ``I've received hate mail at my house. I've had people drive by my home and shout things out,'' Bon Jovi told guests gathered outside his home along the Navesink River. ``And I think that they question my patriotism because I decided to stand up and have a voice. And I stood up to have a voice because I think that's the most American thing that you can do.''

The guest list?

More than 300 people attended the fund-raiser, including actors Meg Ryan, James Gandolfini and Steve Buscemi, both of HBO's ``The Sopranos,'' and Richard Belzer of NBC's ``Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.''

Unfair Witness has compiled a photo album with most of the Abu Ghraib abuse photos. Go look.

There's also a great quote from Jay Leno:

According to the “New York Times”, last year White House lawyers concluded that President Bush could legally order interrogators to torture and even kill people in the interest of national security - so if that’s legal, what the hell are we charging Saddam Hussein with?

Former Congressman Bob Barr sued Bill Clinton, James Carville and Larry Flynt for $30 million claiming they defamed him by conspiring to spread misinformation about his private life in retaliation for Barr's support of the Clinton impeachment effort.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said Barr failed to make his conspiracy claim against Clinton and Carville within the three years permitted by law. As to Flynt, the panel ruled that Barr's claim is barred by the First Amendment because he failed to show that the information printed in a one-time issue called "The Flynt Report" was false or was published with knowledge that it was false.

Do you remember when Flynt took out a full-page ad in the Washington Post offering to pay $1 million to anyone willing to go public with an affair with a member of Congress: Here's what he got:

Law Prof Jack Balkin reports that you can now download the Constitution to your IPod. That's great news, but we'd like to see the NORML Foundation's Freedom Card downloadable as well. The card advises people of their rights when stopped by police. Here's the text. You can download the card in pdf here, and print four copies on a page. It's free.

The U.S. Constitution prohibits the government from interfering with your right to remain silent, to consult with an attorney, and to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures by law enforcement. However, it is up to you to assert these rights. This NORML Foundation Freedom Card will help you do so effectively.

If you are confronted by a police officer, remain calm. Be courteous and provide your identification. Politely refuse to answer any further questions. Ask to talk to an attorney. Do not consent to any search of your person, your property, your residence or your vehicle. Tell the officer you would like to give him or her this card, which is a statement of the constitutional rights you wish to invoke. Do not reach for this card until you have obtained the officer's permission to do so.

If the officer fails to honor your rights, remain calm and polite, ask for the officer's identifying information and ask him or her to note your objection in the report. Do not attempt to physically resist an unlawful arrest, search or seizure. If necessary, you may point out the violations to a judge at a later time.

Any suggestions for who should rap the card?

Two military lawyers in particular deserve great praise for their vigorous defense of their clients: Lt. Commander Charles Swift and Major Dan Mori.

The New York Times reports on Lt. Commander Charles Swift [link via Cursor]:

The New York Times profiles a military lawyer who is aggressively defending a Yemeni man being held at Guantanamo: ''I had expected that if we were going to use these tribunals, we were going to start with some very hard-core Al Qaeda members," says Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift. "Yes, he had driven for bin Laden, but how did that make him a criminal?''

Major Dan Mori represents Dan Hicks, an Australian at Guantanamo who will face a military tribunal.

Michael Isakoff reports in the June 21 issue of Newsweek:

Without any public hearing or debate, NEWSWEEK has learned, Defense officials recently slipped a provision into a bill before Congress that could vastly expand the Pentagon's ability to gather intelligence inside the United States, including recruiting citizens as informants.

Ever since the 1970s, when Army intel agents were caught snooping on antiwar protesters, military intel agencies have operated under tight restrictions inside the United States. But the new provision, approved in closed session last month by the Senate Intelligence Committee, would eliminate one big restriction: that they comply with the Privacy Act, a Watergate-era law that requires government officials seeking information from a resident to disclose who they are and what they want the information for.

The Supreme Court has ruled that for now, the words "one nation under God" will remain in the Pledge of Allegiance. The decision was based on the father's lack of standing to assert the rights of his daughter because he didn't have custody of her and therefore was not her legal representative:

The court said the atheist could not sue to ban the pledge from his daughter's school and others because he did not have legal authority to speak for her. The father, Michael Newdow, is in a protracted custody fight with the girl's mother. He does not have sufficient custody of the child to qualify as her legal representative, eight members of the court said. Justice Antonin Scalia did not participate in the case.

Check out the Sunday Observer where Jason Burke charts a hidden network of prisons around the world where "more than 3,000 al-Qaeda suspects have been held without trial - and many subjected to torture - since 9/11"

Update: Also read "Feels Like the Third Time" in American Prospect about U.S. involvement in torture in Vietnam and Central America. [link via Hamster]

Stories of American involvement in torture abroad have surfaced periodically. In 1996 The Washington Post published a front-page article, headlined "U. S. Instructed Latins on Executions, Torture; Manuals Used 1982-91, Pentagon Reveals." Such stories had only limited impact, most likely for two reasons: They described techniques that Americans taught, rather than used, and they were not accompanied by photographs. And in the irony department, there's:

The National Security Archive also posted a 1992 report prepared for then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney warning that the U.S. Army was using interrogation manuals containing "offensive and objectionable material" that "undermines U.S. credibility, and could result in significant embarrassment."

The U.S. released hundreds more prisoners from Abu Ghraib Monday.

The release - the fifth major one since the scandal broke - came one day after the U.S. military pledged that as many as 1,400 detainees will either be released or transferred to Iraqi authorities by the June 30 handover of power. The Americans will continue to hold between 4,000 and 5,000 prisoners deemed a threat to the coalition.

The U.S. also announced today it will be changing its procedures at Afghan prisons, after a review for abuse.

The Washington Post has obtained the August 1, 2002 Justice Department memo that suggests torture of detainees may be justified. You can read it here (pdf).

The March 6, 2003 Pentagon memo made available last week is here (html).

The August 1 memo is titled "Re: Standards of Conduct for Interrogation under 18 U.S.C. 2340-2340A," and is from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel to Alberto R. Gonzales, counsel to President Bush. It was prepared at the request of the CIA, which at the time was unhappy with the progress and fruitfulness of interrogations of al Qaeda prisoners being held outside the U.S.

Congress asked Attorney General John Ashcroft to release the memos last week, and he refused. A transcript of that hearing is here.

Background on the memos and legal issues involved is here. More on Ashcroft's refusal is here.

Update: Law Prof Michael Froomkin has an analysis at Discourse.Net.