Senator John Edwards has issued a press release calling for the creation of a new homeland intelligence agency, one with civil liberties safeguards. The objective: to root out terrorist cells in the U.S.

“What we need is a domestic intelligence agency that is focused on fighting terrorism here at home and having a watchdog in place to make sure our freedoms are protected,” said Senator Edwards, who last year introduced legislation to overhaul how terrorists are tracked within the United States .

President Bush, whose administration has until now resisted reforms at the FBI, told reporters on Monday, “Now may be a time to revamp and reform our intelligence services.” Said Senator Edwards, “The president has finally come around to the idea that we need serious structural reform, and this is a structural problem. We have a law enforcement agency trying to do something that they are not suited to do, which is domestic intelligence.”

Senator Edwards on February 13, 2003 proposed legislation to create a Homeland Intelligence Agency to replace FBI units that failed to uncover the plot to attack the World Trade Center and Pentagon. The new agency would focus on intelligence, not law enforcement, so it could do a better job tracking terrorist operatives in this country, improve coordination with local law enforcement and other federal agencies, and protect civil liberties.

We'd like to hear more about the civil liberties protections envisioned for the new agency. We're not jumping aboard this train, at least not yet.

The 60th Session of the UN Human Rights Commission is meeting in Geneva. A network of over 100 U.S. rights groups will address the Commission on US "anti-terror" violations.

The Network will be holding a panel discussion regarding violations by the US on the pretext of "national security" on Wednesday, 14 April, with speakers from the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, the Muslim Civil Rights Center and Amnesty International.

From their media release today, received by email:

As hundreds continue to languish in a US Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay and in prisons around the US - with no idea of when they may be tried or released - members of the US Human Rights Network (USHRN) planned today to urge members of the UN Commission on Human Rights, currently meeting in Geneva, to focus their attention on human rights violations conducted by the US in the name of "security" and the "war on terror" and to establish a special mechanism to monitor such violations.

The Guardian reports that the U.S. has dropped its demand for the turnover of those responsible for the death and mutilation of the four Americans that sparked the "onslaught." The source of the news is Mohammed Ubayd al-Kubaisi, the dean of Islamic studies at Baghdad University and the vice-president of the Association of Muslim Scholars. He was among a group of five who met with local leaders in Fallujah this past weekend.

Their mission had the approval of the US authorities, who declared a ceasefire at the weekend and allowed the convoy of negotiators through their checkpoints....Professor Kubaisi said local leaders were demanding an American withdrawal from all the roads into town, the restoration of basic services including water and electricity, and the repair of the main hospital which the marines occupied. In return, local Iraqi police would handle security.

The Guardian also quotes a U.S. official's statement yesterday:

What did you all think of President Bush's press conference tonight? Did he win any of you over? Here's an open thread to discuss it.

Update: David Sirota, writer for The Progress Report at the Center for American Progress, posts claims vs. facts of the press conference over at his personal blog.

Update: John Kerry posted this response over at his weblog:

“Tonight, the President had the opportunity to tell the American people what steps he was going to take to stabilize the situation in Iraq. Unfortunately, he offered no specific plan whatsoever. Rather, the President made it clear that he intends to stubbornly cling to the same policy that has led to a greater risk to American troops and a steadily higher cost to the American taxpayer.

Very, very sad. NBC is reporting the bodies of four American contractors have been found in a shallow grave on the road between Abu Ghraib and Fallujah--and that the bodies were badly mutilated.

Instapundit brings up a good point today. National ID cards will not make us safer. As we said here:

It's a quick fix that won't do anything to stop terrorists or enhance our safety. It will only further diminish our privacy rights.

Avedon Carol at Sideshow:

Not too many people are claiming that the White House masterminded the 9/11 attacks; the issue is whether they upheld their responsibilities, and the evidence is pretty clear that they did not.The issue was never that there was a "silver bullet" the administration failed to use, it was that they were doing nothing to try to prevent an attack they had been warned was very likely to occur.

Sean Paul at the Agonist reports the Fallujah truce has been broken:

Al Jazeera: Occupation forces in Iraq have used F16 fighter planes to bomb the Nizal neighbourhood in Falluja, Aljazeera TV's correspondent has reported.

U.S. forces broke the truce in Al Fallujah on April 13, bombing several city quarters with F-16s, Al Jazeera TV reports. According to the report, fighting on the ground resumed along with the bombing and artillery and tank fire were heard across the city. Insurgents reportedly have destroyed two U.S. armored vehicles in the renewed violence.

We agree with law prof Eric Muller who writes the blog Is That Legal? when he criticizes Andrew McCarthy 's article in National Review about the wall preventing information sharing between intelligence and criminal investigation agencies. McCarthy says:

the "wall was . . . a deliberate and unnecessary impediment to information sharing. . . . It told national-security agents in the field that there were other values, higher interests, that transcended connecting the dots and getting it right."

Eric replies:

Umm, well, yeah. Those "other values" are little things called "civil liberties," and what makes them "higher" is that they're reflected in the highest law of the land, the Constitution. If you read this blog, you'll know that I'm no "sky-is-falling" civil libertarian who has howled about everything law enforcement has done since 9/11. But I am very worried by the direction that today's testimony before the 9/11 Commission is taking, and by what seems to be the Commission's emerging self-appointed role to diagnose problems and recommend changes in law enforcement practices.

From Rahul Mahajan at Empire Notes today:

At 3:30 am on Sunday morning, 100 American troops raided the mosque. They were looking for weapons and mujaheddin. They started the raid the way they virtually always do -- by smashing in the gates with tanks and then driving Hummer in. The Hummers ran over and destroyed some of the stored relief goods (the bulk of the goods had already been sent to Fallujah -- over 200 tons -- but the amount remaining was considerable). More was destroyed as soldiers ripped apart sacks looking for rifles. Rashid estimated maybe three
tons of supplies were destroyed. We saw for ourselves some of the remains,
sacks of beans ripped apart and strewn around.

Prometheus calls this statement by Justice Scalia the "The single most frightening statement ever made by a Supreme Court justice."

The electronic media have in the past respected my First Amendment right not to speak on radio or television when I do not wish to do so," he wrote, "and I am sure that courtesy will continue."

Prometheus says,

First Amendment right not to speak? The man is confusing the First Amendment with the Miranda decision! Let's see exactly what the First Amendment says:

by TChris

The 2004 Jefferson Muzzle awards, handed out to those who suppressed free speech during the past year, go to:

• CBS, for caving in to conservative pressure by deciding not to air a miniseries on Ronald Reagan that was, to the right wing, insufficiently reverential, and for refusing to run a Moveon.org ad during the Superbowl that was critical of the President;

• Baseball Hall of Fame President Dale Petroskey, for canceling a showing of "Bull Durham" because its stars, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, oppose the war in Iraq;

• U.S. District Judge Miriam G. Cedarbaum, for barring reporters from jury selection in the Martha Stewart trial; and

• The Secret Service, for "investigating whether Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Michael Ramirez of the Los Angeles Times could be charged with 'threatening the life' of President Bush for a cartoon depicting a man pointing a gun at Bush."

The awards are presented by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression. Among last year's winners: John Ashcroft.