Wired News is the latest to examine The Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004 that Bush signed into law last month. This is the law that expands the FBI's power to obtain records from financial institutions (including casinos, pawn shops and more) without requiring permission from a judge. [link via Cursor.]

We wrote about it here.

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The U.S. announced it will release 500 Iraqi prisoners. That leaves 12,300 more.

The release of Iraqis held indefinitely and without charge has been a top demand of community and tribal leaders, as well as human rights advocates.

"All they do is put a bag on their heads, bind their hands behind them with plastic handcuffs and take them away. Families don't know where they go," Malek Dohan al-Hassan, head of the Lawyers Syndicate in Baghdad, said last month. "They violate human rights up to their ears."

The U.S. is also increasing bounty awards for the capture of those Iraqis it wants the most.

13 remain at large. Twelve of those have rewards of $1 million for their capture - or for confirmation that they are dead, Bremer said. The U.S. military has also put a $10 million bounty for Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, vice chairman of Saddam's revolutionary council. He became the most-wanted fugitive after Saddam's Dec. 13 capture. Fifteen of the fugitives command bounties of $200,000 each; rewards for the remaining 15 are $50,000 apiece.

South Knox Bubba has read Wesley Clark's tax plan two or three times and says:

Being able to say "A family of four making up to $50,000 would pay no federal income taxes, and all taxpaying families with children making up to $100,000 would get a tax cut." and that "No families with incomes under $200,000 will pay more in taxes than they do today." is powerful stuff.

It's smart, too. 98% of Americans would pay lower taxes. 3.5 million families will pay no income tax at all. Only 0.1% of taxpayers will pay more. 31 million families will benefit, and bonus, will not even have to file a tax return. What's not to like? (Although I'm not clear on what happens to the 2% or so making more than $200K but less than $1 million).... This is a good deal for American workers and families, and everyone benefits in the long run.

We're taking a wait and see attitude towards President Bush's immigration reform plan. Here are the necessary components according to the AILA (American Immigration Lawyers Association):

• Comprehensively reforms our immigration laws: Since many of the problems with the U.S.'s current immigration system are interrelated, reform must be comprehensive to successfully address our nation's needs. ...Our current system is characterized by families being separated for long periods of time and U.S. employers unable to bring in needed workers. People are forced to live an underground existence, hiding from the government for fear of being separated from their families and jobs. ....Our immigration system needs to be reformed so that legality is the norm, and immigration is legal, safe, orderly, and reflective of the needs of American families, businesses, and national security.

• Allows people already living and working in the United States to legalize their status: People who work hard, pay taxes, and contribute to the U.S. should be allowed to obtain permanent residence. This reform would stabilize the workforce of U.S. employers, encourage people to come out of the shadows to be scrutinized by our government, and allow immigrants to work and travel legally and be treated equally. Many have been here for years, are paying taxes, raising families, contributing to their communities and are essential to the industries within which they work. In order to unite families and keep them together, appropriate waivers must be available for grounds of inadmissibility and deportability.

An undocumented person does the right thing and gets deported:

Danny Sigui saw a murder unfold. He called 911 and testified as the key witness during the trial. In the process, he unwittingly alerted officials to his immigration status, and days later was arrested and jailed.

On the same day that Arkansas executes a mentally ill prisoner forced to take medication to become same enough to be executed, the California Supreme Court rules that former prisoners who are still in state custody for mental health reasons can't be forced to take medication:

Mentally ill former prisoners who are held in state hospitals after completing their sentences have the right to refuse psychiatric medication unless they are incompetent or dangerous, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday.

In a 6-1 decision, the court said ex-cons held for treatment under the state's Mentally Disordered Offender Act have the same right as current prisoners to reject drugs unless a judge decides they are incapable of making an informed decision, or recent incidents show they are dangerous to themselves or others.

Does anyone else see a disconnect here?

[Ed. name of court corrected--it was not the 9th Cir. but the Calif. Supreme Court]

The newsest USA Today/Gallup Poll shows a surge for Wesley Clark and a drop for Dean. The results are here.

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) writes in an op-ed in the Detroit Free Press that Attorney General John Ashcroft's late recusal from the CIA leaks investigation leaves credibility damage:

Here we have a case where the attorney general was investigating the very White House responsible for the resuscitation of his political career. In addition, the investigation involves the political Svengali, Karl Rove, who was inextricably tied to the attorney general by virtue of receiving a staggering $746,000 for consulting on his past Senate and governor's races. It's difficult to conceive of a more blatant conflict of interest.

....In addition, by failing to appoint an outside individual with no ties to the department or loyalty to the administration, the public can have little faith the investigation will be pursued diligently and impartially. Fitzgerald may be a fine prosecutor, but at the end of the day he still owes his job to President George W. Bush.

There's lots more, go read the whole thing. [link via Buzzflash.]

What poetic justice. The advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather, creator of the obsequious anti-drug ads for the Office of National Drug Control Policy, have been charged with conspiracy for overbilling the Government:

Thomas Early, the agency's director of finance, and Shona Seifert, who formerly directed Ogilvy's $684-million contract with the government, were accused in U.S. District Court of directing employees to exaggerate their work on the project when they filled out time sheets. They also allegedly caused the company to submit false vouchers to support the inflated labour costs, according to the indictment.

The overbilling occurred as the agency worked on a national media campaign for the Office of the National Drug Control Policy, a branch of the executive office of the U.S. president, the government said. [link via Drug War Rant]

Our previoius thoughts on the ads, in particular, those that played during the Superbowl, are here .

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Charles Singleton was mentally ill. The courts declared him too unfit to be executed because he couldn't understand why he was being executed. Then the state forcibly medicated him with anti-pyschotic medication. Under medication, the Court ruled, he could understand and the execution could proceed. In other words, the court ruled that it's okay to forcibly medicate a mentally ill prisoner to make him sane enough to execute.

Singleton had his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment by a federal appeal court panel on the grounds of mental illness. But the full court ruled last year that he could be executed if forcibly treated with drugs. The court decided that "involuntary medication followed by an execution" was preferable to "no medication followed by psychosis and imprisonment".

"Eligibility for execution is the only unwanted consequence of the medication" and did not have to be taken into account, it said. A minority of the judges presiding over the case took issue with the ruling, saying it was wrong to execute a man who is psychotic when not on medication.

"I am left with no alternative but to conclude that drug-induced sanity is not the same as true sanity," Judge Gerald Heaney wrote in a dissenting opinion. "Singleton is not 'cured'; his insanity is merely muted, at times, by the powerful drugs he is forced to take."

A 1986 US Supreme Court judgment banned the execution of the insane as one of the "cruel and unusual punishments" outlawed in the Bill of Rights.

Charles Singleton, age 44, was executed tonight. He heard voices until the very end.

Update: Here's an article explaining the issues.

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There will be a live internet chat tomorrow with Wesley Clark. Here are the details, from his campaign:

Public IRC Server: irc://irc.forclark.com
Closed Read-Only Channel: #wireside
Open Discussion Channel: #clark04

We will also be mirroring the closed #wireside channel on a web-based page, which any one can view at this URL. The chat is scheduled to begin promptly at 5:00 PM EST, tomorrow January 7, 2004. It will last approximately 30 minutes.

The questions that will be asked are being drawn from 15 leading political
bloggers. Follow-up questions will be taken, if time permits. We estimate approximately 3000 people to be participating in this live real-time chat with General Clark.