From the Toledo Blade....Diverse Views on the Patriot Act

What Section 215 of the Patriot Act says: The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation ... may make an application for an order requiring the production of any tangible things (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items) for an investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities, provided that such investigation of a United States person is not conducted solely upon the basis of activities protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution.

What the U.S. Department of Justice says about Section 215: "Law enforcement authorities have always been able to obtain business records in criminal cases through grand jury subpoenas. ... The government can now ask a federal court (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court) to order production of the same type of records available through grand jury subpoenas."

What the American Civil Liberties Union says about Section 215: "Section 215 vastly expands the FBI’s power to spy on ordinary people living in the United States. ... The FBI can investigate persons based in part on their exercise of First Amendment rights. ... The FBI could spy on a person because they don’t like the books she reads. ... Those who are the subjects of the surveillance are never notified that their privacy has been compromised."

As co-author of this book on the Patriot Act (Matthew Bender, 2001) here's what we have to say about Section 215:

More countries are banning U.S. beef. A second herd has been quarrantined because it contains a calf from the cow that had mad cow disease. We haven't been too worried, thinking it's an isolated instance, but this has us a little concerned:

The animal that came down with the nation's first case of mad cow disease had been made into hamburger and probably eaten before the U.S. Agriculture Department received test results.

Howard Dean says it's too early to judge Bin Laden:

Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean says it's premature to recommend what penalty Osama bin Laden should face before he's been legally determined to be guilty of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Asked whether bin Laden should be tried in the United States and put to death, Dean told the Concord Monitor: "I still have this old-fashioned notion that even with people like Osama, who is very likely to be found guilty, we should do our best not to, in positions of executive power, not to prejudge jury trials."

In an interview with the New Hampshire newspaper for Friday editions, Dean added: "I'm sure that is the correct sentiment of most Americans, but I do think if you're running for president, or if you are president, it's best to say that the full range of penalties should be available. But it's not so great to prejudge the judicial system."

Calling Iraq "probably the best place" for Saddam Hussein to be tried, Dean said he is willing "to be flexible about that because I don't think it's essential to the security interests of the United States." Dean said he plans to keep reminding Democrats that he, unlike his major rivals for the nomination, opposed the Iraq war, in spite of polls showing the vast majority of the American public supporting the invasion at the time.

We have no problem with Saddam being tried in Iraq, provided the trial is conducted by a UN tribunal and not the recently formed Iraqi War Crimes Tribunal. Our reasons are here.

Really good news. The prosecutors in the Lionel Tate case have re-offered him the deal his mother turned down for him prior to trial. In three months he'll be out of prison, serve a year on home detention and then ten years on probation:

Tate beat 6-year-old Tiffany Eunick to death when he was 12, claiming he accidentally killed her while imitating pro wrestling moves he had seen on television. He was tried as an adult, convicted of first-degree murder and received an automatic life-without-parole sentence in a case that led to international criticism of Florida's tough handling of juveniles who kill.

The plea bargain would let Tate, now 16, plead guilty to second-degree murder and receive a sentence of three years in prison, of which he has already served 33 months, Broward State Attorney Michael J. Satz said in a statement.
That would be followed by a year under house arrest and 10 years of probation. Tate would also have to undergo psychological treatment.

More details of the case and history are available here.

Atrios and Daily Kos report via the New York Times that Bush has developed a strategy to defeat Dean. It's to portray Dean as pessimistic.

Atrios did an Nexis search back to October and found the first purveyors of the false theory: Laura Ingraham and Mary Matalin.

Nathan Newman says that since Dean thinks he can get rid of Bush and solve our economic problems, that makes him optimistic. "So I'd say this calls for a positive google bomb promoting the idea that Dean is optimistic."

Since the beginning of the war in Iraq, 20 U.S. soldiers have committed suicide.

The Army is concerned about the deaths. Outside experts have said the rate is alarmingly high compared with the military's average suicide rate. A report by a 12-member team of military and civilian mental-health professionals dispatched to Iraq in October to evaluate troops is expected to be released after the holidays, officials said.

Independent experts said they hope the team's report offers some insight into the suicides. Did they result from personal issues, such as the loss of close relationship, or from legal or financial matters? Or did they involve larger, more sensitive issues about the U.S. mission?

Those broader questions relate to the morale of troops in Iraq, many of whom have complained of their long deployments. And they bear upon whether the Bush administration is overstraining the military with such practices as deploying soldiers, such as Suell, on consecutive tours with insufficient family time, experts said.

Indicted or not, former Illiniois Governor George Ryan remains a hero to a lot of people, including African-Americans in Illinois. He's one to us as well:

WVON-1450 morning talk show on Tuesday were asked who they would have picked as Time magazine's "Person of the Year." Although several African-Americans have played critical roles in national and international issues this year, including Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, one man's name was mentioned several times--and he isn't black. At least three callers named indicted former Gov. George Ryan, Kelley told me.

Ryan's insistence on a death penalty moratorium and his blanket clemency of Death Row inmates, has guaranteed that -- at least among most African-Americans -- his legacy would not be buried under federal corruption charges.

Obviously, three votes as "Person of the Year," is not enough to gauge the sentiments of an entire ethnic group. Still, given that Ryan is a Republican and one is hard-pressed to find a handful of black Republicans in the Chicago region, I would say Kelley's callers are expressing a widely held sentiment.

Ryan has been honored by both the local NAACP and Rainbow/ PUSH Coalition. These civil rights groups aren't likely to abandon him now in his battle to stay out of prison.

The Government's investigation into who leaked the identity of CIA undercover agent Valerie Plame may be taking a step forward. A fourth prosecutor has been assigned to the case and the FBI has said administration officials may be called to a grand jury.

On Monday, the Senate minority leader and the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee sent a letter to Attorney General John D. Ashcroft demanding more information about the probe. "We request that you provide us with an overall status of the investigation, including the number of people the Justice Department has interviewed, the number of briefings you have received, the general types of information you are briefed on, what conditions you have placed on the scope of these briefings to ensure the independence of this investigation, and whether you have discussed this case with senior administration officials outside the Justice Department," wrote the senators, Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.) and Carl M. Levin (Mich.).

The senators said that it is an apparent conflict of interest for Ashcroft to be briefed on the subject, and again requested a special counsel to prosecute the case, which Ashcroft has so far opposed.

There's lots more detail in this article, so read the whole thing. Our Valerie Plame coverage is accessible here.

It looks like the cancellations of the Air France to LAX flights yesterday were a false alarm:

French investigators questioned seven men pointed out by U.S. intelligence but found no evidence they planned to use a Los Angeles-bound jet to launch terror attacks against the United States, French authorities said Thursday.

U.S. intelligence officials told their French counterparts that members of the al-Qaida terrorist network would try to board the planes over Christmas, said a French judicial official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The seven questioned men, who all had tickets for Air France Flight 68 to Los Angeles, were on a watch list provided by U.S. authorities, an Interior Ministry spokesman said. But all were released after questioning Wednesday night, the spokesman said. "There are no longer any investigations," he said. France's anti-terrorism judicial unit chose not to launch a formal investigation because of a lack of evidence of an attack, the judicial official said.

While that's the news in France, U.S. officials say they believe one of the planes was to be hijacked en route to LA and crashed in Las Vegas. The article says the U.S. foiled the attack. But this article suggests Las Vegas was just a vague mention, not a specific threat.

Update: Las Vegas officials deny a threat to their city.

USA Today correctly notes in an editorial that John Lee Malvo's life sentence in the sniper case reflects justice, not vengeance. Try as they might, prosecutors trying to blame the verdict on a sympathy factor borne of the holidays, are wrong. The jurors affirmatively stated the holidays never entered their discussions:

Plainly, capital punishment is a crapshoot. Across the nation — even within aggressive death-penalty states such as Virginia — juries, prosecutors and judges apply it in an arbitrary fashion. This reflects the public's abiding equivocation, which often produces the erratic application of justice and, in some cases, death sentences for those who have been wrongly convicted.

In Malvo's trial, jurors landed on the more appropriate alternative — life without parole. No risk of mistaken execution. No risk of release. Indeed, one pro-death juror said she changed her mind because she believed that spending 60 to 70 years behind bars was a harsher sentence.

That's not exactly the Christmas spirit. But it shows how even those who endorse the death penalty can find comfort — even vengeance — in a sentence that ensures certain punishment and avoids uncertain justice.

David Cole, Georgetown University law prof and author of "Enemy Aliens: Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism, has an op-ed in today's Los Angeles Times on the recent 2nd and 9th Circuit Copurt of Appeals decisions reminding Mr. Bush he is President Bush and not King George.

Foreign nationals, no less than U.S. citizens, have a right not to be locked up arbitrarily, based in the Constitution's guarantee that "no person shall be deprived of liberty … without due process." And indefinite incommunicado incarceration without charges, trial or hearing is the definition of arbitrary detention.

Detaining the enemy on the battlefield has of course always been — and remains — a legitimate tool of war. Neither the 2nd nor the 9th Circuit ruled to the contrary. But they both insisted that preventive detention under U.S. jurisdiction must be subject to the rule of law. And the rule of law, like liberty itself, is not a right reserved for U.S. citizens.

A friend of Al Gore III and his two companions, arrested last week and charged with misdemeanor pot possession, says these are the true facts (posted in comments on TalkLeft):

Alright, so I am a close friend of Yann, Marc and Al, and y'all need to hear what really happened. First of all, on the subject of OUI - out of the question. I know for a fact that none of the occupants in the vehicle had used marijuana or alcohol within four hours of driving. The car was pulled over as it was exiting a parking garage, and Al had yet to turn his headlights on.

The three had borrowed Tipper's car and were smoking cigarettes - The windows were rolled down so that the car wouldnt stink of tobacco upon thier return. As for the suspected smell of marijuana eminating from the vehicle - impossible. No marijuana had been smoked in the car at any time.

The police reported that they found a half-smoked joint, which is a lie. The report also stated that a soda can was found that had been modified to serve as a makeshift bong - That never existed.

What the police did find was a small bag of marijuana under the back seat of the vehicle. However, the validity of this find has recently come into question due to illegal search procedure. Pulling out onto the street without your headlights on in no way serves as probable cause to warrant a full search of the vehicle, and it was only after the identity of the driver was revealed that the occupants were given a hard time by authorities.

Sounds plausible to us. And don't forget, innocent until proven guilty. Thanks, "Snake," and please keep us updated.