The Department of Justice, at the direction of the Judge presiding over the MegaUpload/Kim Dotcom criminal case in Virginia, has published a 191 page report outlining the evidence it claims supports the charges. The DOJ webpage with documents is here.

Kim Dotcom's reaction:

The 191 page report is available here. The Superseding Indictment is here. [More...]

For days following the Araphoe High School shooting, supporters of Claire Davis, who was shot by shooter Karl Pierson and remains in a coma, posted pleas on Twitter for One Direction to let Clair know they supported her. The hashtag was #get1Dtoclaire.

The band complied, privately sending the video message above to her family. It was Claire's boyfriend, Alex Chapman (not the band, as reported here) who uploaded it to You Tube.

The group recorded a 13-second video message and sent it directly to Claire's family, a source close to One Direction told CNN Thursday. While it was not intended to be shared online, her boyfriend apparently uploaded it to YouTube, the source said.

Verizon says it will publish greater details on the records requests made by law enforcement, beginning in early 2014. Here is Verizon's statement.

To the extent permitted by applicable U.S. and foreign laws and regulations, Verizon’s transparency report will identify the total number of law enforcement agency requests received from government authorities in criminal cases.

In addition, the report will break out this data under categories such as subpoenas, court orders and warrants. Verizon will also provide other details about the legal demands it receives, as well as information about requests for information in emergencies.

Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter and Yahoo already publish transparency reports.

President commuted the sentences of 8 crack cocaine defendants today and granted 11 pardons. Here is the list. Obama issued this statement about the crack commutations:

Three years ago, I signed the bipartisan Fair Sentencing Act, which dramatically narrowed the disparity between penalties for crack and powder cocaine offenses. This law began to right a decades-old injustice, but for thousands of inmates, it came too late. If they had been sentenced under the current law, many of them would have already served their time and paid their debt to society. Instead, because of a disparity in the law that is now recognized as unjust, they remain in prison, separated from their families and their communities, at a cost of millions of taxpayer dollars each year.

Today, I am commuting the prison terms of eight men and women who were sentenced under an unfair system. Each of them has served more than 15 years in prison. In several cases, the sentencing judges expressed frustration that the law at the time did not allow them to issue punishments that more appropriately fit the crime.

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Under a Amnesty bill passed in Russia this week, the two Pussy Riot members still jailed in Russian prisons, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina will be freed.

In September, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova went on a hunger strike, and released this letter describing the inhumane conditions of her confinement. She was later moved to a prison in Siberia.

Also likely to be freed: 30 Greenpeace protesters.

If you shopped at a Target store from Black Friday to around December 15, beware. There's been a massive data breach of customer credit card information (online customers are not affected.)

It's time to stock up on 40 and 60 watt bulbs. They won't be made in the U.S. starting Jan. 1.

I may skip Christmas this year, or at least the shopping. What are your plans?

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

How about an open thread? All topics welcome.

A federal judge in the District of Columbia has granted a request for a preliminary injunction against the NSA preventing them from bulk collecting and querying of telephone record metadata, finding it likely violates the Fourth Amendment.

The opinion is here.

In a 68-page ruling, Judge Richard J. Leon of the District of Columbia called the program’s technology “almost Orwellian” and suggested that James Madison, the author of the Constitution, would be “aghast” to learn that the government was encroaching on liberty in such a way.

“I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary’ invasion than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval,” Judge Leon wrote. “Surely, such a program infringes on ‘that degree of privacy’ that the founders enshrined in the Fourth Amendment.”

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RIP actor Peter O'Toole, who has died at age 81.

Tonight on TV: 60 Minutes is doing a feature on the NSA surveillance. I wish someone other than John Miller was the correspondent.

Also tonight: Finales for Homeland, Survivor and Restaurant Express (food network.) I thought Homeland was too dark this year and the plot too convoluted. Some of the subplots were just completely uninteresting: Saul's marital life and Brody's daughter to name a few. Even the Iranian CIA worker went nowhere. I watched, but it wasn't enjoyable. Apparently, the Golden Globes nominators agree.

Restaurant Express had a good first season. I'm actually looking forward to seeing who wins tonight. I think it will be between Adam Goldgell and Seonkyoung Longest, with Jan Charles coming in third and getting eliminated first. Adam and Seonkyoung couldn't be more different in terms of personality or cooking experience, and they each have strengths and negatives. I think Adam will take it, even though Robert Irvine has given Seonkyoung every possible break and he doesn't seem to like Adam that much.

In real news: [More...]

The FBI is still at it -- instigating and then foiling terror plots that would never have existed but for their prodding. The latest is in Kansas.

Quoted in the article is the excellent Topeka defense attorney Dan Monnat. Without judging this case, he says of terror stings in general:

"If the fragile mental state of an otherwise upstanding individual is exploited to commit a crime that the individual otherwise would not have taken steps to commit, how does that make us safe and why spend taxpayer money on prosecution?" Monnat said Saturday.

"If that is what happened here, we have to ask ourselves is grooming terrorists the best use of our taxpayer money for security if the person otherwise would never have taken further steps in furtherance of terrorism. What is the point?"

On a related note, once charged, the Government is likely to deny discovery to these targeted defendants claiming it is classified. [More...]

The Arapahoe County Sheriff held a live press conference today at 3:15 MT on yesterday's shooting at Arapahoe High School. Here are my notes of what he said:

Authorities know what happened now that they have viewed the school security video. Karl Pierson entered the north side of Arapahoe High School at 12:33 pm. The door is next to library.

Pierson parked at the curb by the north side parking lot. He entered the school with a pump shotgun, which he did not attempt to conceal. He also had a "bandoleer" (?) strapped across him with multiple rounds of ammunition. In addition, he had a machete and a backpack containing 3 incendiary devices. All were molotov cocktails.

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The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments Friday in the appeal of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Blagojevich's attorneys had to be happy that the panel raised questions about the heart of their defense that the attempted sale of a U.S. Senate seat was political horse-trading and that prosecutors had unfairly made it into a crime.

Does that bode well for Blago? Impossible to know. Predicting how an appeals court will rule is usually a futile exercise.

While Blago could not attend the hearing, his wife Patti did and addressed the media afterwards: [More...]