This just in from People for the American Way:

CARE PACKAGES GO TO SENATORS: "UP ALL NIGHT FOR JUSTICE"

November 12, 2003

Washington - The Coalition for a Fair and Independent Judiciary is delivering "care packages" to Capitol Hill Wednesday for the comfort of Senators who are courageously standing up for the Constitution and the use of the filibuster in judicial nominations.

The group, composed of advocates for civil rights and liberties, the environment, reproductive choice and equality, and other progressive groups, is sending a "Care Package for Courageous Senators," which includes:

The latest criticism of the Bush Administration's plan for military tribunals comes from an unlikely source: Philip Lacovara is a former deputy solicitor general of the United States and former counsel to the Watergate special prosecutor. During the Nixon era, he was in charge of the government's criminal and internal security cases before the Supreme Court. Now he serves on the board of the Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights and he criticizes the planned military tribunals in the op-ed Trial and Errors in today's Washington Post.

He debunks the Administration's (and its apologists') repeated ad nauseum assertion that the Ex Parte Quiran case from World War II authorizes the planned commissions:

In defending these military commissions, representatives of the Bush administration constantly refer to the well-known Quirin case -- in which the Roosevelt administration established a military commission during World War II to try eight Nazi saboteurs who had sneaked into the United States and thereby forfeited their status as soldiers entitled to be treated as POWs.

What they fail to note is that the Supreme Court decision in that case accorded much more in the way of legal rights to those eight Nazis than the administration is proposing today. The accused saboteurs retained the right to confidential communications with their counsel, access to all relevant evidence and Supreme Court review of the lawfulness of the proceedings against them. In a subsequent case involving the notorious Japanese Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita, the Supreme Court reaffirmed this important principle, granting even enemy leaders the right to have civil courts review the lawfulness of their prosecution and conviction by military commissions.

It's official. Howard Dean has picked up the endorsement of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union. The vote was unanimous.

Presidential hopeful Wesley Clark outlined a three point plan yesterday for catching Osama bin Laden:

First, Clark said he would pressure Saudi Arabia to contribute to a joint U.S.-Saudi commando force to scour the Afghan-Pakistani border where bin Laden is thought to be hiding.

Second, Clark proposed reassigning some of the intelligence specialists, linguists, and special operations forces now searching Iraq for weapons of mass destruction to the hunt for bin Laden.

Third, he said the United States needs to repair relations with allies and friends.

First John Kerry fires his campaign manager and then two staffers quit. Op-Ed columnists are already conducting the post-mortem. We tend to agree with those who say he was too arrogant--he thought the nomination was his--and his vote for the Iraq War did him in.

Kerry's malaise can be traced to one act, one decision, one vote: his support of the resolution giving President Bush the authority to invade Iraq. Had Kerry voted "no," he'd be the Democratic front-runner right now, bringing credibility on foreign policy because of his military service while also easily upstaging Wesley Clark on domestic policy.

Even now, a year later, Kerry has trouble giving a cogent rationale for his vote to go to war. You'd think a man like Kerry -- a decorated Vietnam veteran who later became an outspoken critic of that war -- would have a succinct, indeed passionate, explanation for his vote. But Kerry stammers, sputters, doubles back, never able to give a short and simple response. Perhaps that's because Kerry's vote was based on politics, not principle.

The AP reports the Judge's decision as a draw. We'd call it a win for Rosie. She got sued for $100 million and has to pay zero. She may even get her legal fees covered.

The jury has been selected in the trial of accused sniper suspect John Lee Malvo. Including alternates, there are eight men and eight women, four blacks one Asian and 11 whites.

The Judge denied several defense motions today. The trial is recessed until tomorrow.

Another stealth attack by Congress is upon us. This time it's a buried provision in the intelligence communities' budget bill for the coming year. It expands the FBI's authority to issue "national security letters" to obtain business records without prior judicial approval.

Currently, the FBI can issue these letters (they are like subpoenas) to banks and other financial institutions in terror and espionage investigations. The budget bill expands the businesses to which such letters may be issued:

The measure now awaiting final approval in Congress would significantly broaden the law to include securities dealers, currency exchanges, car dealers, travel agencies, post offices, casinos, pawnbrokers and any other institution doing cash transactions with "a high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax or regulatory matters."

Bush proposed such expansion in a speech two months ago.

Critics said the measure would give the federal government greater power to pry into people's private lives. "This dramatically expands the government's authority to get private business records," said Timothy H. Edgar, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "You buy a ring for your grandmother from a pawnbroker, and the record on that will now be considered a financial record that the government can get."

Versions of the bill have already passed both the House and Senate. The matter now goes to a House-Senate conference committee to iron out a final version.

Some Democrats have begun to question whether the measure goes too far and have hinted that they may try to have it pulled when the bill comes before a House-Senate conference committee. Other officials predicted that the measure would probably survive any challenges in conference and be signed into law by President Bush, in part because the provisions already approved in the House and the Senate are identical.

Update: The ACLU weighs in.

In Alabama and Florida, local cops are now authorized to hunt down illegal migrants. If some in Congress have their way, a proposed bill called the Clear Act, H.R. 2671, will make the practice national:

With more than 8 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, according to government figures, and 5,500 federal agents available for enforcement in interior areas beyond the border, advocates of cracking down on illegal migration see more than 600,000 state and local officers as a "force multiplier" that could finally and irrevocably turn the tide.

In Congress, a bill known as the CLEAR Act would transform what until recently has been a low-key experiment with local enforcement of immigration laws into a national crusade along the lines of the war on drugs. By setting up a system of financial penalties and incentives — including seizure of illegal immigrants' property — it aims to induce cities and states to take on immigration enforcement.

CLEAR Act stands for the Clear Law Enforcement for Criminal Alien Removal Act. It is the brainchild of Charlie Norwood (R-Ga) and has 110 sponsors in the House.

The bill would make civil immigration infractions — such as overstaying a visa — criminal violations. States that fail to pass legislation authorizing police to enforce immigration laws could lose federal funding for jailing criminal immigrants. Additional money would be allocated to states that embrace the program. And local police departments could be rewarded with the proceeds of assets seized from illegal immigrants, including homes, bank accounts and vehicles.

Here's the latest of the FBI probe of top Hollywood lawyers resulting from a criminal case against private investigator Anthony Pellicano.

Bert Fields, the prominent entertainment lawyer whose celebrity clientele has included Tom Cruise, Michael Jackson and Kevin Costner, said Tuesday that he has formally been notified that he is a subject of a federal grand jury investigation into illegal wiretapping.

"I've been told that I am a subject, not a target, of the investigation," Fields said. "But I have never in any case had anything to do with illegal wiretapping. I don't do that."

Investigators in the wiretapping case have questioned a broad range of entertainment industry figures, including Warren Beatty and comedian Garry Shandling, according to attorneys involved in the probe. Beatty declined to return calls, as did Shandling.

Authorities suspect Pellicano illegally wiretapped people while working for the lawyers, perhaps with the assistance one or more law enforcement agents. They are trying to figure out whether the lawyers Pellicano was working for knew of the illegal taps, ordered them or condoned them. We suspect the answer is going to be "no," but that it will keep a lot of lawyers on edge for a while, wondering just what was on all those tapes seized from Pellicano's computers.

Update: TV news reporter and Court TV Anchor Diane Dimond is the latest to be advised her phones were tapped by Pellicano--back in '93 when she was covering the Michael Jackson scandal for Hard Copy.

The international health charity Medact released a new report Monday, titled Continuing Collateral Damage. It finds that between March and October, there were 9,500 civilian casualties in Iraq. It also estimates that 22,000 to 55,000 people on all sides, including in the military, died in the war and its aftermath. This number includes military on both sides.

Iraqis will suffer the health consequences of the second Gulf war "for years, maybe generations", says [the] report warning of an "information black hole" on what is truly happening in the country.

You can access the full report here.

Here today. Gone tomorrow. Last week we reported that the website for the Department of Defense featured a recruitment notice for officials to serve on draft boards. This fueled speculation by us and several media outlets that perhaps Bush was thinking of reinstating the draft. reports the notice has been taken down. But there's a mirrored copy over at Memory Hole if you're interested. We say good riddance and we hope to never see it again.