The Sacramento Bee begins an important series today on the terror war's effect on civil liberties. Arthur at Light of Reason has a full analysis of today's article. This is definitely a series to follow this week.

Former '60s-era activist Angela Davis, now a California professor, spoke to a crowd of 1,000 Friday at a Florida university. Another 1,000 were turned away due to space limitations. She called for an end to the American prison system, saying it is a vestige of slavery. Davis says reform isn't enough, abolition of the system is the only answer.

''Slavery has not yet been completely abolished,'' she said. Prisons, she said, are ``one of the institutions in whose structure racism has learned to hide.'' Davis said that capital punishment and imprisonment were practices of the slave era that endured even after slavery itself was abolished.

''Had it not been for slavery, the death penalty would have likely been abolished in America,'' she said. ``Slavery became a haven for the death penalty.'' She pointed out that in Virginia, before the end of slavery, there was only one crime for which a white person could be executed. But there were 66 crimes for which a slave could be executed.

What should take the place of the prison system? Davis says the answer is education.

Davis said the path into prisons begins for many black and Latino youths in the violence that still permeates many inner-city schools, and she said that's where reform needs to begin. ''Education can be seen as the most compelling alternative to imprisonment. Unless current structures of violence are eliminated from poor schools, these schools will remain the major conduits to youth prison and then to adult prison,'' she said.

Davis is a tenured professor and chair of the Women's Studies Program at the University of California at Santa Cruz. For those of you too young to remember her history, read on:

There can be no question that President Bush said Iraq's involvement with the 9/11 attacks justified our going to war. Here is Bush's Presidential Letter to Congress, dated March 18, 2003, available on the White House Web site, detailing why war against Iraq is justified. In case it is removed from the website, here's what it says:

Text of a Letter from the President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate

March 18, 2003

Dear Mr. Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:)

Consistent with section 3(b) of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public Law 107-243), and based on information available to me, including that in the enclosed document, I determine that:

(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic and other peaceful means alone will neither (A) adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq nor (B) likely lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and

(2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

Sincerely,

GEORGE W. BUSH

[link via What Really Happened]

New York prosecutors are seeking fewer executions--recognizing that enthusiasm for the death penalty is waning.

Among the reasons, according to one D.A.:

...prosecutors had come to understand that the suffering of murder victims' relatives is often prolonged in death-penalty cases because of the years of legal warfare. He said prosecutors were also keenly aware of the drain on their time and energy and the cost to the state.

"Particularly at a time of fiscal crisis," Mr. Brown said, "it is very difficult to justify taking experienced prosecutors away from handling other violent felonies."

The trend in New York is being mirrored around the country.

Across the country, other state prosecutors appear to be seeking the death penalty less often than they did in the 1990's, said Richard C. Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a group that says it is critical of the way the death penalty is carried out but takes no position on whether capital punishment should be permitted. Mr. Dieter said that evidence in Ohio, California, North Carolina and other states showed that state prosecutors have been seeking death less often.

"There is definitely a trend in other states, and the time line is very much the same" as it is in New York, with state prosecutors filing sharply fewer death penalty cases than they did in the late 1990's, Mr. Dieter said.

On the other side, behind the curve as always, is Attorney General John Ashcroft, who has directed his federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty more often--even when they recommended against it.

Update: From Saturday's Boston Globe article on death penalty opponents blasting Ashcroft for trying to nationalize the death penalty:

Atrios is a prince. Our prince.

Captain James Yee, the only Muslim chaplain for the 660 detainees being held at Guantanamo, was arrested September 10 on suspicion of treason and espionage. He joins Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla at the military brig in South Carolina. No charges have been filed yet against Yee, who allegedly was found with classified documents in his possession, consisting of diagrams of the cells and facilities at Guantanamo.

Yee is a West Point graduate who has denounced terrorism and the 9/11 attacks in the past. There must be a lot more to this story.

A new Newsweek poll has Gen. Wesley Clark on top among the Democratic contenders for President. Daily Kos has some analysis, and concludes it doesn't mean much. Kevin at Calpundit thinks it means a lot.

Also from Kevin, if you're wondering where Clark stands on the issues, read this account of Clark's statements during a lunch with law professors in Iowa Friday.

Update: Fox News just announced that the Newsweek poll also asked which Democrat had the best chance of beating Bush. The results, in order: Clark, Kerry, Dean.

The Fresno Bee reports that an inmate doing time on a parole violation claims Scott Peterson asked about having Laci kidnapped a month before her disappearance. The inmate's lawyer says he passed a polygraph. Despite the gag order, somehow the Fresno Bee has a copy of the polygrapher's report.

Peterson's attorney Mark Geragos says he'd love to comment about the report, but can't, due to the gag order.

The inmate, Corey Lee Carroll, says he met Peterson at a strip club and Peterson, after learning Carroll had been in jail, asked him if he knew anyone who could steal his wife's car for insurance money. Carroll says Peterson paid him $300.00 to introduce Peterson to two neo-nazis and the four went to a motel to discuss the car theft. Carroll says he left when the subject of a kidnapping came up.

Carroll's lawyer says his client has nothing to gain by coming forward. Carroll is being held without bail on a parole violation. Last year he was jailed on another parole violation following a theft by receiving conviction. We're not buying it.

Check out this MEMO To MADD's New Celebrity Board from the Center for Consumer Freedom.

And this banner which MADD has the audacity to sell for $195.00--it compares beer to heroin by depicting a beer bottle as if it were a syringe.

JetBlue Apologizes for giving away its passenger records.

David Neeleman, chief executive of the New York-based carrier, said in an e-mail to customers that JetBlue made a mistake a year ago when it agreed to a Defense Department request to provide the data to Torch Concepts Inc. of Huntsville, Ala., for a project said to involve military base security.

...The airline said the study had nothing to do with the government's planned CAPPS II passenger profiling system, which uses a massive secret database of information to assess individuals' security-threat levels.

Too little too late? Here's more:

Details of the study and JetBlue's involvement were reported Thursday by Wired.com, which credited privacy activist Bill Scannell for bringing attention to the issue on his Web site. Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said that by violating its privacy policy, JetBlue could be sued for "deceptive trade practices."

Torch said the intent of the study was to guide the Pentagon on a project for military base security. But Richard Smith, an Internet privacy consultant, said the study was a prototype for a system being developed by the Transportation Security Administration. The system, ordered by Congress after the Sept. 11 attacks, will check such things as credit reports and compare passenger names with those on government watch lists.

Actor and comedian Tommy Chong, sentenced last week to 9 months in prison for selling bongs on the Internet, may appeal his sentence.

The grounds: the Judge based the sentence on "the character he played and not the person he is."

"The United States attorney made a big deal about Tommy's movies and how he portrayed drug usage and law enforcement," Stanton B. Levenson said Friday. "We didn't think it would be appropriate to consider his public persona. ... That's not him."

Levenson said attorneys were still researching possible appeal issues, but they were concerned that U.S. District Judge Arthur J. Schwab didn't separate Chong from the hippie stoner he portrayed in movies he made with comedy partner Cheech Marin. An appeal notice was filed Friday.

My laptop is on its last leg. I spend so much time blogging, I really can't afford to buy a new one. I know from TalkLeft's stats that we have many readers at major computer companies. If one of them would like to send me a new, light-weight laptop (so I can keep blogging when I travel), I'll be glad to write a review and feature it on TalkLeft and give the company a free ad for several months.

Private donations, anonymous or not, also accepted--just click on our wishlist to see -- although any brand will be just fine.

Update: I'm speechless. Absolutely speechless. And that's pretty rare for me. My wish list is showing that someone has bought me the laptop I wanted. I am very, very grateful. Whoever you are, thank you. If you included a note with the order, I will thank you properly as soon as Amazon lets me know who you are. If you sent it anonymously, please know I am in awe of your generosity (and hoping you don't change your mind!)