American Prospect has an article in the October 1 issue (available now online) advising candidates how to connect with America's Youth. [link via Hamster.] Here's one of the suggestions:

14. Learn tolerance from the young. This is the most tolerant generation in American history. We need to enact legislation recognizing domestic partnerships, preventing hate crimes, restoring rights to immigrants and getting rid of laws like the so-called PATRIOT Act that invite censorship, invasion of privacy and a denial of our liberties.

We agree....and we note that the author referred to "preventing hate crimes" rather than "punishing hate crimes more severely." Nice touch.

Nine current and former law enforcement officers were arrested Thursday following sting operations in Illinois aimed at cops who rip off drug dealers. They include,

...two Illinois state parole agents, four police officers, two Cook County sheriff's deputies and a former Seattle police detective.

Here's how it worked:

Typically, an undercover informant led the lawmen to a parked car he identified as that of a drug dealer, and the lawmen would break into it, federal officials said. In most of the stings, the officers would take cash and fake cocaine. The lawmen would keep the cash and the undercover informant kept the bogus cocaine -- preventing those targeted from discovering the drug wasn't real, officials said.

The nine were charged with either attempted robbery of cocaine or attempted possession of cocaine. All will be in jail for the weekend, as bond hearings won't take place until Monday.

Attorney General John Ashcroft disclosed Thursday that no requests for library records have been made under the authority granted the Government by the Patriot Act. Hardly a surprise, since otherwise, he would not have agreed to release the information.

As we mentioned yesterday, the data we want to see pertains to the FISA electronic surveillance and search warrants the Justice Department has obtained--so it can be determined whether such warrants were necessary or fruitful in conjunction with a terrorism investigation as opposed to a criminal investigation. If only for the latter, then our fears are correct--that the Justice Department is using its new FISA powers to circumvent the Fourth Amendment.

As to the library records, if none have been requested in the aftermath of 9/11, why does the Government need the power to get them? We agree with Congressman John Conyers who says:

"Given the potential for abuse of library and bookstore records, I can see no reason why — if this authority was not needed to investigate Sept. 11 — it should stay on the books any longer."

Bump and Update: Two brothers, Ahmed and Muhammad Bilal, pleaded guilty today as announced yesterday. One agreed to an 8 to 14 year sentence and the other to a 10 to 14 year sentence. What did they admit to doing?

In the plea agreement, the brothers said they "were prepared to take up arms and die as martyrs if necessary to defend the Taliban government in Afghanistan."

The agreement also noted the brothers began training in summer 2001, in advance of the September attack, "to prepare themselves to fight a violent jihad in Afghanistan or in another location at some point in the future."

The text of the plea agreement is here.

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(original post, 9/17, 5:25 pm)

Two more defendants, Ahmed and Muhammad Bilal, will plead guilty Thursday in the Portland, Oregon terror case.

The men are accused of traveling to China in a failed attempt to enter Afghanistan shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack in order to assist al-Qaida and the Taliban.

This is the case in which Mike Hawash pleaded guilty a few months back. It's also the case which the the LA Times concluded the Indictment "is more suggestive of bumbling, would-be holy warriors than of soldiers training for deadly missions."

Our view back then was:

On the national front, Gen. Wesley Clark will join the Democratic debate on economic issues scheduled for New York next week.

In California, Cruz Bustamante and Tom McClintock, two of the top contenders for Governor, are threatening a boycott of next week's debate if the format is not changed. Arnold has agreed to participate in the debate, but the others say it has been scripted and doesn't allow for enough spontaneous exchange. Arianna Huffington and Peter Conejo are mulling it over.

The debate is sponsored by the California Broadcasting Association. Their policy is to send out questions in advance. This is the only debate Schwarzenegger has agreed to participate in.

Schwarzenegger's campaign noted that the scripted format was developed by the CBA and Schwarzenegger already unsuccessfully asked for a change. Stan Statham, president and chief executive of the CBA, said the format would not change.

"If the candidates want to break their promises that's their prerogative. But we set the rules and we're going stick to them," he said.

In other campaign news, it looks Donnie Fowler will be Clark's campaign manager. Fowler is the son of former DNC chairman Donald Fowler. Donnie ran an Al Gore's 2000 field operation

In Florida today, several hundred supporters mobbed Clark at his first campaign appearance.

And a major union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, with 1.5 million members announced it will delay its decision on which Dem to endorse, now that Clark is in the race.

A California man allegedly offered to kill the accuser in the Kobe Bryant case for $1 million up front and $2 million after the deed was done. He wrote to Kobe's security staff who contacted the sheriff's deaprtment. An undercover operation ensued and the purported hit man, a 31 year old who represented himself to be a member of the Russian mob, was arrested. He is being held on charges of solicitation to commit murder.

In other Kobe news, the Pitkin County Sheriff has completed his court-ordered investigation into law enforcment leaks in the case. His conclusion: No wrongdoing by anyone subject to the gag order. So, perhaps the leaks occurred before the gag order. More likely, the leaks turned out to be unsubstantiated rumors rather than true facts obtained from sealed documents or reports in the case. In any event, we're satisfied. We know the Pitkin County Sheriff and think quite highly of him.

Journalist and author Christian Parenti is over in Iraq and reports back to The Nation on the state of mind and heart of our troops. How are they doing? They are Stretched Thin, Lied to & Mistreated:

Trapped in the polluted heat, poorly supplied and cut off from regular news, the GIs are fighting a guerrilla war that they neither wanted, expected nor trained for. On the urban battlefields of central Iraq, "shock and awe" and all the other "new way of war" buzzwords are drowned out by the din of diesel-powered generators, Islamic prayer calls and the occasional pop of small-arms fire.

I know that probably sounds sick," says [Sergeant] Sellers, "but humor is the only way you can deal with this sh*t." And just below the humor is volcanic rage. These guys are proud to be soldiers and don't want to come across as whiners, but they are furious about what they've been through. They hate having their lives disrupted and put at risk. They hate the military for its stupidity, its feckless lieutenants and blowhard brass living comfortably in Saddam's palaces. They hate Iraqis--or, as they say, "hajis"--for trying to kill them. They hate the country for its dust, heat and sewage-clogged streets. They hate having killed people. Some even hate the politics of the war. And because most of them are, ultimately, just regular well-intentioned guys, one senses the distinct fear that someday a few may hate themselves for what they have been forced to do here.

Added to such injury is insult: The military treats these soldiers like unwanted stepchildren. This unit's rifles are retooled hand-me-downs from Vietnam. They have inadequate radio gear, so they buy their own unencrypted Motorola walkie-talkies. The same goes for flashlights, knives and some components for night-vision sights.....

There's lots more. Parenti is also the author of a new book, The Soft Cage, which is the first book to trace the history of surveillance in the U.S., "from the slave pass to the Social Security number all the way to the many forms of computerized monitoring now shaping the post-9/11 world." We were sent an unsolicited review copy a few weeks ago and recommend it.

The Soft Cage

by Christian Parenti

Cheers to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg who has reversed himself and issued an order preventing police and city workers from reporting a person's immigration status to federal officials in the abscence of a criminal or terrorism investigation:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg yesterday signed an executive order prohibiting police officers or other city employees from reporting a person's immigrant status to federal officials - unless a crime or terrorism investigation is involved.

Executive Order 41, set in motion yesterday at a City Hall bill-signing ceremony, allows city employees to ask about a person's immigrant status only in cases where it's needed to ascertain his or her eligibility for public services.

Even then, under the new order, immigration information will be considered confidential except when relevant to a crime investigation. A person's sexual orientation and those who have been victims of domestic violence or sexual assault will also remain confidential, the directive reads.

"At its core, Executive Order 41 is a clear and unequivocal invitation to all law-abiding New Yorkers to come forward without fear or apprehension and avail themselves of the services that keep us all healthy, safe and prosperous," Bloomberg said.

This comes from Time Magazine, not the Paranoid Conspiracy News:

Radio-frequency identification — with track-everything-anywhere capability, all the time — is about to change your life.

In the not-so-distant future, RFID systems may monitor your money (to halt counterfeiters), your passports (to stop terrorists), the freshness of your food (to pinpoint spoilage), even your medicine intake (did you swallow that pill?).

Someday even you may carry an RFID. In Gulf War II, the Navy tracked wounded soldiers "like FedEx tracks packages," cutting down on battlefield confusion. Tag, you're it.

This is scary stuff. Read the whole thing, even though it's long. Make sure you remember the term--RFID. The fact that Corporate Amercia is throwing hundreds of millions at this new successor to the bar code, is particularly frightening.

How could any jail allow this to happen?

Two teenage daughters of James Carpenter, a mentally ill inmate who died from a flesh-eating bacteria in the Mobile County jail three years ago, will receive about $350,000 each in a partial settlement of a lawsuit over their father's death....The total payout is $1.45 million -- the maximum under the insurance policies that cover the county,.

Carpenter's death revealed serious problems at the jail. Though jail officials have said they've improved things, the fallout is ongoing. The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating jail conditions and has named several topics that were at issue during Carpenter's incarceration.

A lot of lawyers worked hard for this settlement, including one of our pals from Mobile, Robert F. "Cowboy Bob" Clark.

For those of you who can stomach the gory details of Mr. Carpenter's 15 day incarceration, taken from court pleadings and Sheriff's Department reports, read on:

If these allegations are true, every resident of Chicago ought to be very afraid.

The Chicago Police Department has a policy of locking up and interrogating witnesses who are not charged or suspected of any criminal wrongdoing, according to a lawsuit filed today in federal court by the MacArthur Justice Center, the Mandel Legal Aid Clinic and First Defense Legal Aid. The suit was filed on behalf of three individuals who were locked in a police interrogation room for questioning for as long as two full days.

In each of the three incidents, the witnesses say they were locked in a small, windowless interrogation room furnished only with a metal bunk and lacking a toilet or running water. The police refused their requests to leave. The police denied McFall's repeated requests to call her mother; Treadwell faced abusive questioning during the approximately 24 hours he was held.

Buzzflash has a new editorial up today, It's Me or the Terrorists-- You Have Three Seconds to Decide":

If you had to distill the Bush administration's argument for its existence down to the essence, it would amount to simply this: "It's Me or the Terrorists! You Have Three Seconds to Decide."

Since September 11, 2001, the American people have had the threat of terrorist attacks hovering over them and a gun held to their heads by the Bush administration. The true risk of terrorist assaults on the U.S. and its interests is hard to gauge. Partly, it is due to the murky, secretive nature of terrorism itself, which makes risk assessment a difficult task. But, the other challenge for Americans is that they have an administration that shamelessly uses terrorism to scare and frighten its own population in order to achieve political goals and reward their campaign contributors. The first limitation in assessing terrorism risk is understandable; the second is shameless and unconscionable.