Former radical Kathy Boudin left prison today after more than twenty years. Our good wishes go out to her and her son Chesa. We've expressed our support for Ms. Boudin's parole several times, inlcuding here and here.

Update: You can access the transcript of her parole hearing here.

We haven't seen this reported in very many American papers, but it is all over the European press. A terror suspect arrested and jailed in Great Britain for five months as a result of a U.S. extradition request has sued the U.S. and the F.B.I. for $10 Million in Damages :

A pilot who spent five months in a British jail accused of training Sept. 11 hijackers has filed $10 million claims against both the FBI and U.S. Justice Department for ruining his life, his lawyer said Tuesday.

Lotfi Raissi, a British-based Algerian who studied at a flight school in Arizona, was arrested in London 10 days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and held at the high-security Belmarsh prison.

Washington accused Raissi, 29, of training some of the hijackers. But he was later cleared of wrongdoing by a British judge, who said U.S. officials had failed to present any evidence to back up accusations that he had links to terrorism.

Lawyer Jules Carey in London said Raissi's legal team had filed claims with the Justice Department and the FBI in the United States seeking damages for wrongful prosecution and imprisonment. Even though the allegations against him were proved false, no airline will now employ Raissi as a pilot, Carey said.

"The consequences for Mr Raissi have been utterly ruinous," he said. "His entire life, both personal and professional has been blighted by the allegations and it is time for the US and UK authorities to acknowledge their part in his undoing."

The Sunday Mirror reported on the case (3/4/03, available on Lexis.com):

Last year the US accused Lotfi Raissi, an Algerian pilot living in Britain, of being the "lead instructor" of the 9/11 hijackers. There was, said the FBI, video evidence and telephone records to back up their case and Raissi could face the death penalty. But then nothing, no evidence was produced and after months in custody he was freed.

The Guardian reported on the details of the U.S. case against Raissi (7/4/03, available on Lexis.com):

According to Amnesty International: "The US authorities' reasons for seeking Lotfi Raissi's extradition included the fact that his identity and profession fit a certain profile: an Algerian man and a Muslim, a pilot and a flight instructor in the USA." So what if he's not guilty. He just has to look the part.

The case sounded familiar to us, and we remembered that we too had commented on the case during Mr. Raissi's imprisonment, agreeing with the British Courts decision to release him on bail, over the objections of the U.S. The U.S. had gone to great lengths to argue to the British court that he should remain behind bars. The case was continued a few times while the Court gave the U.S. more time to produce evidence against Raissi, which it was never able to do.

The next time you think about buying or selling on Ebay, consider this article detailing how easy EBay make it for law enforcement to obtain information on you. According to Joseph Sullivan, director of the "law enforcement and compliance" department at eBay:

"We don't make you show a subpoena, except in exceptional cases," Sullivan told his listeners. "When someone uses our site and clicks on the `I Agree' button, it is as if he agrees to let us submit all of his data to the legal authorities. Which means that if you are a law-enforcement officer, all you have to do is send us a fax with a request for information, and ask about the person behind the seller's identity number, and we will provide you with his name, address, sales history and other details - all without having to produce a court order. We want law enforcement people to spend time on our site," he adds. He says he receives about 200 such requests a month, most of them unofficial requests in the form of an email or fax.

The meaning is clear. One fax to eBay from a lawman - police investigator, NSA, FBI or CIA employee, National Park ranger - and eBay sends back the user's full name, email address, home address, mailing address, home telephone number, name of company where seller is employed and user nickname. What's more, eBay will send the history of items he has browsed, feedbacks received, bids he has made, prices he has paid, and even messages sent in the site's various discussion groups. [link via What Really Happened]

If you're an early riser, and a Wesley Clark supporter, head on over to DraftWesleyClark.com at 6:30 ET Wednesday morning.

Early Wednesday morning, General Wesley Clark will webcast a special message to all members of the Draft Clark movement, hours before making a formal announcement of his decision to enter the race for President.

The official announcement will be at 12:00 noon CT.

Here it is all 8 pages of it today's memo of understanding from Attorney General John Ashcroft, the Director of the CIA, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security regarding the implementation of the new terror watch list. We can't wait for the ACLU's analysis. We'll post it here when it's out.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports:

The Bush administration announced the creation of a new counterterrorism center today intended to develop a master "watch list" of more than 100,000 terrorism suspects and avoid the communication breakdowns that plagued the federal government before the Sept. 11 attacks.

....The plan announced today would create a new screening center, to be led by the F.B.I. in conjunction with the C.I.A., the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department. Officials said they expected the center to be operating by December. It will track, they said, not only suspected foreign terrorists but also Americans tied to domestic events like violence at abortion clinics.

Civil rights advocates said they worried that the new process would give the government greater power to track and compile information on Americans and others who may have no clear links to terrorism. Law enforcement officials pledged to respect privacy and civil rights while improving national security.

Where have we heard that before?

Update: This Bush supporter has bailed over homeland security. (link via Instapundit)

Here's some interesting news. The Office of National Drug Control Policy held a press conference in Washington today to announce that an estimated 11 million Americans have driven while under the influence of illegal drugs. This includes one out of every five 21 year olds.

John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said the statistics show a failure to convince drivers that drugs impair driving as much as alcohol does. His office is kicking off an ad campaign to warn teens about driving while smoking marijuana.

"Marijuana is not the soft drug. Marijuana is not the casual rite of passage," Walters said at a news conference. "We have been sending the wrong message." Walters said marijuana can affect concentration, perception, coordination and reaction time for up to 24 hours after smoking it.

Well, lets take a look at the other side, as presented by Keith Stroup, Executive Director of NORML, who attended a portion of the press conference, at the invitation of an NBC reporter. Reportedly, he soon was ordered to leave by ONDCP officials. Anyway, here's Keith's report:

Filmmaker and author Michael Moore has a very good Patriot Act page on his official website. Actually, the whole website is excellent.

His movie, Bowling for Columbine, just came out on DVD. If you haven't seen it, you can order it here.

Bowling for Columbine
Buy Today!

It's about time someone made a scorecard of the Administration's handling of the terror war. The Independent Institute has just compiled one, with analysis. Here are the results.

To date, the biggest accomplishment—the elimination of Afghanistan’s Taliban regime that was harboring al Qaeda—has been significantly diminished by the al Qaeda leadership’s escape and by the nascent quagmire there that is embroiling the United States.

....Now that the threat to the U.S. homeland from al Qaeda in Afghanistan has been greatly reduced, rather than dig the Afghan hole deeper, the United States should declare victory, withdraw U.S. forces and turn the peacekeeping over to a coalition of the willing.

And the effects of U.S. policy go downhill from here. The hawks in the administration used the September 11 attacks to justify an unrelated policy agenda—settling old scores with Saddam Hussein. Because the administration hyped the threat of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and then didn’t find any, its fall-back position is that Iraq is better off without the despotic Hussein.

There's lots more explanation, but here are the grades:

Report Card on U.S. War on Terrorism

Removing al Qaeda haven in Afghanistan and neutralizing the group’s leadership B-

Avoiding a quagmire in Afghanistan C-

Finding weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq F

Making Iraq better off by eliminating Saddam F Reducing proliferation of WMD to rogue states and terrorist groups F

Adopting a more “humble” foreign policy to prevent overstretch of U.S. military F

Making U.S. citizens and territory safer from terrorism and bringing 9/11 conspiracy to justice F

MB Williams of Wampum thinks so:

As far as a Clark-Dean or Dean-Clark ticket, I think it's a pipe-dream. Clark as a VP would only highlight Dean's thin resume on defense matters. Voters expect the Commander-in-Chief to have his hand on the Red Phone, not the VP. Dean offers little other than Dean's grassroots supporters, and frankly, as we minorities have often been apprised, where you gonna go? If the race looks tight, Clark as nominee picks someone like himself, but with more inside the Beltway experience, such as Edwards, who can possibly carry an otherwise Red state. If the Administration goes into complete meltdown, Clark breaks the glass ceiling and chooses a Southern woman or minority politico. Maybe Dean gets a Secretary appointment (HHS?) in a Clark Administration. But I strongly suspect that if he leaves Boston without the nomination, he heads back to Vermont otherwise empty handed.

Lisa English of Ruminate This, is back from an on-again, off-again hiatus, with multiple great posts today, including this one agreeing with Wampum on Clark-Dean.

We've been invited to a small gathering next Sunday (9/29) where Sen. John Edwards will meet and greet all present and answer questions. No donation required. It will be a small group, it's at a private home. We'd love to go, but it's in Miami. Really too bad, because we like Edwards a lot and would appreciate the opportunity to listen to him and ask questions in such a setting--no cameras, no press.

We'd also love to attend the opening of the new Manhattan club Avalon this Saturday night. Howard Dean will be there to address the crowd, along with Al Franken, Whoopi Goldberg and Gloria Gaynor ("I will Survive.) It's cheap--35 bucks. If you are closer to NY than we are, and would like to go, here are the details. Who knows, maybe there will be an e-fare sale to NY this weekend and we can drag our law student offspring away from the books for a few hours to go with us.

Update: The site has moved here.

We love this website called Nobody Died: When Clinton Lied. It has pictures of road signs spotted across California by camera-equipped drivers. You can send your submissions to them to post. Just send the picture, the date and the intersection.

Reader Scarlet Pimpernel emails us that the signs appear to be the work of one group, and he spotted one today, about 10'X10', over the Santa Monica Freeway that read:

"Dear America, Thanks for all the money, sorry about your kids. - Halliburton Oil"

on one side,

and "Nobody Died when Clinton Lied" on the other.

We hope you will read Kirk Bloodsworth's oped in today's Philadelphia Inquirer. Mr. Bloodsworth was convicted of murder in 1983 and sentenced to death by two juries. He received a full pardon in 1993, based on DNA testing that proved he could not have committed the crime.

But it was not until 2003, almost twenty years after the murder, that the prosecutor ran tests on the DNA to see if the real killer in Bloodsworth's case could be identified. Sure enough, the DNA led authorities to real killer. The real killer was arrested for robbery, attempted rape, and attempted murder a few weeks after the crime for which Mr. Bloodsworth was falsely accused. He is serving a 45 year sentence for that crime. But think about it: Had the DNA testing occurred earlier, and had Mr. Bloodsworth not been falsely accused, another serious crime could have been avoided.

The point: DNA not only frees the innocent, it convicts the guilty. Please, read Mr. Bloodsworth's plea for the passage of the Innocence Protection Act.

In what the Homeland Security Agency describes as a "pilot program," Connecticut officials are arresting everyone who has been ordered deported.

Typically, an illegal immigrant who a judge has ordered deported but who has not committed another crime has been allowed to remain free while the order is appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals. Under the pilot program, immigrants are detained as soon as a deportation order is issued, although they can post bail. "We're trying to make the judges' final decisions mean something more," Bentley said.

Marshall Fitz, associate director of advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said it is unfair to group illegal immigrants who have been convicted of crimes with those who have not. "These people have not been judged to be criminals," Fitz said. "This is a blanket policy."