Another report by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics has been released. Crime Victimization, 2002 finds that,

...overall violent victimization and property crime rates in 2002 are the lowest recorded since the inception of the NCVS in 1973.....

Violent crimes included in the report are rape/sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault and simple assault (from the NCVS), and homicide (from the FBI's UCR program). Property crimes examined are burglary, motor vehicle theft, and property theft.

Some other findings:

The rate of violent crime dropped 21% from the period 1999-2000 to the period 2001-02.

Reporting to the police increased from 43% of all violent crimes in 1993 to 49% in 2002; reporting of property crimes increased from 34% to 40%.

From the Press Release:

The rate of every major violent and property crime measured by BJS declined from 1993 through 2002. Rape/sexual assault was down 56 percent, robbery down 63 percent, aggravated assault down 64 percent, simple assault (no weapon or serious injury) down 47 percent, household burglary down 52 percent, motor vehicle theft down 53 percent and property theft down 49 percent.

The decline in violent victimization between 1993 and 2002 was experienced by persons in every demographic category considered –– gender, race, Hispanic origin and household income. Property crime rates also fell for every demographic group examined –– region, property tenure, location and household income.

The San Francisco Chronicle has this analysis o f the report.

The higher-ups in the national and Colorado state democratic party are urging former Senator Gary Hart to run for U.S. Senate against Republican Ben Nighthorse Campbell. We're all in favor of it. When Campbell first ran, he was a Democrat. He switched parties some years after being elected. We'd love to see the seat returned to the Democrats and think Hart is the one who could do it.

But what is up with the difference in the articles between the print version that arrived on our doorstep this morning and the internet edition? Check this out. From the online edition:

Hart, a Denver lawyer, refused to say Friday how seriously, if at all, he's considering another stint on Capitol Hill. "He won't be commenting on that," his assistant said.

Cinamon Watson, a campaign aide to Campbell, scoffed at the possibility of a Hart candidacy. "It's as simple as this," she said. "It's all monkey business."

Hart's 1988 bid for the presidency was derailed by his dalliance with model Donna Rice - with whom he was photographed sitting dockside in front of a pleasure boat named Monkey Business.

Here's how that part of the article in the print edition reads:

Hart, a Denver lawyer, refused to say Friday how seriously, if at all, he's considering another stint on Capitol Hill. "He won't be commenting on that," his assistant said.

Campbell, in Pueblo on Saturday to participate in events at the Colorado State Fari, said he wasn't aware of efforts to recruit Hart. "I don't think Gary will do it," Campbell said. "It's not prestigious enough. He wants to be President and that's not going to happen."

Hart's 1988 bid for the presidency was derailed by his dalliance with model Donna Rice. Campbell said he expected others would raise questions about the affair should Hart enter the race, but pledged that he would not. "I'm not running for pope. I'm running for Senate."

Why was Campbell's direct quote (and pledge) omitted from the online edition of the article? Why was it replaced by a campaign aide's negative, mocking comment? Do Campbell's advisors want to leave him open to attack Hart on the issue, just in case Hart enters and starts beating Campbell in the polls? And why would the two reporters go with a campaign aide's quote when he they have a first-hand quote from the Senator?

It may be that the online article was written earlier, before Campbell was personally interviewed, but in that case, why hasn't the paper updated the online version?

From retired Drake University journalism professor Herb Strenz, as published in the Des Moines Register, comes this little ditty, "John Ashcroft is Coming to Town," sung to the tune of the Santa original. Here's the gist:

He's making a list,
He's checking it twice,
gonna find out who's naughty or nice:
John Ashcroft is coming to town!

They'll know when you're speaking out,
They'll know when you dissent,
They'll know when you don't salute,
But they won't tell where you're sent!

...Closed trials and secret arrests,
All in store for those he detests:
John Ashcroft is coming to town.

....Wire taps and pen registers,
Just fun toys for justice jesters:
John Ashcroft is coming to town.

....Agents in U-S spyland will have a jubilee,
They're gonna fill their data banks,
With the scoop on you and me.

Ohh.You better watch out, you better not cry,
You better not pout, I'm telling you why:
John Ashcroft is coming to town.

Update: Ashcroft will be speaking Monday at 2pm at the Boise Depot in Boise, Idaho. The speech is open to the media but closed to the public.

We found a section on the Justice Department's new Life and Liberty website that brags about the legal challenges the Government has won in its war on terror:

• Enemy combatant detention authority: SUSTAINED
• Guantanamo Bay detention authority: SUSTAINED
• FISA information sharing authority: SUSTAINED
• Withholding names of sensitive immigration detainees: SUSTAINED
• President’s authority to freeze assets of purported charities that fund terrorists: SUSTAINED
• No provision of the Patriot Act has been held unconstitutional by any court.

Then we found this list of civil liberties abuses on the ACLU website.

• The June DOJ Inspector General report detailing widespread and systematic abuses of the hundreds of Arab, Muslim and South Asian men detained in the weeks after 9/11. The report showed that, even though the men were found to have no connection whatsoever to the attacks on September 11, they were held for extreme amounts of time - in some cases for several months - under a quasi-official "no-bond, no-lawyers" policy. Although the Justice Department’s response has been a pat "we did nothing illegal," it’s clear that most of the detainees were held on pretextual immigration violations such as an expired visa or incomplete paperwork.
• The proposed neighbor-spying-on-neighbor program called Operation TIPS, which would have recruited Americans whose jobs - such as cable repair persons and postal workers - grant them easy access to our homes as government informers, charged with reporting "suspicious activity" to a dedicated tips hotline.
• The plan to base the number of investigations in any given FBI jurisdiction on demographic criteria, including the number of mosques in the area.
• The initiative at the DOJ to force local and state police to enforce immigration laws, a plan opposed not only by immigrants’ advocates but also by law enforcement officials themselves.

We think the lists should be combined. The Justice Department's legal "wins" are nothing more than civil liberties abuses, masquerading as accomplishments. Not one of the legal wins make us feel any safer. All of them make us feel less free.

Add the two lists together, and you have a picture of where this country is headed under Bush and Ashcroft. Protest now, while you still can.

Walter Shapiro says in USA Today that John Edwards is the most anti-Ashcroft Democrat in the presidential nomination race:

...the Democrat who devotes the most energy and passion to challenging the Ashcroft record is John Edwards. On a supporter's front lawn in Waverly last week, Edwards dramatically switched gears in his stump speech to announce, "I want to say this to everyone here who is supporting me or thinking of supporting me. If you think what I'm about to say is wrong or dangerous, you should be for somebody else — don't be for me."

All this was intended to whet the appetite of his audience for what would come next. Edwards thundered, "I want to say this loud and clear: We cannot in this effort to fight this war on terrorism allow people like John Ashcroft to take away our rights, our freedoms."

....when it comes to battling Ashcroft, Edwards boasts a credibility that his rivals lack. As a veteran of North Carolina courtrooms, he instinctively grasps the legal implications of military tribunals and the government's claimed right to declare American citizens to be "enemy combatants." The only Democratic hopeful on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Edwards has been adept in his aggressive questioning of Ashcroft during the attorney general's rare appearances on Capitol Hill.

Next stop on Ashcroft's Patriot Act tour: Salt Lake City, Monday. At least one protest is planned.

Both of Salt Lake City's daily newspapers have criticized the sweeping measure that gives the Justice Department broad investigation powers. Libertarians have protested at the state Capitol -- twice. And Tuesday, K-Talk radio host Barbara Jean Whitely and others plan to ask the Salt Lake City Council to join more than 150 local governments and three states that have adopted resolutions condemning the act. A protest is planned for Monday outside the hotel where the attorney general is scheduled to speak.

Dean Barkley, Arianna's campaign manager, has resigned from her gubernatorial campaign. Barkley had been a tobacco lobbyist in Minnesota, and he and Arianna felt that his past activities might hurt her chances.

Barkley's role in Huffington's campaign was questioned after the Los Angeles Times reported last week that he is a lobbyist for major tobacco, gambling and waste-hauling companies. Huffington said she did not know that when she hired him.

Huffington's campaign has gotten off to a rocky start. The syndicated columnist, who lives in a home in Brentwood reportedly valued at $7 million, also has been dogged by reports that she paid only $771 in federal taxes the past two years. Huffington has called the stories unfair, noting that she paid $98,000 in property taxes and $50,000 in payroll taxes during that period.

Arianna would do better to ignore the tax charges than to give such a lame --and insulting--excuse. Every homeowner pays property taxes and every employer pays payroll taxes. What does that have to do with her obligation to pay income tax? Not to mention a significant portion of the payroll taxes she paid likely came from amounts withheld from her employees under FICA and the like.

If Arianna had so many business ventures that lost money that she ended up with only a $771 tax bill, the citizens of California justifiably might conclude she can't manage her own finances, let alone those of such a big state.

Colorado has backed down on its new law requiring students and teachers to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. The law will be rewritten to comply with findings by the Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court in Colorado last week that led him to declare the law as written unconstitutional. This is quite an about-face for Colorado Governor Bill Owens who angrily attacked the Judge's ruling last week and threatened appeals until the bitter end.

The Guardian has an in-depth report on the the hunt for Osama Bin Laden.

The al-Qaida leader is said to be hiding in northern Pakistan guarded by a 120-mile ring of tribesmen whose job it is to warn of the approach of any troops.

Inside them is a tighter ring, around 12 miles in diameter, made up of tribal elders who would warn if the outer ring were breached. At the centre of the circles is Bin Laden himself, protected by one or two of his closest relatives and advisers. Bin Laden has agreed with the elders that he will use no electronic communications and will move only at night and between specified places within a limited radius.

The article says that Bin Laden is communicating by handwritten notes. The primary source of the information appears to be Mansoor Ijaz, an American financier of Pakistani origin who has spent years tracking Bin Laden and his operations. We've seen Mr. Ijaz many times on Fox News.

The article seems to place great credibility on Mr. Ijaz' theory, but we don't get a sense from it as to whether the U.S. similarly credits his information.

Rick Perry, the Governor of Texas, has granted pardons to 35 defendants caught up in the bogus Tulia, Texas drug sting. Perry said discredited undercover cop Tom Coleman was a big factor in his decision.

Jeff Blackburn, a lawyer in Amarillo who represents many of the people pardoned yesterday, said indiscriminate spending in the war on drugs was to blame for the debacle in Tulia. He was especially critical of the Texas Panhandle Regional Narcotics Trafficking Task Force, a federally financed consortium of 26 Texas counties based in Amarillo.

"The government agency that caused the Tulia fiasco was the task force," Mr. Blackburn said. "They were the group that hired Coleman. They were that group that allegedly supervised Coleman. We believe it was this group that encouraged him to make the largest number of cases using whatever methods he chose. The more productive he appeared to be, the more funding money they could get."

The pardons will allow those receiving them to sue for damages. Most have settled with local officials for $250,000, but they remain free to sue the task force that employed Coleman.

Coleman is white. 39 of the 46 defendants were black. Here are some details about Coleman and his conduct:

Canada has arrested 19 people, mostly Pakistani students and refugees, in a terror probe.

It sounds like Canada is taking a cue from the U.S. While a few of the 19 are being held for immigration violations, most have been detained without any charges.

Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the federal government can detain without charges any landed immigrant or foreign national who is considered to be a threat to national security.

A defense lawyer for two of the men had this to say:

All 19 of them, not just my two clients, are being held on such flimsy evidence that if it was presented in a court of law it would be found as a joke," lawyer Mohammed Syed said last night. "

Damm Foreigner has a lot more of the case details, as well as these thoughts:

Fox News was denied a preliminary injunction today that would have required Franken to remove the words "fair and balanced" from his book title.

State Supreme Court judge Denny Chin ruled that the title was a parody with little likelihood of confusing consumers. "This case is wholly without merit both factually and legally," Chin said. A spokesman for Fox said the network is considering its legal options. Floyd Abrams, who represented defendants Franken and Penguin Books, said he may file a motion to dismiss. "This is a complaint that never should have been filed," Abrams said.

Here's more.

A judicial ethics panel has suspended Chief Justice Roy Moore due to his refusal to comply with a court order to remove the Ten Commandments monument.

Moore was automatically suspended with pay when the nine-member Judicial Inquiry Commission referred the ethics complaint against Moore to the Court of the Judiciary, which holds trial-like proceedings and can discipline and remove judges.

The Court of the Judiciary, currently made up of four judges, three lawyers and two non-lawyers, has handled numerous judicial ethics cases. The ethics complaint was filed by Stephen Glassroth, the Birmingham lawyer who filed the initial suit. His reaction to the suspension:

"I respect whatever it is that they do," he said.

Glassroth is a member of the board of directors of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers ( NACDL.)