Howard Dean was a major critic of the War in Iraq. But he is now calling on Bush to send U.S. troops to Liberia to avert a human rights crisis.

When asked to reconcile his two positions, he said:

....Bush never made the case that Iraq posed a threat to the world. "The situation in Liberia is exactly the opposite. There is an imminent threat of serious human catastrophe and the world community is asking the United States to exercise its leadership."

Our friendly Pentagon is developing a new urban surveillance system that will track and record every vehicle within a city. It's called "Combat Zones That See."

The Pentagon is developing an urban surveillance system that would use computers and thousands of cameras to track, record and analyze the movement of every vehicle in a city.

Named "Combat Zones That See," the project is designed to help the U.S. military protect its troops abroad and fight in cities overseas. Police, scientists and privacy experts say the unclassified technology could be adapted easily to spy on Americans.

The program is the brainchild of DARPA. In addition to its planned massive database of personal records, DARPA is currently at work on a system that would create "a computerized diary that would record and analyze everything a person says, sees, hears, reads or touches."

While DARPA denies it intends these programs for civilian use, scientists are concerned:

Chisum Lee writes in this week's Village Voice that New York activists are fighting back against repressive police measures aimed at protesters.

Look what's in store when Bush visits for the Republican 2004 Convention:

Sharpshooters will man the rooftops. Counterterrorism agents will patrol in civilian guise. Bomb squads will case subway tunnels. At least this much will be certain when the Republican National Convention comes to Madison Square Garden next year, say two former NYPD officials who helped oversee previous conventions there.

....For the NYPD, in concert with the Secret Service and a slew of federal agencies, maintaining order will be a daunting challenge, and not just because of the obvious terrorism concerns. The Bush administration's policies have roused hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers to some of the most heated agitation the city has seen in decades.

We're glad to see New Yorkers fighting back:

Angry protesters have claimed police are meeting these demonstrations with new heights of repressiveness, amounting to a pattern of unfounded arrests and abuses. Now, with an eye to the near future, they are pushing back. A look at the activist scene today reveals a number of challenges that together form a multipronged effort to free the streets. New Yorkers want their right to protest to be as firmly entrenched as the police presence will be come 2004.

Passing this along to anyone's who is interested:

Peace Mile Parade to End the War on Drugs:

The 34th Annual Rally, Parade and Concert to End Marijuana Prohibition will be held Friday July 4th, 2003 in Washington DC.

The rally is from Noon - 3:00pm at Farragut Square, (17th and Connecticut Ave. NW between the Farragut West and Farragut North Metro stops)

Concert 2:00pm - 9:00pm (23rd & Constitution Ave. NW)

In related news, the Marijuana Policy Project has grant money available. The purpose of the grant program is,

To support, with grants up to $60,000, efforts that foster measurable changes in U.S. public policy that will lead to marijuana's being regulated similarly to alcohol and to marijuana's availability for medical use. The grants program does not fund political parties or candidates for office, state ballot initiatives, or hemp-related projects.

Applications must be in by September 1, details are here.

Washington may be trying to ignore Westar, but it's still news in Kansas, as the public watchdog group Public Citizen, founded by Ralph Nader, seeks the release of more internal documents pertaining to the company's campaign contributions to determine if they were made with the intent of seeking to influence federal legislation.

On an unrelated note, check out Garrison Keller's new song, Where are All the Democrats, sung to the tune of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone."

Lyrics include

- Where are all the journalists? (are they having too much fun, embedded down in Washington?)

- Where are all the weapons of -- mass destruction?

- Where are the Republicans? (We're happy in the GOP, where the food and drinks are free.)

[link via Conclusive Evidence]

"Informants are often key in federal cases --but beware. 'You hold on to a source the way you hold on to a snake,' one FBI agent says."

The LA Times examines what happens when sources go bad.

The Judge presiding over the case of accused sniper suspect John Lee Malvo has granted a defense request for change of venue. The trial will be held in Chesapeake , 200 miles to the south.

The Judge found that the paramount issue was the victimization of the community in Fairfax County and the Washington, DC area--not the prejudicial publicity.

Update: Here's the opinion.

The mainstream media continues to assess the effect of Howard Dean's successful second quarter fundraising effort. The Washington Post reports on what advisors to the other candidates have to say:

Advisers to Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) long have assumed those two candidates would face each other in the showdown for the nomination, in part because Gephardt is favored to win the Iowa caucuses and Kerry is favored in the New Hampshire primary. Not surprisingly, those Kerry and Gephardt advisers now see Dean as a bigger threat to the other.

Gephardt adviser Steve Elmendorf said Dean is now a threat to finish ahead of Kerry in Iowa and defeat him in New Hampshire. "There's a greater likelihood of that happening now than there was two weeks ago," he said.
Kerry campaign manager Jim Jordan disagreed, arguing that Dean's rise has come at Gephardt's expense. "The race is turning into essentially a Kerry-Dean race," he said. "We're very comfortable with that prospect."

Three other Democrats may face an even larger problem because of Dean's success. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) leads the Democrats in many national polls, but has not developed a significant following in Iowa or New Hampshire and now trails Dean in fundraising. Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) raised $7.4 million in the first quarter but raised about $5 million in the second quarter, and has yet to show the kind of grass-roots support Dean has demonstrated. Sen. Bob Graham (Fla.) got a late start and will find the field even more crowded with Dean in the top tier.

We think Lieberman and Gephardt can kiss the race goodbye. We put Graham in the same place as Kuchinich, which is only one step above Mosley-Braun and Sharpton.

We think its down to Kerry, Dean and Edwards for the top spot. Any one of them would be a giant step forward for the country and vast improvement over Bush. We think each of them would be smart to woo Wesley Clark as a VP candidate, and begin to be seen conferring with Gary Hart so as to create speculation that Hart would join the team as Secretary of State. We'd like to see Kucinich be appointed Drug Czar because he would advocate for the legalization of medical marijuana and end the War on Drugs fiasco. That leaves Attorney General....any suggestions?

The Bush Administration has decided to take all its marbles and go home. It has suspended military aid to 35 countries who won't agree to give U.S.citizens immunity before the International Criminal Court.

When India and the U.S. signed a non-extradition pact last year, promising each other not to turn over citizens to any third party or international tribunal, we had this to say:

This sounds like a purely manipulative gesture to try and defeat the power of the International Criminal Court--had we signed on to the Rome Statute, we'd be in there with the other 139 countries right now, making up the rules. Instead we're left out. The Court will go on without us or our input. We were ambivalent about the ICC in the beginning, but last year we had a chance to review the draft guidelines under consideration, and heard a panel of military and international law professors and experts dissect and debate it, and we changed our mind. Here is the list of countries that are part of the Court.

Some historical information on the ICC:

The International Criminal Court (ICC) was established by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court on 17 July 1998, when 120 States participating in the "United Nations Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court" adopted the Statute. This is the first ever permanent, treaty based, international criminal court established to promote the rule of law and ensure that the gravest international crimes do not go unpunished.

Even though the U.S. is not a party to the court, American criminal defense lawyers have been volunteering their time and paying their own expenses to defend those accused in the court. The International Criminal Bar was formed in July, 2002 in Montreal. In attendance were 350 lawyers from 48 countries and 68 international, regional, and national bars and numerous non-governmental organizations from around the world. Here are some reasons we should be a party to the International Criminal Court.

Bush should remember that what goes around comes around.

[Ed. Corrected after reviewing reader comment below.]

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a lower court's ruling ordering the removal of a monument to the Ten Commandments from the Alabama Supreme Court building. The monument was the size of a washing machine, made of granite and weighs 2 1/2 tons.

Both courts found that the monument violated the constitutional requirement of separation of church and state.

Update: The opinion is here. For commentary, visit Sam Heldman and People for the Amercian Way.

Cornell's Legal Information Institute has created a page with highlights of the Supreme Court's 2002-2003 term. The site contains rich background and links to access briefs, oral argument, commentary, decisions of the lower courts, and more on twenty-four key opinions.

Public Citizen is all over the Westar Energy Bribery Scandal . They have asked for an investigation and filed complaints with the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct and with the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section. You can read both on their website.

Yesterday, Public Citizen sent this letter to the Westar Board of Directors seeking "all internal communications relating to the company’s efforts to win an exemption from the Investment Company Act in exchange for more than $50,000 in campaign contributions between May and October 2002."