Hesiod at Counterspin Central brings us the inspirational story of an Egyptian civil rights activist who is using the legal system to effectuate change in his country.

Hessiod notes that:

The irony is that, at a time when our toadying, deferential courts are giving John Ashcroft and the Bush adminsitration a blank check to trample on our civil rights, activists like Abdel Mohsen Hammouda are actually IMPROVING civil liberties in a place like Egypt through the legal system.

It is also worth relaying this story if for no other reason than to point out that things CAN change in the authoritarian Middle East. No paternalistic invasions are necessary. Left to their own devices, the people will find a way.

Instapundit is right--it's odd that this criminal investigation into the Mississippi Judiciary is not getting more attention:

A web of connections exists between the judges, lawyers, politicians and investigators involved in a Mississippi judicial-corruption probe, raising questions about the fairness and thoroughness of the investigation and about possible conflicts of interest.

At issue is whether wealthy lawyers paid off loans for judges in exchange for favorable rulings. At stake is Mississippians' trust of the judiciary. The investigation is also a key battle in a nationwide tort-reform movement that often pits Democrats, who rely on trial lawyers for fund raising, against Republicans, who are under pressure from big business to limit jury awards in lawsuits.

Prosecutors and investigators have denied that politics has influenced the investigation. But The Sun Herald over the last year has uncovered a web of connections and flow of money among powerful people on all sides of the investigation....

Patriot Watch sends us to this LA Times article and outlines the new powers Ashcroft is seeking:

1. Broadening Material Support
2. Blanket Pre-Trial Detention of Suspected Terrorists
3. Harsher Sentencing and Expansion of the Death Penalty for Terrorists

It's up to all of us to see he fails. Read Law Professor David Cole's commentary in the Washington Post, We've Aimed, Detained and Missed Before :

Ashcroft wants to do more than capture and prosecute individuals who commit or conspire to commit terrorist acts. Understandably, he seeks to prevent the next atrocity from occurring. But the inspector general's report reveals the dangers of Ashcroft's approach. People were picked up on anonymous tips that "too many" Muslims worked in a convenience store, or that a Muslim neighbor kept odd hours, or simply because they were in a place the FBI visited during the investigation into Sept. 11. In the end, the attorney general was shooting in the dark, and virtually every shot missed.

Scientific researchers are moving past polygraphs and touting a new "science" called 'brain printing':

In the quest to build a better lie detector, scientists are seeking to go beyond the body's indirect signals to the very seat of deceit: the brain. One researcher has built a headband outfitted with lights and detectors able to "see" blood-flow changes in the brain. Another uses magnetic resonance imaging to snap several split-second pictures.

....Research subjects wearing the headband are told to answer some questions truthfully and others deceptively. At the moment a subject makes the decision to lie, before even uttering it, there's a milliseconds-long burst of blood flow. Those bursts are read by the sensors and show up as spikes on a laptop computer.

We agree with these critics:

"There's only one thing worse than a lie detector that doesn't work, and that's a lie detector that does work," said physicist Robert Park, a longtime polygraph critic. "It's the last invasion of privacy that you can imagine, and it frightens me that we seem to be almost able to do it."

....Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's technology and liberty program, warns that none of the new technology has been proven to work like the scientists claim. But if it does, Steinhardt said, "then it would become another weapon in the arsenal of those who want to put us into a surveillance society where every action, every deed and one's very thoughts can be monitored, categorized and correlated."

[link via PatriotWatch]

Hillary Clinton says she will not run for the Presidency in 2004 or 2008. Her book, Living History, hits the stores tomorrow.

Check out this new Stanford law review article on mandatory detentions under the Patriot Act:

As the USA Patriot Act went into effect, several hundred immigrants remained in government detention under a separate emergency order allowing them to be held without charge for an extended period. The lengthy detention of so many aliens, few of whom were suspected of involvement in the terrorist attacks, generated concern that efforts to protect national security in the wake of September 11 had infringed on the constitutional rights of noncitizens.

....This Note argues that the USA Patriot Act's provisions for certification and mandatory detention contravene the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of due process of law. By denying noncitizens the opportunity for meaningful review of the certification decision, and by authorizing the detention of aliens on substantively inadequate grounds, the USA Patriot Act raises serious constitutional concerns under both the procedural and substantive prongs of the Due Process Clause."

[thanks to Lisa at Ruminate This and Al-Muhajabah at Veiled 4Allah for the link]

Reader Chris and Skippy tell us the Alterman-Hitchens debate will be re-broadcast Monday, June 9. Go here for details.

We didn't see the original as we've been out of town at a defense lawyers' retreat --no cable except CNN--No PBS--the ten of us here have dubbed it a federal prison camp---ok, maybe it's more like a halfway house-but no joke, it's a maze of concrete buildings, concrete rooms, color coded floors and ceilings(no town to go to, food is only available at certain hours in a cafeteria and it is not something you'd want to eat more than once in a month.) It does have high speed internet access and good water pressure in the showers, and we've had outside counsel come to visit and consult with us who didn't have to spend the night, but we can tell you we won't be doing this again any time soon. Anyway, we missed Eric sparring with Hitchens and hope to see the rerun after we return home--thankfully that's tomorrow. And on that note, we're going to click our heels three times now and hope we're back in Colorado when we wake up.

South Knox Bubba says you ought to be mad as hell and he's right:

People like Tom "I AM the Federal Government" DeLay (not to mention John Ashcroft) are exactly why Thomas Jefferson and James Madison demanded a Bill of Rights be made part of the Constitution. They experienced first-hand, and could foresee, abuse of the awesome powers of the government for political or ideological purposes, or simply criminal activity by powerful elected officials such as theft, retribution, or revenge.

Nobody cared when Ashcroft ignored the Constitution, which he was sworn to uphold and protect, and started arresting and detaining people without warrants, probable cause, or due process. Nobody cared about Ashcroft's blatant violations of detainee's Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights when he held them without charges and denied their right to legal representation and their right to confront their accusers. Nobody cared because the detainees were suspected terrorists, you know, Muslims, and people of Middle Eastern descent.

Now it appears that Tom DeLay and others have similarly abused the powers of the Federal government to threaten the rights and liberties of Texas legislators, ordinary Americans, for political purposes.

SK recaps the whole shameful incident.

Update: The Washington Post reports Sunday that Joe Lieberman is asking for records of calls between Bush, Karl Rove and Tom DeLay on the issue.

The issue is politically sensitive because the Department of Homeland Security has acknowledged assisting law enforcement officers who were asked by Republicans to round up Democrats who had fled the state to avoid voting on a redistricting plan championed by DeLay. The plan died when a deadline passed without a quorum.

An FBI agent also helped in the search, but the bureau said it did not act at the behest of politicians. The Federal Aviation Administration gave aircraft-tracking information to DeLay's staff, and his staff sought advice from the Justice Department.

Bush and Rove apparently spoke to DeLay before the legislators departed.

New Yorkers rally to defend the Bill of Rights: Nat Hentoff's latest on anti-Ashcroft demonstrations.

There may be a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court as early as the end of June, when the Suprme Court term ends. Lobbying has already begun:

Interest groups on the left and the right are beginning full-scale political campaigns — including fund-raising, advertising and major research — to prepare for what many expect to be a Supreme Court vacancy in the next several weeks. While none of the justices have said they plan to retire, any decision would traditionally be announced at the end of the court's term in late June.

Update: The New York Times has this graphic of the names and faces of those likely to be considered as Supreme Court nominees in the case of a retirement. [Via How Appealing]

Alabama Attorney General William Pryor's confirmation hearing is set for Wednesday.

Senators Patrick Leahy and Edward Kennedy are two Democratic senators planning aggressive questioning of Pryor. Leahy's spokesman said, "... the committee will also look at Pryor's role in "stripping" away congressional and fed eral authority to enforce constitutionally guaranteed protections." Kennedy's spokesman " indicated that the senator had questions for Pryor on his record on civil rights, abortion rights and his position as attorney general on treatment of prisoners when he unsuccessfully fought a lawsuit targeting the state's practice of handcuffing inmates to a hitching post as a means of disciplining them."

We strongly oppose Pryor's confirmation. Here are our reasons.

Attorney General John Ashcroft has banned an employee Gay Pride Month event at the Justice Department.

Justice Department officials told DOJ Pride, a group of almost 200 gay and lesbian agency employees, it could not stage the event at the department's Pennsylvania Avenue building later this month because President Bush -- unlike his predecessor, former President Bill Clinton -- has not issued a proclamation designating June as gay pride month

...gay and lesbian groups and some Democratic lawmakers said Ashcroft's decision was discriminatory because other employee associations, including ethnic employee groups, are allowed to hold similar events at the agency's headquarters.

"It's shocking that the agency in charge of protecting the civil rights of all Americans is singling out one group of people for unequal treatment," said David Smith, spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay and lesbian advocacy group. "It sends a very chilling message to gay and lesbian employees that says, 'You are not welcome.' "