Congrats to Sam Heldman of Ignatz for being mentioned as a prime critic of Bush judicial nominee William Pryor in the Birmingham News:

Sam Heldman, a Washington attorney, argues Pryor's federalism is driven by politics and inconsistently applied. For example, his written argument in the presidential election contest of 2000 was that the decision denying Bush's request to block the manual recounting of ballots should be overturned.

"One might think that a true believer in what is now called `federalism' ... would likely take the position that election-law matters should be left up to the states rather than to federal judges," Heldman writes in his ongoing Internet critique of Pryor's record.

Heldman, who lost two high-profile cases to Pryor regarding an election dispute and the racial makeup of the state's appellate courts, said his Web log postings about the nominee are the early stages of a public discourse that will only intensify when the confirmation hearing is scheduled.

"But I hope it's carried out at a sensible level rather than just the hot buttons of is he for or against abortion or the Ten Commandments," Heldman said.

[link via Demagogue]

Sanho Tree, a fellow at the Drug Policy Project of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., has a wrap-up of the drug war and its consequences in the May-June issue of Sojourner, titled The War at Home.

Until we provide adequate resources for drug treatment, rehabilitation, and prevention, the United States will continue to consume billions of dollars worth of drugs and impoverished peasants around the world will continue to grow them. The enemy is not an illicit agricultural product that can be grown all over the world; rather, our policies should be directed against poverty, despair, and alienation. At home and abroad, these factors drive the demand for illicit drugs which is satisfied by an inexhaustible reservoir of impoverished peasant farmers who have few other economic options with which to sustain themselves and their families.

Tree does offer an alternative approach to the issue of drug abuse, namely, Harm Reduction.

Former Senator Gary Hart has written a book review in the May issue of Washington Monthly, "Elective Surgery: Democracy and freedom don't necessarily go hand in hand." The book is The Future of Freedom by Fareed Zakaria, Editor of Newsweek International. The book challenges the assumption that democracy is good for everyone and "posits a superior alternative, one he calls constitutional liberalism."

Hart says the book is really three books, and it is the final one, on the subject of democracy in America, that is likely to cause the biggest stir:

"[M]ost Americans have lost faith in their democracy," Zakaria says, because, as it becomes more "democratic"--that is to say, popular, diffuse, and open--it has eroded individual liberty. Americans don't trust their government and thus are alienated from it.....By making the political system more open, we have also made it more porous to armies of lobbyists and interest groups. Gone is any sense of national purpose, unity, or common good. The constitutionally protected media, under the rampant influences of democratization and marketization, "sensationalizes, dramatizes, and trivializes news" and inflames rather than tempers public passions."

Hart doesn't fully embrace the theory, and instead encourages debate about it, particularly with respect to alternatives for the 21st century other than the two Zakaria provides, which Hart describes as either

dimensional "democracy" or a more nuanced constitutional liberalism with institutional instruments underwriting individual liberty.

In other Hart news, Jack Sparks, his media spokesman, told the Rocky Mountain News that Hart may not declare his intentions (or lack of them) until late spring or early summer.

[thanks to Eric of Hamster for emailing the link to the book review.]

Atrios reports that President Bush has used his recess appointment power to name his former girlfriend from his Harvard Business School days, now a homemaker, to the board of directors of the Export-Import Bank.

Zacarias Moussaoui won another motion Monday when the Judge ruled that prosecutors must disclose to him their new theory of the case.

The prosecutors had disclosed an unclassified version of their new theory (likely that of Moussaoui being the pilot of a 5th plane on Sept. 11 that was supposed to hit the White House) to Moussaoui's standby counsel. Moussaoui is not speaking with them. He filed a "Motion to Know How the United Satan is Lying to Murder Me By Legal Means" asking to have the same information disclosed to him.

The Judge ruled that because prosecutors had disclosed the information to his defense lawyers, they also had to share it with Moussaoui.

Bump and Update: This from Reuters on the Criminal Complaint filed:

According to the criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court, Hawash decided after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States to travel to Afghanistan, via China and Pakistan, to join forces with Taliban and al Qaeda troops fighting....Hawash allegedly traveled with the other defendants to China but returned to the United States in November 2001 after failing to enter Afghanistan. "Mike's friends and those who know him think the idea that Mike would have fought for the Taliban or traveled to Afghanistan is absurd," friends of Hawash said in a statement.

The complaint is 41 pages. We haven't read it yet, but we suspect that much of it is boilerplate about Al Qaeda in general and the other six defendants in the Oregon case. Here's a link to it.

Later....we've read the whole thing. Most of it is about Bilal. We're not impressed. Hawash knew the other six, helped one set up a landscaping business in Oregon, and went to Hong Kong/China around the same time as the others. They attended the same mosque in Oregon. While a witness in China identified the other six from photos, they couldn't identify Hawash. Their search for incriminating cell and other phone calls on Hawash's phones seems to have come up empty. He isn't mentioned by name in the emails seized from the computers of the other six.

The Government's interest in him sprang from two neighbors calling the police after the other six were arrested to say he wasn't as friendly after Sept. 11 and dressed in eastern type clothes more often. In sum, it looks to us like Hawash went to China and came home, end of story.

Hawash is set for a detention (bail) hearing tomorrow. There will be organized protests at the courthouse.

******

Update: According to the website established by friends of Mike Hawash, the charges came by way of Complaint vs. grand jury indictment. The site says the grand jury has not met yet. You can view the affidavit of the task force agent here.

******

The grand jury returned an Indictment today charging Mike Hawash as the seventh defendant in the Oregon terror case. Hawash is charged with plotting to wage war against U.S. troops. He faces one count of "conspiracy to levy war and two counts of conspiring to provide material support to the two groups."

Hawash has been in custody on a material witness warrant since March. Our prior coverage of him is here.

Would you like to know the changes the Patriot Act of 2001 made to existing law with just a glance? Check out this "redline" version--it's by the Government--through the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, titled "Guidance on New Authorities that Relate to Computer Crime and Electronic Evidence Enacted in the USA Patriot Act of 2001 (October 2001). It redlines the entire act, not just computer provisions, for example here are the wiretap changes; here are the "sneak and peek" search additions. There's lots more.

[comments now closed]

The investigation into the DNA lab at the FBI is widening. Instapundit is on top of it, as is MSNBC.

The AP reported this month that FBI lab technician Jacquelyn Blake quit while under investigation for failing to follow required scientific procedures while analyzing 103 DNA samples over the past couple of years, and a second lab employee was indicted for allegedly providing false testimony.

Inspector General Glenn Fine expanded the Blake inquiry to examine the FBI lab’s broader practices in DNA cases. The FBI has been cooperating, the government officials said.

The officials said the goal of the investigation is to identify vulnerabilities in lab procedure that could affect the quality of the FBI’s DNA analyses or permit a rogue employee to go undetected.

Frederic Whitehurst, the whistleblower in the 1995 FBI lab scandal that affected the WTC and Oklahoma City bombing investigations, and who has gone on to become a lawyer as well as forensic specialist, is also on top of the new inquiry. According to the MSNBC report,

Criminal defense lawyers are planning challenges to the database and to DNA evidence in cases involving the FBI lab technician or the local crime labs accused of wrongdoing. “All of us are depending on DNA as a gold standard in forensics work — innocence projects, prosecutors and defense lawyers. And now we don’t have a gold standard. The gold has been tarnished,” said Frederic Whitehurst, a lawyer and former FBI lab employee whose whistle-blower allegations led to major changes in the lab in the mid-1990s.

Bottom Line according to Dr. Whitehurst: DNA may be an almost pure and perfect science, but it becomes easily tainted by the fact that DNA scientists are human beings. Here's more from Dr. Whitehurst:

Senators Patrick Leahy, Charles Grassley and Arlen Spector have called for an FBI inquiry over the use of informants in the Katrina Leung case.

If even a portion of the allegations raised in the public affidavit are true, we cannot afford to wait until yet another breach of national security occurs before we work with the FBI to improve security and the handling of confidential informants," said a letter signed by Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.; Charles Grassley, R-Iowa; and Arlen Specter, R-Pa.

Attorney General Ashcroft also comes under fire for his revised FBI informant guidelines that went into effect in May, 2002.

The senators' letter notes that Attorney General John Ashcroft, on May 30 of last year, issued a 34-page revision to the confidential informant guidelines used by FBI agents and other federal law enforcement officials.

The revisions were intended to improve the gathering of intelligence from human sources, especially in terrorism investigations following the Sept. 11 attacks. Some rules were relaxed, such as how soon an agent must inform superiors in writing about recruitment of a new source.

There may be "a need to revisit those decisions" in light of the Los Angeles spy case, the senators said."

Here is a description of the relaxed rules.

Dumb law of the week (granted, it's only Monday): The California city of Lancaster is considering a law to banes and those on probation from one of its rough neighborhoods. A state prison is located in Lancaster, and many of those released from jail apparently want to make it home. Under the proposed Lancaster Community Appreciation Project,

...ex-convicts on or probation from the drug dealer to the writer of bad checks would be barred from visiting, renting or owning property in a 20-block area. Signs would notify them that the area is off limits. Current residents would be exempt. If successful, the project would be expanded to other neighborhoods.

Is Lancaster not in America? Haven't they heard of the First Amendment right to freedom of association?

In 1996, Cincinnati barred those convicted of drug offenses from certain ''drug exclusion zones.'' Six years later, a federal appeals court ruled that the ordinance was unconstitutional.

A Deputy District Attorney named David Berger designed the plan to cut down on crime. But what does this remind you of?

''The issue will be very simple: You were there (in the excluded zone), and you weren't supposed to be,'' Berger said.

Speaking of the dumb law of the week, it would be nice to have a small graphic or button to display with these posts that people could put on their blogs when referring to them and would be instantly recognizable. If any artistic folks would like to create one, we think that would be great. Put it up on your blog for now, and send us the url--maybe we can even do a contest.

The London Observer covers the GeorgeGalloway story and says the Labour Party Minister may face criminal charges over his anti-war comments:

George Galloway, the anti-war Labour MP who is suing over allegations he secretly took money from Saddam Hussein, faces the prospect of a criminal prosecution for treachery. The Observer can reveal that the Director of Public Prosecutions is considering pursuing the Glasgow politician for comments during the Iraq war when he called on British troops not to fight.

In an interview with Abu Dhabi TV during the Iraq conflict, Galloway said: 'The best thing British troops can do is to refuse to obey illegal orders.' Lawyers for service personnel claim his call for soldiers to dis obey what he called 'illegal orders' amount to a breach of the Incitement to Disaffection Act 1934. The maximum penalty is two years in jail.

Galloway dismissed attempts to prosecute him, but said: 'I hope to have chiselled on my gravestone: "He incited them to disaffect."'

Human Rights Groups side with Galloway on his comments.

Roger Bingham of the civil rights group Liberty said 'Galloway's statement is an expression of opinion. We live in a free-speech, democratic society and elect MPs to speak out on national issues.' Andrew Burgin, of the Stop the War Coalition denounced the move. He said: 'This war was immoral and illegal and should never have been fought. This proposal to prosecute is part of an ever-expanding witch-hunt against George Galloway because he was the most vocal anti-war voice.'

Other issues now are emerging regarding Galloway and his alleged ties to fundamentalists. No question Galloway is fighting for his political life.

The News And Observer editorializes Sunday on credibility issues inside North Carolina's legal system after another murder conviction is thrown out:

Jerry Lee Hamilton is for now off North Carolina's death row, thanks to a judge who recognized an appalling flaw in his prosecution. Superior Court Judge Michael Beale of Wadesboro ruled last week that evidence that should have been available to Hamilton's defense attorneys was withheld by prosecutors or police. The ruling echoes one from December, when another judge tossed out the death sentence of Alan Gell of Bertie County, criticizing prosecutors for withholding evidence that supported Gell's claim of innocence in a 1995 murder. The credibility of the system of justice rests on one principle: fairness. And that depends on prosecutors and police who understand that their duty is to find the truth, not to win a case. Justice is not a competition. Withholding evidence is withholding justice -- it is not akin to stealing a baseball catcher's signs.

Check out the paper's excellent series, Time of Death, examining the cases of Alan Gell and Jerry Lee Hamilton.