The New Yorker has a lengthy new article on civil forfeiture abuse by state and local authorities. It's filled with horror stories of corruption and violations of civil liberties.

In many states, it's no more than highway piracy:

Patterns began to emerge. Nearly all the targets had been pulled over for routine traffic stops. Many drove rental cars and came from out of state. None appeared to have been issued tickets. And the targets were disproportionately black or Latino.

In others, it's policing for profit. Some cities, like Detroit, try to justify the seizures as "quality of life" preservation under ancient vice statutes. This one is a doozy: [More...]

In an op-ed in the New York Times, author John Grisham writes he was puzzled by reports that his books were banned at Guantanamo. Lawyers for some of the detainees said their clients had requested them, so they brought copies with them when visiting, but the books weren't allowed through, due to "impermissible content."

Grisham says he tracked down one detainee, Nabil Hadjarab, a 34-year-old Algerian who grew up in France, who speaks perfect English. Grisham got to know Nabil's history, and it is similar to many of the detainees: they were sold to the U.S for a bounty of $5,000.

Nabil has been at Gitmo for 11 years. Grisham thinks he will be one of those released. But, he asks, what then? [More...]

Your Turn. All topics welcome -- Except Zimmerman

President Obama held a press conference today on NSA surveillance and released two documents concerning the program. They are combined here:

• Pages 1 to 23: A legal memorandum explaining the Government’s legal basis for an intelligence collection program under which the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) obtains court orders directing certain telecommunications service providers to produce telephony metadata in bulk.
• Pages 24 to 30: NSA on Legal Authorities: a seven-page document describing the legal authorities that the agency uses as the basis for its spying, the controls that are in place to limit the surveillance and a brief description of what guides the agency’s use of what they call signals intelligence.

More...

Raphael Caro-Quintero, accused of the murder of DEA agent Kikki Camerena in 1985, has been released from prison in Mexico after 28 years. An appeals court reversed his conviction, finding the federal court in Mexico lacked jurisdiction because Camerena was not a consulate official or diplomat and should have been tried in state court. (also see the translated version of this article from Mexico.)

The DEA is angry. It wants Caro-Quintero to stand trial in California for Camerena's murder and has an extradition request and international alert for him. [More...]

This is an interesting bit of pushback from the NSA, as anonymously sourced to Dana Priest of the WaPo:

The analysts’ 215 requests go to one of the 22 people at the NSA who are permitted to approve them — the chief or the deputy chief of the Homeland Security Analysis Center or one of 20 authorized Homeland Security mission coordinators within the Signals Intelligence directorate’s analysis and production directorate.

Once a request is approved, it is given to one of the Signal Intelligence directorate’s 33 counterterrorism analysts who are authorized to access the U.S. phone metadata collection.

The sourcing is intended to push back from the idea that any old analyst can just make this decision. But in the attempt, it undermines the idea that the FISA court is an actual check on NSA abuse. The FISA court is not involved at all in the individual search process, according to Priest's NSA sources.

That undermines the idea of the FISA court as an effective check on the NSA.

Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Boston on charges of Obstruction of Justice and Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice. The Indictment is here.

Robelo Philliipos was not indicted. His lawyer says he is still negotiating with the Government.

What's missing from the Indictment? Any reference to what the two told the FBI during their early interviews. Did DOJ conclude their statements were inadmissible? The Complaint against them had alleged: [More...]

Update 8/9/13: The Judge denied Lynne's request in a 25 page ruling, saying he had no authority to act without a request from BOP. If BOP reconsiders its denial and riles a request, he seems ready to grant it.

Criminal defense lawyer Lynne Stewart, serving a 10 year sentence for a terrorism related offense, is dying of cancer. The Bureau of Prisons denied her request for compassionate release. Today, the federal judge who sentenced her will hear her motion for immediate conditional release.

Her brief in support of her motion, which explains her condition and the grounds for release, is here. The Government says the judge has no authority to order her release because only the Bureau of Prisons can seek court action on a compassionate release request. (To be continued this afternoon.)

Update: Already being debunked. Another report on this from yesterday here.

This sounds like more "crazy pants" to me, but a new report in the Yemen Post claims that U.S. officials are saying what prompted U.S. actions in Yemen this week is concern that AQAP has developed a hard to detect liquid explosive for terror attacks:

Senior US security officials have explained that "Clothes dipped in the liquid reportedly became explosive devices when dry and might be worn by suicide attackers." Such technology would essentially turn anyone into a terror suspect and make prevention and detection a logistical nightmare.

As several media outlets wondered on Tuesday why the Pentagon had been so keen to see its nationals leave Yemen and arrange for the return home of all its non-essential diplomatic staff, in what appeared to be a security frenzy, Wednesday brought the answer, liquid explosive.

The report says the creator of the "technological breakthrough" is alleged bombmaker Ibrahim al-Asiri.

Here's an open thread, all topices (except Zimmerman) welcome.

Update: Not surprisingly, Yemen backtracks, calling the report false and baseless.

Yemen authorities now say they have thwarted a major planned al Qaida attack. The attack intended to shut down Yemen's oil exports.

a spokesman for the Yemeni authorities said they had thwarted a plot to blow oil pipelines and take control of two ports in the south, responsible for the bulk of Yemen's oil exports, according to the BBC.

The plot included using al-Qaeda gunmen dressed as soldiers to infiltrate the ports and a local security source said dozens of terrorists had arrived in the capital to prepare for the attack.

The BBC reports: [More...]

Gregory Johnson, who I have been reading since his Waq al Waq blog days when AQAP announced its formation in 2009, has an article today in Foreign Policy, How Yemen Was Lost. He gives two main reasons. The second is pertains to the drone strikes, which kill al Qaeda leaders but also tribesman and civilians and are causing tremendous hostility against the U.S.:

The men that the United States is killing in Yemen are tied to the local society in a way that many of the fighters in Afghanistan never were. They may be al Qaeda members, but they are also fathers and sons, brothers and cousins, tribesmen and clansmen with friends and relatives.

[More...]