We just don't like the sound of "Operation Liberty Sweep" one bit. Here's how it works:

The sweep, a joint operation between the FBI and Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is aimed at Iraqis whom federal agents have identified as living in the country illegally and who "might pose a threat to the safety and security of the American people," according to a statement announcing the operations in Colorado as well as dozens of similar ones throughout the country.

Federal law enforcement officials said they could not release the total number of Iraqis who would be detained nationwide but emphasized they would be arrested on immigration-law violations rather than charges directly connected to security or terrorism.

The arrests are part of a larger mobilization of federal law enforcement that began Monday ....Known as "Operation Liberty Shield," the immigration sweep will include voluntary interviews with as many as 11,000 Iraqis across the country in an effort to glean intelligence and prevent terrorist attacks in the United States.

Here in Colorado, the feds plan to "interview" approximately 150 Iraqis. Most of them came here in the late 80's to early 90's, seeking political asylum. Most of them already oppose the Iraqi regime, that's why they came here in the first place. So why are we arresting them as threats when all they've done is overstay a visa?

When the U.S. did this to Iranian students back in the 70's, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed it, finding it was not a discriminatory application of the immigration laws.

Nonetheless, these are round-ups of people who have not committed a crime. They are being selectively targeted because of their national origin. While the U.S. may have every legal right to deport them, it should not single them out solely because we are at war with their home country. Whether here legally or not, once here, they are also entititled to equal protection and due process under the law. This is racial, ethnic and religious profiling at its worst.

Lisa English of Ruminate This is all over Richard Perle, Bush's "Svengali" and his comment expressing relief that the U.N. is "dead."

Who is Richard Perle? Well, he's chairman of the Defense Policy Board, an advisory panel that reports to the Pentagon, and he's a member of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) - the same outfit that drew up that blueprint for US world domination. But more importantly, Richard Perle is among a handful of neoconservatives who are guiding George Bush through the twists and turns of an Iraqi campaign that some believe could fairly be called an exercise in international war crimes. Perle doesn't care about all that blather. He has little regard for the international community, anyway.

Not to mention, Lisa says, he's a "loose cannon." Just what we need right now.

For those waiting for "Shock and Awe," it is now underway as the U.S. unleashed a blitz on Baghdad Friday night.

U.S.-led forces unleashed a devastating blitz on Baghdad on Friday night, triggering giant fireballs, deafening explosions and huge mushroom clouds above the city center. Missiles slammed into palaces of President Saddam Hussein, and key government buildings, in an onslaught that far exceeded strikes that launched the war on Thursday, Reuters correspondents said. "The earth is literally shaking in Baghdad," Reuters correspondent Khaled Oweis said.

Sean-Paul over at the Agonist has all the latest--he's been providing almost round the clock coverage.

Daily Kos reports that Iraqi resistance is greater than we've been told and Reuters is getting it right.

An ethics panel has issued a six page opinion finding that Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose may not profit from his planned memoir on the Sniper killings.

The panel, which reviews outside employment for all county employees, said Chief Moose had not met the standards for an exemption to a county law that bars employees from using the prestige of their office for private gain.

"Accepting remuneration for services directly and immediately related to an employee's governmental activities violates the prestige-of-office prohibition because, to paraphrase the state ethics commission, those services `go with the job,' " the commissioners wrote.

The commission ruled that the county's best interests would not be served by granting a waiver and that Chief Moose's importance to the county did not "outweigh any potential harm from a conflict of interest."

The Montgomery County Executive, Douglas Duncan, was disappointed with the ruling, saying, ""I continue to feel strongly that the chief should have the opportunity to tell not only the story of his life's work in law enforcement, but also his story of the tragic events of last October."

Fine, but how about waiting until the trial is over so he doesn't prejudice the jury pool.

Update: Chief Moose says he finds himself under such personal attack that he is considering leaving the force.

"Police arrested more than 1,000 people in San Francisco on Thursday -- the most taken into custody on a single day in the city in decades -- as tens of thousands protested across America against the U.S. war in Iraq."

``If this was happening in every city, there would either be martial law or an end to war,'' said one Berkeley student who chained himself to 16 others on a major San Francisco street. Protests took place in other cities across the United States as well as in European capitals."

Pictures are here. More news is here. Hundreds were arrested in Chicago as more than 10,000 attended a spontaneous protest. They closed Lakeshore Drive. Direct Action Against the War explains why they are taking it to the streets.

MoveOn.Org says, "The outbreak of war is not the end of the fight for peace – only the beginning." They are asking people to sign a Citizens' Declaration

As a US-led invasion of Iraq begins, we, the undersigned citizens of many countries, reaffirm our commitment to addressing international conflicts through the rule of law and the United Nations. By joining together across countries and continents, we have emerged as a new force for peace. As we grieve for the victims of this war, we pledge to redouble our efforts to put an end to the Bush Administration's doctrine of pre-emptive attack and the reckless use of military power.

MoveOn would also like you to put a candle in your window "to keep the light of reason and hope burning, to let others know that they are not alone, and to show the way home to the young men and women sent to Iraq."

Here is the Text of the House War Resolution.

"The House resolution, intended to show Congress' unified support for U.S. troops in Iraq, passed overwhelmingly early Friday, but angered some Democrats who said they felt pressured into backing President Bush's decision to go to war."

Where is Saddam? U.S. intelligence officials believe Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, possibly accompanied by one or both of his powerful sons, was still inside a compound in southern Baghdad early Thursday when it was struck by a barrage of U.S. bombs and cruise missiles. No one knows for sure. Stay tuned.

Gary Hart's Statement on the War

History alone must be the judge of the justice and necessity of our current war.

I have argued, unsuccessfully, for permanent, international, coercive inspections and disarmament of Iraq but President Bush has chosen unilateral war. The die is cast.

President Bush has now taken our nation on a new, uncharted, and potentially dangerous course. We must not only question that course, but also offer a better, more constructive alternative.

In 2004, the American people will render their verdict on this war and its adverse impact on American lives, American economic well-being and on the elevated risk of terrorist attack.

In the meantime, we must all support and pray for the security and quick success of America's armed forces and the safety of innocent civilians.

God bless our troops and God bless America.

Gary Hart
Kittredge, CO

Interesting....the FBI is adopting the "Knock and Talk"--one of DEA's most favored tactics. Here's how it goes in DEA land: Knock on the Door. "Excuse me, Sir, we've received some information you may be cultivating marijuana. Do you mind if we come in to discuss this?" As the words are coming out, the agents, usually in a pair, step through the front door. When they get to court, the agents say they had consent to enter. The defendant disagrees and says the leg just stepped through the open door without waiting for an answer or as or after he or she said, "no." The agents then claim that as soon as they cross the threshold into the house, they smell "raw, growing marijuana." At which point, they claim, they ask for and get a "consent to search" the house, and lo and behold, there's a pot grow going on in the basement below.

Bottom Line: Yes there was a pot grow, but they knew it about beforehand and didn't have enough for a search warrant , so they go to the house to use trickery or worse to gain entry. Another end run around the Fourth Amendment. Which, according to the Supreme Court, protects everyone in this country, not just citizens. (We're not talking about "enemy combatants" here but people residing in this country.)

We'll see how this translates and plays out in the FBI interviews.

As the war advances, the FBI and a number of other federal law enforcement agencies will intensify a broad spate of interviews targeting thousands of Arab Americans and visitors, law enforcement officials told ABCNEWS.

Of particular focus will be two groups: persons of Iraqi descent living in the United States and others from countries where al Qaeda is known to have operations.

These are known as "knock and talk" operations. The overall goal is to gather information and the FBI will also be informing people in these communities to report hate crimes. But the unstated goal is to get tips about those who might commit acts of terror — within these groups U.S. officials have identified suspected Saddam Hussein supporters and al Qaeda sympathizers.

Those who are out of status, in terms of immigration law, will be detained by the FBI under new authority granted by Attorney General John Ashcroft that took effect on Feb. 28 — the last day the Immigration and Naturalization Service was under his jurisdiction (it's now part of the Department of Homeland Security).

Once detained, people go into a media black hole, and the government is not required to even reveal their names. Other people — who they can't charge with anything — will essentially be told in blunt terms: "We know who you are — and we will be watching you." Cities of particular interest are New York, Washington, Chicago, Miami, and Detroit.

Granting FBI agents — and U.S. Marshals — the power to detain immigration violators marks a major departure from previous policy, and is likely to spark protest from civil liberties groups.

A Justice Department official, however, told ABCNEWS that the ability to detain out-of-status immigrants is an important anti-terror tool, and that it would be used judiciously.

The ACLU will have much more on this.

Mother Jones has a good article today called Roundups and Rights --we're quoted on the roundup of Iraqis.

Law Tech columnist Robert Ambroggi does a wrap-up of legal blogs today in Blawgs: More Than Just Fluff. We're pleased to be included --and described as "An unabashedly left-leaning look at the law and politics of crime." Robert has a blog himself, Lawsites, which tracks new legal resources available on the web. Robert calls Howard Bashman's "How Appealing" "one of the best resources on the Web for tracking appellate litigation throughout the United States. " He's right, we read Howard at least once a day.

We need to start making our way back to snowed-in Denver today so this is it for us for now. Please give the blogs and news sources listed on the right a read and leave some comments if you feel like it.

Tonight is Texas' 300th Execution. We can't allow ourselves to become desensitized to it because of the war. Our friend Reverand George of Kolbe House in Chicago tells us, regarding the Emery University study on the death penalty (finding that the death penalty deters murders)

Again an article cites the deeply flawed Emory University study, which does not support the conclusion below and it is based on several erroneous assuptions, like prospective murders are aware of crime/punishment data and twice when they applied their "formula", they excluded a calcualtion because it was ZERO and if they had multiplied their data, ZERO time ZERO is ZERO.I believe I may be the only person who has read and studied the entire report--the authors did NOT. [ed. note: edited to reflect Rev. Georges comment was about the Emory University Study, not the California prosecutor's study as we orignally wrote]

One last note for now: We are not criticizing the anti-war movement as some have written us in response to our post last night. We support the anti-war movement. We consider ourselves a vocal part of it. But we and the anti-war movement didn't prevent the war, which was our principal goal. We believe we--TalkLeft--can be the most effective right now covering the legal and political and civil liberties aspects of the war. We recognize here (which we are sorry we neglected to do last night) that the anti-war movement has far-ranging, important goals that reach past the prevention of war. So, rest assured, we'll continue to link to protest sites and report favorably on their news and views.

Peace soon.

ReachM High Cowboy has good war links up, including two blogs emanating from Iraq. One is Salem Pax, and the other is by Kevin Sites, a BBC journalist covering the war from the front lines. The blog is his personal diary and has lot's of photos--which Kevin calls "photo-blogging." We like it a lot.

If you find some other good links or blogs that are not biased in favor of Bush and Rumsfeld, please list them in the comments section. Also, war protest links, since we won't be able to provide our own in-depth coverage.

Everybody needs a voice--we like to publish the ones we agree with here. You all know where to go for the other side.

Instapundit.com:

JUST BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON doesn't mean that there aren't idiocies elsewhere. Here's a Texas Republican Congressman who wants to jail college kids for file-trading.

The bill is sponsored by Rep. John Carter of Texas, a former very strict Texas Judge. He's one of the Congressman we had a meeting scheduled with yesterday on the Innocence Protection Act, but he handed us off to an aide who had never heard of the bill. We tried to educate the aide for about 15 minutes, then left.