We expect this is only the first of such incidents we'll be reading about. It's a shame people can be so arrogant in their ignorance. Thanks to Hesiod at Counterspin for emailing us the article.

On the Elizabeth Smart case: We were going to leave it alone, we posted that we were happy she was home and we noted that she may been brainwashed. We had second thoughts about bringing up that her mother had found the creep who abducted Elizabeth panhandling and she not only gave him $5.00, but brought him home and gave him a job. Who does that? With young kids at home? We didn't want to be among the first to bring that up in the midst of the homecoming celebration. But now things are beginning to seem a little funky with the case again (like they were last summer when the Smarts took to the airwaves every day) and Mr. Smart is calling for "Amber Alerts" to become law and we don't care for "Amber Alerts" any more than we care for "Megan's Laws." So we've now decided the Smarts' actions are fair game.

Jeff Taylor over at Reason's Hit and Run tackles the Smarts head-on.

Taking events at face value, the whole episode was close to self-inflicted.

Lois Smart broke two cardinal rules of living in a modern, metropolitan area. One, never give money to panhandlers, especially ones in long flowing robes. And two, never, ever invite them to do work for you at your home. This goes double if you have young children at home. And if you have an achingly beautiful teenage daughter, well, puzzle it out.

It might seem cruel to point these facts out, but Ed Smart is on a crusade to get Congress to pass a national "Amber alert" law. Such federal action would help save kids like his daughter, he avers.

Let's just assume that is true -- another federal law that makes everyone safer. OK. Heard that. The law would still be no substitute for parental awareness of the threats their kids may face. We're not talking raging paranoia, just common sense.

Is there a homeless shelter or drug treatment center nearby? A lot of construction going on in the neighborhood? Other commercial traffic or workers? Who are your kids' peers? What are their brothers and sisters and moms and dads like? And is that street preacher in flowing robes following you home?

We hope Jeff won't mind that we raided the comments to his post to bring you the following snippets:

Jeff, be careful what you think and even more careful what you say. Next incident the activist parent will push for a federal law making it a felony to voice any appreciation of a young girl's beauty. Punishable by mandatory reeducation, close monitoring and a place on the offenders'registry. You'll also have to surrender a DNA sample, just in case.

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That amber alert shit sounds kinda creepy. what happens when the wrong car gets tagged and a few right minded citizens kill an alleged - but innocent - abductor?

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Hey gang - let's pass an unenforceable, pointless law that will unnecessarily violate the Constitutional rights of the innocent and serve no practical purpose, except to the demagogue politicians who proposed it. It's easy, you know: just name the law after a child...

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The circumstances of this case are so extreme and bizarre that it's basically useless to try to draw any conclusions from it, other than the fact that we live in a big world, sometimes some really weird shit happens, and there's nothing we could have feasibly done to prevent it. You seem to understand this basic point later when you point out the silliness inherent in passing a federal law because of this one case.

To be clear, we don't agree with other posts we've read speculating that Elizabeth ran away or was sent away because she was pregnant. We don't believe that Mr. or Mrs. Smart had any complicity in her disappearance. But we do think there's a lot more to this story and that it involves the family. We also can't forget that one person--handyman, Richard Ricci-- was falsely labeled a suspect in the abduction, an accusation that generated so much media heat that he was arrested for a violation and incarcerated in hopes he would talk. Instead, he died in jail, protesting his innocence. We hope the Smart family and the police apologize to his widow and stepson.

[comments now closed.]

Officials at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California have confirmed that they will "shoot to kill" trespassing protesters who infiltrate the military complex once war starts.

Military police will use their ``judgment, experience and training'' to determine if lethal force is necessary" according to an official.

Somehow, we do not find that reassuring. In any event, the planned protesters say they are not scared off by the threat. Peter Lumsdaine of the Vandenberg Action Coalition, one of the organizers of the planned trespassing, said, "I think it does underline that people in the nonviolent resistance movement are willing to take some risks.''

Arthur Silber over at The Light of Reason is back on top of the torture issue--with observations of his own and of Hannah Arendt .

Arthur points out, rightly so in our opinion, that "the grant of any government power will always grow, including the grant of the power to use torture to elicit information."

That's one of the reasons we so oppose giving up our civil liberties and constitutional rights. Once you give up a little, it becomes easier for the Government to reach for more the next time around. Taken in little bits and pieces, whether it be surveillance cameras at traffic intersections or the Superbowl, or a national id card, the encroachments don't seem so bad. But such measures are not that many steps from other, very objectionable proposals now being tossed about--for example CAPSII and color-coding airline passengers and doing credit checks before allowing those designated a certain color to fly.

Back to torture, go over and read Arthur, he's put a great deal of thought into the subject, and today analyzes the linkage between torture and totalitarianism, in part relying upon the works of Hannah Arendt, including her "monumental work," The Origins of Totalitarianism.

Gary Hart spoke at the University of Colorado in Boulder Thursday night and received a very warm reception. The crowd "...filled the aisles and spilled out all four exits of a mid-sized lecture room in the University of Colorado's physics hall," and chanted "Run, Gary, Run."

Hart refused to say whether he would run for President. He spoke on the topics of national security and "the folly" of war with Iraq.

"We will be attacked again," he said. "I'm here to tell you that if — not if, when — when we attack Iraq the threat to this country will skyrocket." He slammed the Bush administration for overlooking plausible alternatives to war and for failing to answer questions about the cost of war — in terms of both dollars and lives."

Hart also spoke on the economy, the environment and health care. Here's what one attendee had to say about Hart and the irrelevancy of the 1987 morality issue. We couldn't agree more.

"What's more immoral — fooling around with a woman or killing thousands of innocent people?" she said. "I think if it's a moral issue, this is pretty low on the list."

How would we describe Hart now? Refreshing, articulate, experienced, knowledgeable, open, smart and filled with leadership potential.

Lawyers for the rejected plaintiffs in the 1st Circuit case challenging Bush's authority to declare war plan a push to reopen the case.

A significant constitutional issue is involved: "Whether there is a wrongful concentration of power in one person - the president.'' Lawyers for the plaintiffs say that the Appeals Court did not doom the case entirely, but left it subject to reconsideration if new facts were developed. The Court rejected the Government's assertion that there is a "categorical bar" to challenges and on the court's role in such disputes.

The administration had argued that the courts have no role to play in the dispute because the Constitution assigns war-making power solely to Congress and the White House. The Appeals Court said this is a murky area of constitutional law, so it dismissed the case instead on the ground that the legal controversy was not fully developed. Courts could not review the dispute, it said, ''until the available facts make it possible to define the issues with clarity. ... Here, too many crucial facts are missing.''

Seventy-four law professors across the country "urged the appeals court to rule that Bush cannot send the nation to war against Iraq without UN approval or, failing that, without a formal declaration of war by Congress."

We regret we haven't followed this lawsuit more closely since the beginning (our prior coverage is here) and we intend to report on it from this point foward.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs promise they are not going to "wait until bombs fall" to press forward with the case.

If the Appeals Court allows the case to go forward, it could set the stage for a major constitutional conflict between the president and the courts, and it could force the White House to put war plans on hold, awaiting court action.

Additional media coverage of the lawsuit is available here and here and <a href="http://deoxy.org/wc/wc-ilaw.htm and " here. We also encourage you to re-read the text of Senator Robert Byrd's October 3, 2002 floor remarks delivered to the U.S. Senate.

You can read the major pleadings in the lawsuit here. Coverage pertaining the the First Circuit arguments in the case is here.

You can read the First Circuit's opinion in the case, Doe v. Bush, here. The Plaintiffs in the case are active-duty members of the military, parents of military personnel, and members of the U.S. House of Representatives who sought a preliminary injunction to prevent the defendants, President George W. Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, from initiating a war against Iraq based on consitutional grounds.

Special thanks to George Hunnsinger, Professor of Theology at the Princeton Theological Seminary for prodding us to report in greater detail on the lawsuit and the need for greater awareness of it. You can read some of his writings on the topic here and here. We agree with him that issues surrounding the legality of going to war without UN Security Council approval and challenges based upon principles of international and consitutional law must continue to be raised in the Courts.

We can't believe we have to go through this again, but our hosting company says it has to move TalkLeft to another server. The move is set for Saturday night, and the company assures us they have done everything they can to make a smooth transition with no down time.

However, we all know there are glitches with moves, so if we are down, or you can't comment, or find some other problem, send us an email at talkleft@aol.com.

We will be in Washington with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers for the 40th Anniversary of Gideon commemoration and to do some lobbying with some Republican members of Congress on the Innocence Protection Act on Tuesday and Wednesday, and picked the weekend to do the switch so we'd be around if there are any crises. We will be blogging evenings and early mornings from D.C.

If you're in Washington, come to the Gideon Symposium. It is free and open to the public. You can download the brochure here. Details:

March 18, 2003, 9:30 am - 5:00 pm
Georgetown University Law Center
600 New Jersey Avenue, NW
Washington, DC

From MoveOn:

Sunday, March 16, 7PM
Global Candlelight Vigil

MoveOn.org and the Win Without War coalition, together with Archbishop Desmond Tutu and many faith-based organizations, are calling this vigil, and we need your help. Beginning in New Zealand, this will be a rolling wave of candlelight gatherings that will quickly cross the globe.

Join with millions of others around the globe and in your community. Join or schedule a candlelight vigil for peace in your city. Here's how.

Criticism is being leveled today at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs for a "lewd" skit that was performed at a black-tie graduation celebration last April, to the applause of cadets and higher ranking officials. First, the setting:

Everyone from the U.S. Air Force Academy was dressed to the nines for last April's black-tie "dining in."

The pre-graduation celebration was truly an elegant affair, sponsored by the academy's Department of English and Fine Arts, and attended by as many as 80 cadets, civilians and high-ranking officers.

During the entertainment portion of the evening, two cadets performed a skit, liberally lifted from Monty Python's Meaning of Life, that had been sanctioned by the English department.

Here are the published portions of the skit in which"the actors talked about a mythical - and X-rated - sex education class":

ACTOR ONE: "Now, sex, sex, sex, sex. Where were we? The purpose of foreplay is to . . . (The cadet, in graphic detail, goes on to describe the purpose of foreplay as the preparation of a woman so a man can "penetrate" her. Then he asks the other cadet for two ways to stimulate a woman.)

ACTOR TWO: (This cadet responds with a graphic suggestion.)

ACTOR ONE: "What's wrong with a kiss, boy? Why not start her off with a nice kiss? You don't have to go leaping straight for the

Priscilla Owen had a hearing yesterday but she may never make it past the full Senate if Democrats decide to filibuster her.

In addition to reasons we have provided for opposing Owen, here are some others:

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT):

In examining Justice Owen’s record in preparation for her first hearing and, now again, in preparation for today, I remain convinced that her record shows that in case after case involving a variety of legal issues, she is a judicial activist, willing to make law from the bench rather than follow the language and intent of the legislature. Her record of activism shows she is willing to adapt the law to her results-oriented ideological agenda.

Along with Ashcroft's expanded reach on terror and spying, come concerns...and not just from the left.

Even some of his conservative peers complain that Mr. Ashcroft may have grown too powerful. To his critics, Mr. Ashcroft is a Big Brother figure: an attorney general whose expanding scope has allowed the Justice Department to use wiretaps, backroom decisions, and an expanded street presence to spy on ordinary Americans, read their e-mail messages, or monitor their library checkouts, all in the name of fighting terrorism. And the department's consideration of proposals that could give it still greater, secret counterterrorism authority has provoked a fresh round of concerns.

Among Ashcroft's contributions are these:

He has given agents new powers to spy on possible terrorists, detain suspects and look for patterns that could predict terrorist attacks. He has centralized power at the Justice Department among a small inner circle of political appointees, frustrating some career officials and prosecutors in the field who complain that the attorney general has undercut their authority in order to further his own agenda. And, working with the White House, he and his aides have pushed for a more conservative ideology on the judiciary and on appellate issues like the Michigan affirmative action case being considered by the Supreme Court.

This is a very long article, we recommend reading the whole thing. It contains far more praise for Ashcroft than we like to see in a news article, but it also presents some of the criticism. It is distressing to see how Ashcroft and his supporters justify the erosion of our rights in the name of fighting terrorism when so few of his proposals are likely to be effective in making us safer.

"Houston Mayor Lee Brown is asking Gov. Rick Perry to place a moratorium on some Harris County death penalty cases in which DNA evidence was processed by the Police Department's troubled crime lab."

In a statement released Friday, Brown said: "There are a number of cases that will be retested. Certainly as a former police chief and the Mayor of this City, the thought of a wrongful conviction for any crime is disturbing. However, we should not assume that any or all of the cases are `wrongful convictions.' We should wait for retesting to be completed. Then I'll expect the judicial process to correct or corroborate the convictions under scrutiny." Brown mailed letters to Perry requesting a moratorium on the cases until they are reviewed.