Just when we thought Attorney General Ashcroft couldn't get any further out there with his radical right policies limiting individual rights, he gets even worse. Now he's about to go after abused women immigrants. He is considering reversing regulations that allow abused women to obtain asylum in the U.S.

Ashcroft is also considering new gender-persecution regulations for asylum-seekers instead of a proposed set that was left hanging in the final days of the Clinton administration.

The law allows asylum only for foreigners who can show they face persecution in their home countries because of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. Before leaving office, Reno vacated the board's decision [in a case involving a Guatamalan woman, Rodi Alvarado, described below] and proposed regulations that would allow battered women to be granted asylum as members of a social group if they can show government complicity in their suffering. President Bush suspended this and all other pending regulations upon taking office.

The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights and other immigrant and women's groups say they fear Ashcroft intends to issue new regulations that would severely restrict women fleeing gender-based persecution, such as honor killings and sexual slavery as well as domestic violence, from obtaining asylum. In a letter to Ashcroft on Thursday, 48 House Democrats and one independent urged him to abandon any such plans.

The regulations that Reno proposed were the result of the case of a Guatamalan woman, Rodi Alvarado, who fled to the U.S. "after her husband repeatedly raped her, whipped her with electrical cords, broke windows and mirrors with her head, and vowed to kill her if she tried to leave him."

An immigration judge granted her asylum in 1996, finding that the 10 years of abuse Alvarado suffered and the persistent failure of Guatemalan authorities to protect her entitled her to relief. The Immigration and Naturalization Service appealed and the Justice Department's Board of Immigration Appeals reversed that decision in 1999. The board did not question Alvarado's credibility, but said in a 10-to-5 ruling that neither the beatings nor her opinions about them qualified her for asylum.

After Reno's regulations were proposed, Alvarado's case went back to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) for reconsideration--with instructions to wait until the regulations were acted upon. But the regulations weren't acted upon, and Alvarado's case has been hung up in legal limbo-land--until now. It seems Ashcroft has decided to personally review the case and reconsider her grant of asylum. And it seems he doesn't intend to sign off on Reno's regulations--they would have to be approved by both Ashcroft and Tom Ridge of Homeland Security to become actual "rules"--instead he is considering his own gender-persecution regulations, which will likely result in Ms. Alvarado being forced to return to Guatamala.

But, there's more. As we reported in January, Ashcroft has decided to halve the number of appointees on the Board of Immigration Appeals, from 23 to 11. The Washington Post article today states that all five BIA members Ashcroft has dropped in accord with his planned reduction are Clinton administration appointees and three were dissenters in the Alvarado case.

The Board of Immigration Appeals hears the cases of foreigners who contend they face torture, death or other "travails" if they are returned to their home country. The 23 member board reviews the cases of 220 immigration judges around the country. In January, there was a backlog of 56,000 cases, and Ashcroft decreed the board must get current by March 25.

The board handles 30,000 - 40,000 cases a year. It is the last resort for most immigrants facing deportation, as only a few thousand have been able to appeal to the federal courts. In January, there was strong criticism of the board because in attempting to reduce its backlog as Ashcroft directed, it was deciding cases literally within minutes. As T. Alexander Aleinikoff, a law professor at Georgetown University and former Immigration and Naturalization Service general counsel said "We are already seeing results: Many, many cases are decided at a speed that makes it impossible to believe they got the scrutiny a person who faces removal from the United States deserves." (Jan. 5, L.A. Times, no longer on line).

Ashcroft has become a one-man steamroller, crushing constitutional and human rights that have been the hallmark of this country for 200 years. He, Bush and Rumsfeld, have embarked on a non-stop drive to instill the fear of terrorism in the heart of every American. They have formed a virtual "axis of aggrandizement" (our phrase) that if allowed to proceed unchecked, will be impossible to reverse within our lifetimes. Their cabal extends from insisting Congress enact laws like the Patriot Act, to executive branch decisions like declaring U.S. citizens to be enemy combatants and denying them due process, to packing the federal judiciary with right wing extremists and judicial activists.

Someone needs to stop this train.

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, arrested in Pakistan and turned over to U.S. authorites, is believed to be a mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks. He is being interrogated as we write. But instead of being flown to the U.S. or Guantanamo, he has been flown overseas , probably to Afganistan.

The intelligence information Mohammed is believed to possess -- including, perhaps, the locations of bin Laden's hideouts as well as details of al Qaida operations and structure -- makes him much more valuable for interrogation as an enemy combatant, the source said, adding that questioning will likely take place overseas.

Being flown overseas? Why? Undoubtedly because overseas countries like Afganistan allow torture to be administered during interrogations.

But let's draw the dots. Who else is being interrogated overseas? Ramzi Binalshibh. The U.S. says Ramzi has been talking (again, why...torture, perhaps?)--that's the reason they gave for not wanting to make him available to Moussaoui's lawyers, even though he might have information that would exculpate Moussaoui.

Remember when Ramzi was arrested, after being secretly taped during an interview about the 9/11 attacks on al Jazeera television with another Al Qaeda member? That other Al Qaeda member was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

Mohammed was arrested in Pakistan on a "law enforcement tip." Time Magazine reports,

Sources tell Time that agents had been led to his hideout through the earlier arrest of an Egyptian in Quetta who had been in contact with Mohammed. Neighbors, wary of the lone Arab who appeared in their working-class area, tipped off the police, hoping for a reward. Phone records led them to Rawalpindi, where investigators say Mohammed had been hiding for 10 days before his arrest.

We suspect the tip was one emanating from Ramzi Binalshibh--and again, we question whether it was obtained via torture. Torture is an unacceptable violation of human rights that should not be countenanced by the U.S. wherever it takes place. We have no business being complicit in it. It demeans us all.

Update: Atrios, in a comment over at Oliver Willis, says, "Once we give our state the power to decide who is naughty and who is nice without any due process, and torture them, then unless we've decided that ours is the only state that has that right - Because We're Special - we can't criticize others for doing so."

San Francisco Police Chief Earl Sanders, indicted along with nine other cops by a California grand jury this past Thursday, is fighting back big time through his lawyer, Phil Ryan. Ryan is threatening to seek DA Terrence Hallinan's removal from the case. He's asked for, and already received, assurances from California Attorney General Bill Lockyer that Lockyer's office will review the case to see if Hallinan abused his discretion in bringing the case to the grand jury. Sanders asked for the review in a letter to Lockyer in which he

accused District Attorney Terence Hallinan of making "public and false charges of felonious conduct by my command staff." Sanders also accused Hallinan of illegally releasing police investigatory material and making "unethical and false public comments" about the police command staff, [and charged] "Hallinan's abuse of the Grand Jury (sic) threatens to destroy the department's chain of command, compromise long-standing and proven criminal investigative procedures and practices thereby fatally undermining police credibility."

Defense attorney Ryan isn't mincing words with the press.

"We would like the attorney general to take this case over because of the ethics of the district attorney," Ryan said. "We also think the San Francisco Police Department's ability to keep out streets safe and our prisons filled with bad people will be destroyed unless the state intervenes." But Ryan said there are disadvantages of having [Hallinan] taken off the case. "From a strategic point of view, I'd rather have District Attorney Hallinan because I'll kick his (expletive)." (emphasis supplied).

The Indictment charges Sanders and six other ranking officers, with conspiracy to obstruct justice in the investigation of an alleged beating by three off-duty officers, one of whom is the son of the assistant chief of police, Alex Fagan. The off-duty officers are charged with assault.

If we understand the alleged facts correctly, one night after the bars closed, a bartender who had just gotten off work and his friend were walking down the street when the three off-duty police officers tried to steal some steak fajitas being carried by the bartender. The three cops gave the two men a gratuitous beating, which Alex, Jr.'s father (the assistant chief,) Chief Sanders and other command officers then tried to cover up.

The first big fight is before the Police Commimssion, which has to decide whether Chief Sanders can keep his job during the pendency of the case or should be suspended. Mayor Willie Brown has asked that Sanders be allowed to stay. Others believe Sanders should go.

Hallinan's move is unprecedented in modern times. The last time a DA indicted the command structure of a police department was 100 years ago. So is Hallinan out for publicity, off his rocker or settling an old score? Or is he a fearless and principled prosecutor who refuses to accept criminal behavior from cops on the force?

Hallinan has been at odds with the San Francisco P.D. for decades--mostly over his liberal leanings.

Hallinan has always conceded that his liberal leanings have put him at odds with the prevailing culture of law enforcement. It started, he has said, with his father, attorney Vincent Hallinan, who got on the department's bad side by successfully defending a long list of leftist leaders arrested in the 1940s and '50s. "The cops didn't like the Hallinans," he said during his 1999 re-election campaign. "We were radicals. We challenged the system.

"A lot of police officers have never warmed up to me because we don't come from the same background," he added. "I'm an activist. I have experienced the negative side of law enforcement. I don't automatically assume the police are always right."

The police see it differently. Hallinan, they say, just doesn't like cops.....[and] is soft on small-time drug dealers and users. They also complain that Hallinan prefers to prosecute cases that advance his political agenda, such domestic violence, and is more interested in reforming criminals than putting them behind bars.

Let's add one more fact into the equation: The Assistant Chief's son, Alex Fagan, Jr., (one of those charged with the beating) has a history of using force on duty.

Rookie police Officer Alex Fagan Jr., son of San Francisco's No. 2 cop, used force in at least 16 violent encounters with suspects in a 13-month period, sending six of them to the hospital, The Chronicle has learned.

Arrest reports, court filings, hospital records and interviews of suspects, their attorneys and witnesses portray a problem-prone cop who had given many warning signs that he was quick to acts of anger and violence.

One man told police that Fagan Jr. kicked him in the head. Another was hospitalized with broken ribs and a punctured lung after encountering Fagan. A woman said that while she was handcuffed he dropped her face-first on the pavement.

We're siding with Hallinan right now. Both Fagans need to get off the force and stay off unless they are cleared of criminal wrongdoing. The San Francisco Chronicle said in this editorial a few weeks ago,

...The search for the truth has been slowed by evasion and stalling. Officers have been uncooperative, key evidence at the scene went uncollected, and crucial records and reports have been delayed or withheld. The chief inspector was pulled off the case after seeking internal data and asking uncomfortable questions....This disturbing scenario mocks the notion of police self-discipline and erodes public goodwill.

We smell the "blue wall of silence" among the police command--shades of the Abner Louima case. This case is ugly and is going to get uglier. Stay tuned.

[full coverage of the San Francisco Police Investigation and Indictments can be found here. Unusual bio of Terrence Hallinan is here.]

9pm EST.

Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich answers questions about his racial politics in the 60's and his presidential bid in a Salon Interview today:

My political career goes back to the '60s and those were times of vigorous debates. But race was not a factor in those debates. The debates were on issues, not about race -- there may have been differences of opinion. But they were never about race. When I was running for mayor I said that half of my major appointments would go to members of the African-American community, and they did. I could cite a long, deep connection with the African-American community. I have a very strong constituency in that community. So in the '60s was it possible that there were some differences of opinion? Yes. But it was never based on race. Never. Not a chance. Not even the people I clashed with in major ways would ever say that.

On abortion, he sounds like he's backtracking to us, to cover his recent switch from very pro-life to tolerant of choice (he certainly cannot be called pro-choice). Here's his current "precise" position on the issue.

I support a woman's right to choose, which is guaranteed by the Constitution. And on the other hand, I want to work to create alternatives to abortion. And I think it's possible to do both. Most Americans would like a leader to be elected who steps out of the polarity and tries to reconcile people and recognize that people may hold viewpoints that seem diametrically opposed.

But it took him several q's and a's to get there.

On war with Iraq, Kuchinich says there are two conditions that would make him support it: "After an attack on our country or an imminent threat backed by incontrovertible evidence. Those would be my foundations of principle. But no such evidence exists in case of Iraq, and Iraq has not attacked our country."

As to what kind of President he'd be, Kucinich answers:

What kind of a president would I be? I'd be the kind of president to reassert America's moral authority by withdrawing this doctrine of unilateralism and of preemption and of first strike, and by working with the world community on matters of global security wherever those matters rear up. The United States, through working with other nations, can address these issues, but we shouldn't be expected to be the policeman of the world. And we -- if we want to retain any moral authority, we have to look at the consequences of our actions....You know, I started my career in politics in 1967. I'm not new to this. I did not just fall off the Christmas tree. I understand the world is complex. I know that there are people out there who want to hurt other people. But the only path to the future is for the United States to cooperate internationally with as many nations as it can. If we go at it alone, we will be stuck alone. My philosophy comes from a worldview that looks at the world as one. It's a holistic view that sees the world as interconnected and interdependent and integrated in so many different ways, which informs my politics. I think this world's ready, and I think the country's there.

Kuchinich sounds good on war and foreign relations, but not as good as Gary Hart, and he has way fewer credentials in the area. We don't trust him on the abortion issue. The jury is still out on the race issue--we don't have enough information to call that one. Bottom line: we like him better than Lieberman, Gephardt, and Sharpton, but not as much as Hart or Edwards. And probably a little less than Kerry and Dean. Graham is out for us due to his strong support for the death penalty. In fact, he's the only Democratic contender who has signed death warrants.

However, it's still early and we haven't definitively made up our mind, particularly since the field is not yet closed.

John Lee Malvo, the juvenile accused in the Virginia sniper case will have his pre-trial motions heard Monday.

There are 13 motions at issue, including one seeking to have Virginia's death penalty statute ruled unconstitutionally vague, a request to keep gruesome crime scene photos away from the jury and a request for five investigators to assist in locating evidence on behalf of Mr. Malvo.

More on the the long, incompetent arm of the law --about the FBI foul-up that caused a vacationing 72 year old Englishman to spend 20 days in a South African prison.

The horror story that unfolded for Bond over the next month is a cautionary tale as the Bush administration presses Congress to expand authorization for secretive arrests, unlimited detention and a curtailment of judicial review. And Bond's case didn't even involve terrorism, just what was apparently a stolen identity and incredible inattention by U.S. government officials, including some in Houston. The response of the FBI and the U.S. attorney's office so far has been acknowledgment that they screwed up and the cheeky suggestion that Bond's cooperation contributed to his predicament.

We don't want to see this get buried. Here's our post from yesterday on it: How do you prove your innocence?

UnlearnedHand reports on the drug war casualties in Thailand:

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has admitted that police might have made some "mistakes" in waging a bloody month-long war on drugs which has left more than 1,100 people dead.

and on the pace of justice in India--which is truly shocking when you consider these statisics: there is a backlog of 23.5 million cases. 73% of those incarcerated are awaiting trial or on trial, and there is only a 7%conviction rate for violent crime--in other words, 93% of those arrested are ultimately exonerated. No wonder human rights activists are alarmed. [for more, go to this Washington Post article]

Instapundit posts today about the Vatican's increasing support for the Palestinians and his concern that it is rooted in anti-semitism. The photo he includes with his post is one of those that speaks a thousand words--without some other explanation--which we haven't heard. Instapundit says he has written on this before, here, and so has the Guardian, here.

Slavery did not end in 1865. A century and a half later, slavery is still with us. Here's a sad tale about a boy named Francis that illustrates the point. We can't retell his story and do it justice, so go over and read it. Then consider this:

The truth is there are more slaves now than at any time in history — 27 million — many of them living in bondage in Sudan, which has been ravaged for 20 years by a civil war between the largely Muslim population of the north and the Christian population of the south. But there are also slaves in Pakistan, China, Burma, India and the rain forests of Brazil, to say nothing of the 40,000 to 50,000 mostly sex slaves imported into the United States each year.

...Slavery is now a tool of modern war, as opposed to an instrument of racial or economic horror. In Sudan, the jihad — or holy war — that the Islamic fundamentalists have been waging against the people to the south is what is driving the slave trade. Francis' master did not pay a dime for him on the day he was taken from the market. The boy was simply part of the spoils of war. In the age of terrorism, slavery — far from being obsolete — is just another weapon.

Finally, Francis embodies a significant moral dilemma now facing the world at large. Namely: Is it immoral to buy slaves in order to win their freedom?

What is the going rate for a human life these days in Sudan? The answer is as unreal as the whole situation — between $30 and $35 a slave, less than dinner and a movie on any given night in America.

Is it right for modern-day abolitionists to participate economically in the world's largest slave trade? You bet it is.

In addition, the U.S. government should do everything we can to make it clear to the Sudanese government in the north — that is even now bombing villages and stealing more small boys from their mothers — that this too is part of our war on terrorism.

This is anything but a feel-good article, but it's one that needs to be read.

More on the Chicago jail beatings and coverup from Chicago Tribune investigative reporters Steve Mills and Maurice Possley today: The Chief Investigator says he sent report to the jail's director, Ernesto Velasco.

The chief investigator of an alleged mass beating of prisoners at Cook County Jail in 1999 says he was pressured to clear guards of wrongdoing, but eventually delivered a report sustaining charges to then-jail executive director Ernesto Velasco, who has said he was unaware of the report.

The account from Charles Holman, a veteran internal affairs investigator at the jail, contradicts the account of Velasco, who told a House committee hearing last week that he never saw Holman's report and did not know the investigation had been completed. ...

He said Velasco came up to him and inquired about the nearly 12-inch-tall stack of documents. Holman said he told the jail director that it was his report of the beating allegations.

"He asked me about the outcome," Holman said. "I said we sustained quite a few charges. I told him out of my own mouth."

Velasco not only denied ever seeing the report, but also speaking to Holman about it. As we wrote earlier, Velasco has been nominated by the Governor of Illinois to head the Illinois Department of Corrections. His nomination is now on hold until more is learned about Velasco's knowledge of and response to the report on these jail beatings.

At least 49 inmates told investigators they were beaten, but the report sustained brutality allegations only against Richard Remus, the head of the SORT unit. In an interview, Remus denied beating anyone. Other SORT officers also denied the brutality claims, according to a spokeswoman for Sheahan. The report sustained violations against nine other officers, including one superintendent, and ruled as "inconclusive" charges against 40 other officers--meaning the charges could neither be proved nor disproved.

We think it's time for a change in Illinois. The Governor should follow the lead of Los Angeles which hired Bill Bratton as Police Chief and select an uncompromised, principled outsider to lead the Department of Corrections.

From Politics in the Zeros:

Bush announces "Constitution update" committee

"The President today announced the formation of a special task force to determine how the Constitution could be "streamlined and modernized" to protect citizens from "the increasing possibility of terrorism".

Sure to come under scrutiny are troublesome areas dealing with freedom of speech and assembly; which, according to a advisor close to Mr. Bush, are "sloppily written, too broad in scope, handcuff the police, and allow the evildoers to escape."

While some may deem this to be controversial, the advisor continued; "we also need to seriously examine whether trials are always neccessary once a person has been arrested, especially if we claim national security interests and do not divulge why they were arrested or where we are holding them."

Are you sure that was satire? This op-ed by Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark talks about Bush's push to silence free speech

During the barely two years of his presidency, George W. Bush has revealed an unprecedented, uncompromising obsession for war that threatens peace and economic stability around the world. ....

President Bush has authorized and approved assassinations, summary executions and murders — and boasted of them, in his State of the Union message in January. "All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries, and many others have met a different fate ... let's put it this way, they are no longer a problem for the United States and our friends and allies."

He has authorized and condoned bribery, coercion and retaliation to obtain his war ends.

Fundamental human rights and civil liberties protected by international law and the U.S. Constitution have been violated within the United States against both citizens and aliens and abroad by illegal arrests, secret detentions, false criminal charges, and interference with rights to assemble, protest and speak.

He has drastically undermined U.N. authority, threatening it with irrelevancy, coercing it to follow his command and acting independently and in defiance of the U.N. Charter.

Ramsey Clark met with Saddam Hussein last week. He notes that the Bush Administration criticized Dan Rather's recent interview with Saddam. And he asks,

How are the people of the world to accept these threats? Are they terrorism as prelude to genocide?

President Saddam Hussein told Dan Rather, "We will die in Iraq."

If death is by U.S. violence, what will come after?